
How I Learned the Smart Home Industry Needs to Change, part 2 - Duhck
http://blog.astro.ai/post/103421359702/the-jetsons-fallacy-how-i-learned-the-smart-home
======
tonyarkles
Time for a small rant. I mostly agree with the premise of the article (that
most home automation products are too tech-user targeted), but I have an even
bigger complaint:

Automation doesn't mean that you can control it from your fucking iPhone.

Automation means that I don't have to think about it. It happens
_automatically_. I was looking at "automated" systems for underground
sprinklers this summer and it drove me insane. I don't care at all whether I
can turn on my sprinklers from Starbucks. What I want is a sprinkler system
that is smart enough to know when the soil is dry, and smart enough to look at
the weather forecast and say "Hey, the grass is dry, but there's an 80% chance
of rain this afternoon. I'll wait it out and see what happens"

The same goes for all kinds of "home automation" products. I couldn't care
less about controlling my lighting from my phone, but it'd be really awesome
if the lights in the living room dimmed when I started playing a movie (of
course, with the option of turning them back up if I'm trying to do something
else).

Get the 80% cases right, with an option for manual override, and I'll be happy
as a clam!

~~~
jaynos
Sprinkler systems (and the people who don't use them properly) are indeed in
need of "automation" as you say. I see so many sprinklers on in the middle of
the day (as opposed to early morning, when they should be on) or during a rain
storm. It's not that hard to properly set the timer, but people still don't do
it.

Get the 80% cases right on sprinklers and the fact that people don't manually
override is fine.

~~~
Cowen
I've never cared for a lawn in my life, so purely out of curiosity, why should
a sprinkler system be on in the early morning? Wouldn't morning dew take care
of watering grass around those hours?

~~~
getsaf
Morning dew is not enough to consider your lawn watered. Typically you want a
few inches of saturated soil for watering.

As for why it's not "ideal" to run sprinklers in the middle of the day, the
idea is that if you water early in the morning, then all of your sunlight
hours beat on watered grass. If you just started watering in the afternoon,
your grass has already been in prime morning sunlight without the watered soil
to boost growing. It's not necessarily bad, it's just not ideal.

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ebbv
This isn't much of an article. The only point of any substance in it is that
Nest devices are difficult to install. This is true, but that's because HVAC
systems don't have wireless functionality with a nice clean API. The only way
to control them is through hooking up wires.

The article ending with a local evening news type of "Coming up next" is just
insulting. Make your point in this article or don't waste my time.

~~~
joezydeco
According to their blog, these are a group of ex-Crestron guys that got into
an accelerator a month ago with a "3+ month" plan to "refine our product,
team, and strategy". So there's nothing to look at or even discuss.

The nice thing about hardware is that you can say "put up or shut up" and it
doesn't come off as snarky. Get back to us when you have something better than
Nest, because that's what you have to beat right now.

------
abruzzi
My thermostat recently died so I had to replace it. Looking at my local Home
Depot and Lowes, I could spend $300 for the Nest or $24 for programmable
weekday/weekend device. I would have been happy to pay a premium for better
technology, but a 12x premium was more than I was willing to go.

Additionally, the Nest would have only been used 3-4 months of the year. I
live in the dry southwest and I use (and prefer) evaporative cooling. None of
the all in one thermostats can control evap coolers. If Nest wanted to
innovate, they could build a remote control box to add this functionality,
then I might consider it a better value.

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joshuaheard
The article didn't mention the biggest reason people aren't buying Nest, and
the reason I didn't buy one: cost. The Nest thermostat runs around $200 -
$250, while a basic thermostat can be had for around $20. It's the same for
the Nest smoke detector: $99 versus less than $10 for a basic one. As one
experienced in the real estate market, I can say that home builders usually go
with the cheapest solution. And, I don't think consumers are going to rush out
and spend 10x as much for something they already have, or are replacing, no
matter how good it is.

~~~
NateDad
Honestly, the problem is not just that the Nest thermostat and smoke detector
are expensive... I could (almost) justify spending $200 on a thermostat or
smoke detector _once_. But I have 9 heating zones and approximately 9 rooms
that need smoke detectors. You know what I'm not doing? Spending $1800 on
thermostats for my house. Hell, I haven't even replaced all the old spring-
loaded mercury-filled thermostats from the 80's when the house was built. If I
could buy _one_ Nest, and 8 remote receiver thingies for like $10 each that
just report wirelessly to the Nest, _then_ I might actually buy one.

------
netcan
There's a sort of disconnect between stuff that's part of the machinery of a
house and the tech gadgetry world.

House parts like central heating, taps, toilets and such tend to be very
standard and long lived. How long did indoor toilets take to get traction? How
big an advantage are indoor toilets over chamber pots?

A "gadget" is very flimsy feeling compared to a toilet. IE, I expect the
toilet to work in 20 years, but not an ipod. It might get clogged, but any
plumber will be able to fix it. I think people are hesitant about installing
ipods as part of the core infrastructure of their houses. What happens if your
windows system won't connect to a router you buy in 10 years. Who will fix it?
What happens if wifi becomes obsolete?

I don't think I'm explaining this very well. Merging gadgets with houses is
kind of unnatural. They operate at different time scales. Tortoises and fruit
flies.

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jrcii
tldr Home automation products tend to offer a lot of features to woo early-
adopter technical investors likely to be on Kickstarter whereas simpler
products would gain more traction long term

~~~
saosebastiao
Entirely true, but I think the consumer's version of simplicity conflicts with
the developer's view of it. Simplicity to the consumer often introduces a
complexity to the developer on a whole new level of discomfort when compared
to snazzy technical features. Technical features are for people that know how
to communicate what they want to the system, but simple features often mean
_inferring_ what people want, without them telling the system and without even
being able to communicate it at all.

The sprinkler use case above (tonyarkles) is an easy example, because there is
a knowable science to healthy lawns. The light dimming is much more complex.
How do you infer if someone wants the lights to brighten when they walk into
the kitchen momentarily for a snack, even when a movie is on and you normally
want them dimmed?

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VLM
Not sure I'd agree with "the general public does not see these products as
easy to use or convenient as they’d hope"

Redo the analogy and instead of a Nest promotional article comparing the Nest
to other thermostats, compare to a nearly identical home improvement product
like fiberglass insulation. After all, you're competing with every product on
every shelf at Home Depot, not just smart thermostats, so this appears
superficially fair. In more detailed analysis, its an even more fair apples to
apples comparison.

The financials are similar although insulation pays off sooner and the capital
expense is almost infinitely more flexible. The ease of use for insulation is
off the charts compared to a Nest, you simply install it and keep it dry and
watch the energy bill drop. The convenience factor for insulation compared to
a Nest is also off the charts, insulation never requires firmware upgrades or
wifi access and has a much longer useful lifetime than "typical electronic
gadget" or even modern dumb thermostats.

Overall a batt of fiberglass insulation beats the nest on all specified
marketing criteria. Yet, most homes could use more / better insulation despite
insulation having been marketed for decades and the nest being a newcomer to
the space. If you can't sell insulation to these people, you're never going to
sell them a Nest using the same marketing message.

Marketing messages usually have little to do with the actual product, so a
message that is unusually close to the facts of the product is statistically
likely to be wrong.

~~~
wodenokoto
I fail to see how insulation is easier to install than a nest, but other than
that, it's a really interesting point of view. The nest really is the last
item on the list when optimizing your heating bill.

~~~
feld
Really? Automating turning off AC/Heat when you're not there saves a ton of
money and is very low effort. Especially if you don't have a programmable
thermostat at all.

I cut my bill enough to cover the Nest in less than 3 months and I purchased
it shortly after launch. For me it was the 80% and now I continue to work on
fixing the rest of the problems with my AC/heat related costs.

~~~
ghaff
Some level of programmability is probably worthwhile although you can get a
lot of the same effect by manually turning the thermostat up and down which I
do a lot anyway. And if I didn't have a programmable thermostat I might well
spring for the extra dollars on the Nest if only for the cool factor. As it is
I have a programmable thermostat that mostly works just fine. A lot of people
are likely in that situation. I've thought of getting a Nest but there's some
finite probability I'd run into installation problems and it is unlikely to
save me much if any money.

Edit: I should mention it would be for heat only. I don't have AC.

~~~
feld
Yes, because the average person has the willpower to go walk over to their
thermostat all the time -- especially when they leave / come home.

Not a chance.

~~~
wodenokoto
Turning off your heating/cooling apparatus is the most natural thing for
people in Japan.

Don't people turn their lights off in the us?

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bakerco
The Nest thermostat is actually easy to use and the convenience factor far
outweighs any perceived complexity. Early adopters didn't buy this because of
the unproven (at the time) energy efficiency features, they bought it because
of the design, the improved UX/UI and the fact that they could could change
the temperature without getting out of bed. The more the mass market is
exposed to this tech through interaction with early adopters, the sooner
adoption will pick up.

Also replacing legacy devices, especially thermostats and smoke detectors, is
not at the forefront of the average consumer's mind. I think cost plays a much
bigger role in the adoption of these devices than complexity and usability.
Nest products are not cheap but as they continue to build out (or acquire)
their ecosystem their value proposition will increase and mass market adoption
will start to take off.

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mark-r
A little OT, but I have to say it: "Photo Credit Google Images" does NOT make
it OK to use copyrighted material. Google can claim fair use, you can't.

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debacle
For many people, including me, the value proposition of Nest isn't worth the
cost.

There needs to be a modular middle ground between Apple level in-home
automation software and unassembled kits. I don't see myself spending over
$100 for a thermostat. Ever.

~~~
Zigurd
Wait until your thermostat wiring goes bad.

With a combination of hard-to-modify interior walls and an open plan design
where wall-mounting often doesn't make sense, going with wireless thermostats
was an easy choice.

Now the thermostat in the main living area can be moved depending on whether
we are using the wood stove, and the kitchen thermostat that was always too
far from the radiators and too close to the oven can be placed where it
actually keeps us comfortable.

Unless your house is new-ish and thermostat placement was carefully
considered, the benefit of being able to easily move a thermostat and
experiment with placement can be enough of a benefit to justify relatively
expensive thermostats.

~~~
bengali3
regarding issues with themostat placement check out
[http://ecoventsystems.com/](http://ecoventsystems.com/)

Themometers in every room, and controllable vents let you set temps for each
room, making each room its own zone. Granted it's only compatable with forced
air systems but i love the idea of one zone per room.

~~~
Zigurd
That's a very nice retrofit technology. I have hot water heating. But that
does bring to mind the possibility that a weakness of the Nest thermostat is
that it does not have a complete picture of temperatures around the zone each
thermostat controls.

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einrealist
Smart home or the whole Internet of things stuff frightens me a lot. Not that
I'm in fear of privacy implications of interconnected devices and the bad and
insecure software. No it is just that the smart stuff is out-dated pretty fast
and increases the amount of (toxic) waste rapidly. And we are already fighting
for rare earths and other building blocks of these devices. So we are not just
replacing our TV or notebook every 1-2 years. No, now we should replace all
the gadgets that are advertised to make our lifes easier and safer, if it is
your freezer, your smoke detectors, electrical outlets, body sensors,
thermostats and everything else which can hold a chip and has a excuse to be
"smartened".

No, I do not want that.

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tempodox
What, they not only want to sell me a PR pamphlet, they also ask for my mail
address before I even started to read the bait. That was certainly built by an
expert designer. For chasing potential customers away before they know it. I'm
gone, anyway.

------
furyofantares
I love new gadgets but I need to be convinced that home automation gadgets are
a lot more reliable than all the other tech I have before I go all in. I do
not want to be surrounded by tech problems, I want to have some escape from
that. I can have tech problems with almost all of my entertainment (except
board games), with almost all of my productivity, and even when I exercise. I
don't want tech problems just trying to stay warm and safe in my house any
more often than I have to. I have a Nest protect that I took down when it
spent a day going off incorrectly and I'm not sure I'll put it back up again.

~~~
ghaff
I'd be interested in Nest reliability data as well. I live in an area of the
country that gets cold and a thermostat failure could be really expensive if
pipes ended up freezing. Frankly just about anything that decreases system
reliability is pretty much a no starter for me.

~~~
mark-r
Now there's a product idea: a backup thermostat that takes over when the house
temperature drops toward freezing.

~~~
schiffern
This should do the trick (plus some heat tape): [http://www.amazon.com/Farm-
Innovators-TC-3-Thermostatically-...](http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-
TC-3-Thermostatically-Controlled/dp/B0006U2HD2)

~~~
ghaff
Interesting. I do have a couple piping runs near the wall in the basement that
might not be a terrible idea for. Just like with computer systems, I'm always
debating the depth of backup and types of failure modes it's worth spending
money on.

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ape4
I'd prefer to see a product that was less clunky that the old thermostats but
not Nest where you totally have to buy into their ecosystem.

------
bhauer
I strongly agree that the home automation industry has a history of failing to
deliver, spanning the early 1990s to the early 2010s.

In the late 1980s, during the time I was in primary and high school, my
parents had X10 lamp and appliance modules throughout their home. The main
benefit of this was the ability to remotely turn on lamps, which was
especially useful for those that didn't have wall switches and/or had their
switch in some hard to reach location.

But a secondary benefit was scheduling. Since my parents both worked and I as
a negligent teenager couldn't be bothered to remember to turn on outdoor
lighting in the evening, there was an appeal in having the system simulate a
"lived in" home by turning on key outdoor and indoor lamps at random times.
Initially, my father set up a simple schedule using a programmable X10
controller, but we found this fairly limited.

I ended up putting together a menu-driven application that signaled an X10
controller and automated the system from my computer. Why develop the
discipline to turn on evening lighting yourself when you can make a program to
do so? The controller used a fairly simple serial protocol. Using the computer
gave us a great deal more control. We could give more randomness than the
controller's "1 hour window" and account for vacations by also automating
weekends, among other things.

Fast forward to today and in my own house, I am using... wait for it... the
same X10 controllers to allow me to remotely turn on and off lamps and
appliances such as our attic fans. I no longer have that old application I
built in the 1990s, but I also don't really care about the automation as much
as simple remote control.

Here are my beefs with the automation industry today, and where I disagree
with the author:

* I feel Nest is a meager representation of where the industry should be heading. It's thoroughly uninteresting to me: I already have a wireless programmable thermostat that I can use in any room of the house. It doesn't interface to the Internet, but frankly, I would never use that. I live in Los Angeles, so I don't ever need to kick-start the heater to warm the house up before I arrive home (or whatever else you can do with an Internet-connected thermostat). Maybe that's more interesting in other parts of the country. I've heard in some places, people remotely start their cars. Moreover, I turn on and off and fine-tune the temperature as my comfort merits. I don't want an energy-saving algorithm interfering.

* Meanwhile, X10 has not changed a bit since the late 1980s. The modules do the same thing they always did. The modules even look basically the same. They still send their signals over the electrical wires. I suppose they've been comfortable doing what they do and leaving it at that.

* I've recently converted 75% of my household from fluorescent and CFL to LED lighting. Now I have periodic X10 signaling problems. Superficial research suggests the X10 power-line signaling can get garbled when mixed with LED lighting. Great.

However, based on the above, I am considering replacing my X10 modules with
Insteon modules that augment their power-line signaling with wireless
signaling [1]. I don't yet have any experience with Insteon, but it looks like
a promising (if expensive) successor to X10.

The author's chief complaint would appear to be that systems like Insteon are
too complex for a non-technical consumer. That is probably true. Making
systems like this easier to use is good. However, I fear that today's knee-
jerk solution to complexity is _remove options to simplify user adoption,
gather as much data as possible, send data to central repository for analysis,
control system from corporate headquarters_. In other words, in today's world
the plain "cloud" will solve all your problems as long as you surrender
yourself.

Perhaps unfairly, I have boiled down to the same fundamental matter as many
technical debates: how much control to give the consumer? It's the
underpinning of the plain-cloud versus (re)decentralized Internet debate. As a
decentralization partisan, I am emphatically in favor of giving the consumer
control—of their data, their house, whatever. I don't believe that the only
viable path to simplicity is to absolve the consumer of any thinking.

One can conceive of an Insteon system with the ethos of Nest. Plug in the
controller and all of the modules, and the system will figure out how to
control your devices, lamps, and security on its own by sending usage data to
Insteon Inc. (Don't worry, we don't share this information with anyone but our
most trusted advertising partners). Sure, you may have a lamp turn off while
you're reading, but that's just the system telling you it's time to sleep. The
convenience and energy savings are worth it.

I'm not saying it's gonna be Electric Dreams in your house, but I am saying I
don't want your Edgar playing music on my radio.

[1] [http://www.insteon.com/2635-222-on-off-
module.html](http://www.insteon.com/2635-222-on-off-module.html)

