

iPod godfather and ex-iPhone team launch previously stealth startup - outside1234
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/24/ipod-godfather-tony-fadell-finally-reveals-his-new-product-a-thermostat-no-really/

======
Lewisham
This _sounds_ like a perfect startup idea: take one ignored segment that has
an abnormally high amount of value, disrupt it, profit! I love it.

However, it cuts both ways, people don't have obvious, specific problems with
their thermostat (for the most part). It's a thing, it came with the house, it
turns heat on and off, whatever. Why do I need to spend $250 on it? The very
first thing (or maybe second, after the picture of the Nest) on the web site
should be "See how much you can save!" with some guesstimates price-savings
based on the state you're in, and when it will pay for itself. Or, if it
doesn't pay for itself, how much fossil fuels/CO2 it saves, and what that
translates to in conceivable units ("that's like saving 30 trees a year!").

Make it a product that provides an obvious, specific solution to a problem you
didn't know you had. Right now, it looks like a luxury item for luxury people,
and that's not the economy we're currently in.

EDIT: I found this information right at the bottom of:
<http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html> , alongside "Download our
white paper!" (ugh). This is what you're selling! Put it front and center!

~~~
jxcole
People didn't have obvious, specific problems with their CD players either. Or
their cassette tape players for that matter. Are you saying the iPod was a bad
idea?

~~~
achompas
_People didn't have obvious, specific problems with their CD players either._

I hated carrying around a clunky CD player plus a collection of CDs that I
could lose at any moment. Fidgeting too much with the player would also, you
know, scratch and destroy the physical media that stored my music.

There were a number of obvious problems with CD players. Thermostats...not so
much.

~~~
qq66
There's an obvious problem with thermostats... your heating bill. Many people
have financial trouble caused by heating costs -- Nest's challenge will be to
1) create a product that actually reduces heating costs, 2) convince people
they've done that, and 3) create an easy adoption plan (dead simple
installation, and financing of the cost, or making a compelling investment
case)

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noonespecial
I'm wondering about the installation part. It doesn't seem to me that the
average user is just doing to go grab one and get it in himself.

I made my own computerized replacement for the thermostat in my house(1) and
discovered that there were about 5 different possible wiring patterns
depending on if you've got heat pumps, multi-stage, e-heat, gas, etc.

After much research I figured out how they are wired, how my house should be
wired and... burned out a fuse _on the circuit board inside the furnace_
because the original installer had switched 2 wires and just said "screw it"
and left it that way.

I had to remove and trace the circuit board with my fluke meter just to get my
AC back. Its one thing for rich guys building their smart-house in Tahoe to
choose this, but quite another for Joe average to go grab one at Home Depot
and take it home and get it going. Calling your "Nest dealer" to schedule an
install just seems like a nonstarter for the added cost this will add to what
already seems pretty high.

As a geek though, the wifi part seems pretty cool. As long as it was
sufficiently open, it could have saved me a bunch of work making my own HVAC
interface.(2)

(1) My philosophy was that I didn't need a "thermostat" at all. The computer
that does all of the other smart-house stuff for me should control the
temperature as well.

(2) Proliphix makes a pretty decent openly programmable WIFI enabled
thermostat but they cost around $600.

~~~
jm4
Very cool. Mind sharing some details? Did you blog it? What kind of hardware
did you use? How did you figure out how/what to do? What other "smart-house
stuff" did you come up with?

~~~
noonespecial
Sadly I didn't blog it or even take pictures. I didn't set out with the "this
is going to be an awesome project" geek-out mentality. I started small and it
kind of accreted over about a year.

Main computer: Embedded linux platform called "Soekris Net4801".
<http://soekris.com/products/net4801.html>

Linux Distro: "Voyage" Readonly embedded. <http://linux.voyage.hk/>

Lighting controls were Insteon from smarthome.com.(1)

I made one of these with arduino and a servo for the front door and linked it
with xbee radios. [http://hackaday.com/2011/06/30/diy-servo-activated-door-
lock...](http://hackaday.com/2011/06/30/diy-servo-activated-door-lock-with-
capacitive-touch-keypad/)

My HVAC interface was a 5-wire (we had heat-pump and e-heat) so I made a relay
board that was controlled by arduino that ran off the 24v supplied by the
furnace. There are common wire colors that are industry standard. Mine were
installed wrong causing many headaches.

(1) Oh hey! look. They've got a selction of insteon compatible and wifi
thermostats now! All for less than $200! Nice.

------
SeoxyS
This is brilliant. This is the kind of innovation that we should idolize. I
feel like we tend to get excited about things like Facebook, Foursquare,
Instagram or Color, if it combines all the right buzzwords like social, mobile
and photos. We tend to forget what real innovation is.

Well, this is it. You're taking a boring, underserved segment of the market
and revolutionizing it. And guess what, the potential for social good and the
environment is much greater when you redesign the thermostat, than when you
make another social mobile picture-sharing service.

~~~
k1ngofpancakes
I would agree that it breathes life into a pretty neglected piece of
equipment, but my concern would be that it isn't in any way entertaining, and
the common element in the great innovations as of late have all catered to
just that; keeping people entertained. Its defintely an exciting idea, but I
just can't see anybody become truly taken with their thermostat.Perhaps its a
jaded world view, but I feel that there is great demand for games and
distractions, and not necessarily quality products or innovation. I can't help
but consider that RIM is struggling for market share, and its largely been
attributed to a lack of innovative games/apps.

I do agree that this product presents a greater benefit to the earth and
humanity as a whole, but my concern is that the populous may not notice. Will
enough people buy in to make this economically viable? I certainly hope so....

~~~
CognitiveLens
It sounds like they are actually trying to throw in some
'entertainment'/gamification features, according to the Wired article
(<http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/nest_thermostat/>), such as a leaf
icon (achievement badge) that shows up when you've set the temp to something
eco-friendly. There's also a lot of potential with the web/mobile app, where
system monitoring can be done in some interesting and interactive ways. I hate
to bring in the cliches, but this actually has potential to have some kind of
social media integration. A significant minority of people love keeping track
of the personal data of their lives, and this can be another platform for
exactly that.

------
cpeterso
The startup is Nest Labs. Their product is an adaptive thermostat that learns
your temperature preferences and schedule. It's much cooler (ha ha) than it
sounds!

<http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html>

What I want to know: who are these people in their demo videos setting their
thermostat to 80+ (Fahrenheit) degrees?!

~~~
ojbyrne
Saving money on air conditioning when you're away?

------
rmoriz
Home automation AND iOS devices would definitly be the next megatrend.

Hopefully they will stick to already existing implementation standards (C-BUS,
X10) or develop a free usable standard (beware of patents)

ah, and please offer a RESTful api for the rest of us :)

------
marcamillion
I love this...this is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Ever
since I built my first web app, although it's not a major achievement, I have
looked at the world so differently.

There are so many little things that I look at and say, there MUST be a better
way to do this....or...why does this still look so ugly?

I am glad that Tony has done this with the Thermostat, but it just dawned on
me that this could be Steve Jobs legacy.

It is these startups that are founded by people that spent a few years working
with Jobs that are so unhappy with the status quo that they have to build
something themselves.

The future looks bright.

Even though I don't have central cooling here in Jamaica, I can definitely
understand that Thermostat problem and I feel like buying one because it looks
so sexy.

It solves a major problem in an elegant way, and helps control my energy bill?

Plus 1!

------
oldstrangers
From a business standpoint, it seems like Nest Labs will be spending a lot of
their time explaining the reason their product is relevant to the consumer.
The market is there, but like Tony said in the video, its at a contractor
level. Rarely does a consumer decide they need to purchase a thermostat on
their own. So if they're honestly planning to sell to consumers directly,
they'll have to basically create a marketplace out of an uninterested and
uninformed client base. Seems difficult, but rather interesting nonetheless.

~~~
absconditus
Have you never seen the numerous thermostats for sale at a home improvement
store?

~~~
oldstrangers
Nope, because I've never even thought about a thermostat outside of my limited
interaction with it. Which is my point.

------
pyoung
This is genius. If they can prove that the thermostat actually results in
significant energy savings, there is potential to take advantage of utility
sponsored rebates for the device in certain states.

Also, there is the potential to hook this up to the smart grid, allowing
utilities to remotely adjust thermostat settings based on the supply/demand
balance on the grid. (Utilities would pay for this capability, further
offsetting the costs of the device).

------
philjr
There's some negativity here, but I have to say I'm impressed. This is a nice
bit of low hanging fruit for a segway into smarter home technology, something
we've been promised for ages but which has consistently failed to deliver
IMHO. Add in the green factor and I think this has the potential to be a
pretty damn good business with plenty of room for future product growth.

~~~
noamsml
I was thinking about that. The power of the iPod, in retrospect, was getting
an entertainment device into every pocket as much as it was being a good MP3
player. It was truly the Minimum Viable Product of the current-gen iPod
Touches/iPhones.

Who's to say this isn't the same thing with smart homes?

------
TamDenholm
My first thought was "Wow, Thermostats? Thats really boring!" but after a few
minutes and looking at his products, hes a genius, this is a prime example of
an industry run by dinosaurs that needs disruption.

------
achompas
You don't want to be overly cynical of any ideas, but this is a non-starter
for consumers. Thermostats are fine as-is: they could use a new UX, but do you
really want to pay $249 (plus a $120 install fee) for that touch-up?

Here's why this thing will sell like gangbusters, though: it's aesthetically
appealing. Homebuilders put aesthetically-appealing items in their new homes.

When you're purchasing a house for six figures, are you really nitpicking a
$375 item? No--you're too worried about the flooring or the insulation or the
plumbing or ceiling support or any other number of things. You'll glance at
the thermostat, smile, then remember that you need to pull out some code-
violating wiring. Then you're off again.

I predict a hit, but not in the B2C way many people are thinking about. People
will implicitly pay for this thermostat in new homes, but they won't
explicitly go out of their way to upgrade old thermostats.

~~~
atourgates
Like others have mentioned, you've got to focus on the energy savings to
justify the cost.

For some reason Nest has hidden this away in their whitepaper. But - if you
take the time to read that - you find, nested (ha ha - get it) towards the
end, the conclusions of their simulations.

As a quick aside, let me just say, that for a company essentially selling
excellent product design - they did a shit job at presenting quantifiable,
easy to understand energy savings data.

Anyway, they devided their simulated case studies into two main groups, people
who are gone from the house 8-hours a day 5-days a week (e.g. - your average
working professional), and people who aren't (e.g. people with kids at home,
or who work from home).

They found that the people gone from the house 9-5 will save an average of
$227/yr, and people who need to keep their homes comfortable during the day
will save an average of $116/yr.

These savings of course go up if you take a long vacation (they estimate 4
weeks of vacation will add an additional $58-$68 of savings), or if you follow
the suggestions of the thermostat to lower or raise your comfort-temp by 1°
(an additional $54-$60).

At my work, we do quite a bit of marketing for energy-efficiency companies.
The most effective thing they can do is to go into a business or home and say,
"We're going to install this energy-saving equipment. We'll pay for the
install, and you can pay us back out of the energy savings. After the
installation is paid off (usually 1-3 years with the companies we do work for)
the savings go straight into your pocket."

Now - this might not be possible with this specific device, but they could at
least make the argument that the device will pay for itself in ~3 years. I may
or may not want to spend $375 for a fancy thermostat, but that purchase
barrier would be much easier to overcome if I could tell myself that it'd pay
for itself in a few years.

I'm not sure why this isn't front and center on Nest's site. There might be
some liability issues since they've only run simulations, and don't have
actual user data. But it seems like a miss on their part.

~~~
achompas
_They found that the people gone from the house 9-5 will save an average of
$227/yr, and people who need to keep their homes comfortable during the day
will save an average of $116/yr._

Relative to what, though? Using an ugly WiFi thermostat? Praying over chicken
bones and running the AC at 65F all day? You're absolutely right--they need to
sell this thermostat on energy savings.

FWIW, I'd install a beautiful thermostat if it also (a) saved the world a bit
and (b) saved me some money.

------
WalterBright
You'd think a thermostat should be a trivial device.

But you'd be amazed at the complexity people come up with for thermostats,
including hundred page manuals, etc., and no way to turn the heat off.

~~~
nakkali_kuere
I don't understand, why do we need a thermostat in house? Isn't the normal
environmental temperature outside just good. Why artificially change it?

~~~
waitwhat
The "normal environmental temperature outside" hasn't been good enough since
the first caveman started a fire in his cave for warmth.

------
pedalpete
Very cool. I wonder if they will one day interface with your local weather as
well (or if it already does).

The entire product is non-obvious, but when they've gone this far, seems
they'd take the extra step to see if it is going to be 75 outside, and you
like it at 70, and it is currently 68, to not turn on the heater, but use the
air-conditioner to keep things cool.

~~~
huffman
Their site lists all the ways that it learns and adapts here
<http://www.nest.com/inside-and-out/#learns> \- one of the ways uses the
weather

------
aoporto
Great example of taking on an existing market that needs an injection of
innovation. Programmable thermostats are easy to install (I installed mine
years ago) and can save you lots of money if used properly, but their UIs are
terrible. Lots of buttons and inherently unintuitive. I'm surprised I remember
how to reset the filter replacement alert.

There is a market need certainly, but is their target market big enough to
support the business? I think if you can encourage users to adopt these based
on the cost savings then the odds will be better. Lots of home owners will be
interested in saving money on their utility bills. Just make sure the UI and
features enable users to make efficient use of their HVAC systems. There will
definitely have to be a campaign to educate consumers as to why they need this
product.

------
mgkimsal
I've got 2 thermostats in the house right now - do I need two nests? Or can
they come up with a way for one to control both existing systems? Or have two,
but let each one control the other, so I don't have to go up/down stairs to
make a change (remote automation even better).

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wooster
This is genius. My parents have a variety of crappy programmable thermostats,
none of which they can figure out (or I, given the amount of time I've spent
with them… the devices always seem to reset to factory settings eventually).

I will be buying at least one of these.

------
TamDenholm
I assume its trivial for a device as advanced as this, but has anyone spotted
if it supports Celsius? Not a big deal in an American market but i'd totally
buy one for my home but we silly British people use the metric system.

~~~
kloncks
Considering my American thermostat supports both, I wouldn't think this will
be a problem.

Making sure Celsius happens is much easier than other international problems.
(Say, different currencies, a problem my startup is dealing with now).

------
wiredfool
I want one of these. Actually, I want 6 of these, along with an interface to
the wood stove.

What I have are 6 independent programmable thermostats that each control an in
wall heater, and a wood stove. I'd love data logging. I'd love all the sensing
and intelligence. I want a thermocouple in the stove and in the flue and
sensors to tell me when the dampers are in or out. Logged with house and
outside temps.

I wonder if I can hack a zigbee into the current wall units.

------
yread
> He was shocked there wasn’t a single attractive thermostat on the market so
> he decided to build his own.

This. I wish I had the balls to do the same!

~~~
FrojoS
Do you also have the necessary capital behind it? Hardware companies need a
lot more financial investment.

------
forgottenpaswrd
I think it is a fantastic idea. The world needs more people caring about this
kind of problems.

------
Steko
I love this idea and wish Fadell and Nest the best.

Also, some photorshadowing:

<http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/8330/galaxytherm.jpg>

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ethank
If this supported the Insteon protocol life would be really really good in my
house. No word on their site if it does or not. Right now I have a Venstar
thermostat that is hooked into Insteon on my MacMini server.

~~~
doublerebel
I really hope they support existing protocols, Insteon being my first choice
as well. But, it also won't suprise me if they go Apple-style proprietary, and
I won't be a customer.

If they truly care about efficiency then interoperability is a must. It's
wasteful when you have to buy and create new products just for compatibility.

~~~
ethank
If they add an API, you could theoretically get your Insteon controller (I use
Indigo from Perceptive Automation) to pull from it, or maybe Indigo could
support its protocol.

------
scottschulthess
I don't understand why they couldnt leverage location services for iphone
users and just lower the tempature whenever no one is home automatically.

Of course, I have a dog so..

------
av500
nice thing, but instead of (re-)heating your home all the time "to the point",
it makes much more sense to keep it at (almost) constant temperature by not
letting the heat escape, which means good insulation.

~~~
ianferrel
Good insulation is orthogonal to a thermostat. Regardless of how good your
insulation is, you will occasionally need to adjust the temperature by active
means (in most climates). For that, you need a thermostat.

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notatoad
it sounds like a pretty awesome idea, but lithium ion battery powered, with
wi-fi and bright LCD? i'd rather not have to remember to change the batteries
in my thermostat every couple of days.

~~~
chrisbennet
A mechanical thermostat (like the round ones) is just a switch i.e. not
powered. To retrofit one of these with an electronic version you need
batteries because there isn't a completed circuit to run it when the heat/AC
is "Off". When the heat/AC is "On" you could recharge them.

------
nakkali_kuere
Adjust room temperature, Siri! It's a little cold in here.

~~~
lelf
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

