14 ms·

Leaving the Nest

429 points by shawndumas 10y ago

iqonik 10y ago
I was at work the other day when I got a push notification that there was smoke upstairs from Nest protect. I left work immediately and arrived home to the smell of burning, an incense plug had been left in and was melting. Nest saved me, the ROI for me is priceless. Thanks Tony, good luck in your next venture - learn from your mistakes.
aboodman 10y ago
I interviewed at Dropcam right before it was acquired, and it was clear that it was an amazing place. The team there was so solid. I didn't realize until recently, but am not surprised to learn, that the people at Dropcam went on to found several interesting startups: - https://eero.com/ - https://www.lily.camera/ - https://claralabs.com/
justinv 10y ago
Marwan Fawaz as new CEO. Anyone know much about him?
- shawndumas 10y ago
  https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz
  - gordon_freeman 10y ago
    I think this should not be downvoted as people can learn a lot about someone's professional career by skimming through their LinkedIn profile.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- SlyShy 10y ago
  Marwan Fawaz used to run Motorola Home. It didn't really have much to do with "Home" in the sense of Nest though.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Well TV Set Top Boxes are in the same bucket of "home appliances" for me.
- Splendor 10y ago
  Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he was CEO for Motorola's Home division at some point.
- netinstructions 10y ago
  > Mr. Fadell will be succeeded by Marwan Fawaz, a former executive vice president of Motorola Mobility > In the troubled Motorola acquisition, Mr. Fawaz led a financial bright spot, Motorola Home, a television set-top box business. He pared its product line, cut costs and oversaw its sale in 2013 for $2.35 billion to the Arris Group, a cable television equipment maker. From the NY times article - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/technology/tony-fadell-nest-google-alphabet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/technology/tony-fadell-nes...
  - rrrx3 10y ago
    seems like we can reasonably expect him to come in swinging the axe again, then.
- kwisatzh 10y ago
  He was an advisor for an analytics startup I used to work for. Really unimaginative and uninspiring. Zero vision. I was very surprised how he was appointed as an advisor (and got a good chunk of equity).
pfarnsworth 10y ago
Wow. I honestly never thought this would happen. Hopefully this means that the change in culture at Nest is real, and we can expect better innovation going forward. As a heavy Nest customer (thermostat, 2 protects and 5 cameras), I've been sorely disappointed over the last 2 years, and hopefully this means that my investment in their technology isn't for naught.
- kevan 10y ago
  >I've been sorely disappointed over the last 2 years I bought a thermostat about a year ago and I've been disappointed too. The marketing I read and a couple people I knew that worked there implied that new features were in the pipeline but since I've installed it I haven't seen a single substantive improvement in the experience.
  - cgriswald 10y ago
    I'm disappointed even with what I purchased, new features aside. I have two sets of furnace/AC for my house and two Nest thermostats. My wifi access point when I installed it was downstairs, about 10 feet from the downstairs thermostat with nothing but air between the AP and the thermostat (I moved the AP around a bit too). The unit would not connect even though the upstairs unit connected without issue. Worse, every time I tried to connect it, it would make me re"type" my wifi password. My password is around 30 characters long and contains a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols. Entering a password on a Nest thermostat is absolutely terrible, which I kind of expect, and which is okay if you only have to do it ONCE. But I was trying to troubleshoot a problem with wifi and it wouldn't remember the password because it wasn't connecting... I ended up changing my wifi password temporarily until I could get it to connect and update, hoping the update would fix whatever the problem was. That said, now that they're installed and connecting, they're fine, I guess. But the "wow" factor is pretty much over for me, and with what I've heard about the smoke alarms, I doubt I'll be buying another Nest product.
    - circuit_breaker 10y ago
      My wifi key is also insanely difficult. Spinning that wheel and pressing down on the face to select one of the characters is so annoying, you can easily get the character next to the one you intend. And the selector for the space character isn't obvious either. I had to reset mine 3 times, and enter that key each time. I refuse to do it again, that's how annoying it is to anyone who cares about decent wifi keys
0xADADA 10y ago
death knell
f_allwein 10y ago
previous (Feb) discussion about "Troubles at Nest": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510
RankingMember 10y ago
From what I've read of this guy, this change is long overdue and hopefully a sign of better things to come (culture-wise and product-wise) at Nest.
ArmandGrillet 10y ago
"We should all be disrupters!": I really don't like reading bullshit like this in the middle of a blog post. Anyway, I hope this announcement means that Nest employees will have a better work-life balance, it looked pretty terrible from the recent articles posted on HN.
- jaawn 10y ago
  I have been cringing every time I see/hear the word "disrupt" (in its various forms) for a couple years now. In pretty much all cases, the more often a given person uses that word, the more vapid I come to think they are.
  - yoodenvranx 10y ago
    "disrupt" is for startups/VC what "beautiful" is for Javascript/CSS frameworks.
    - trhway 10y ago
      and "delightful" for user experience
      - gfodor 10y ago
        truly, the worst of all
      - jkestner 10y ago
        "Trying to mass-produce [delight] and inject it into interactions is like forcing waiters to wear 37 pieces of flair on their uniforms." http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042849/delightful-interaction-design-needs-to-die http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042849/delightful-interaction-d...
      - foolfoolz 10y ago
        "elegant" for libraries
HemanHeartYou 10y ago
thought this would be social commentary on why i haven't left my parents basement yet
Geekette 10y ago
I wonder if this has to do with the internal problems at Nest[1][2]. [1]http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510
- pkaye 10y ago
  I believe there was a 2 year vesting on stock or bonuses at Next. They got acquired around early 2014 so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I expect a whole bunch of others may leave depending on how the new CEO is.
c-slice 10y ago
He will remain as an "advisor" to Alphabet. That's an honorary position if I've ever heard of one.
- gregdoesit 10y ago
  This will likely mean he gets to keep his invested shares.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    invested shares or non-vested shares? (I'm assuming you mean the latter, and in that case you are right -- that will make a huge difference)
- RankingMember 10y ago
  Yep, definitely looks like a face-saving maneuver. <Tony> "Hey Lar I can at least call you every now and then still, right?" <Larry> "uh ok". adds "Senior Advisor to Alphabet/Google" to LinkedIn profile
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Well it has the word Senior in it, so it seems like an important position /s
- niccaluim 10y ago
  So many people did this at one company I worked for that it became something of a joke for low-level employees to say they were "staying on as an advisor" when they left.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
vincefutr23 10y ago
Pushed from the nest?
- newjersey 10y ago
  Regardless of the semantics, one can only hope the change is for the better. Nest can't lose much goodwill at this point. Previously, on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11435245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11435245
paul 10y ago
I wonder when Google will do a writedown on this deal? $3.2B seems like a lot to pay for a thermostat company.
- jamra 10y ago
  Especially considering that their product is not at the forefront of smart thermostats. The learning capability is harmful if you have kids or live in colder climates. Nest works poorly with home automation solutions as well. Dropcam was a good product that didn't change since they were bought out. I am looking into other thermostats and I can't wait to switch. It seems to me that Google caught a ride on the Nest hype train.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Out of academic curiosity, which product(s) is considered to be at the forefront of smart thermostats?
    - joezydeco 10y ago
      Not really an issue of bleeding-edge technology, but probably whomever owns the most relevant patents. Honeywell? Siemens?
    - karmicthreat 10y ago
      Probably depends on what you need the thermostat for. A home has a very different set of requirements than say the Burj Khalifa. And a warehouse or apartment complex might have their own very specialized requirements. That said Honeywell has products that cover most of those bases at least acceptably. If you just want something for your house though EcoBee seems to be the device to get.
  - ufo 10y ago
    How is the learning capability harmful?
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  At the risk of sounding completely ignorant, how hard is it to make a thermostat? I opened one up and it seemed to be a bit of mercury that completed a circuit. Is slapping a UI and a "learning" system on that big of a deal? I can see how it's a useful product and might seem really cool, but it seems sort of simple to make. Sure, making physical products isn't as easy as software and all, but still, what am I missing?
exstudent2 10y ago
Does anyone know of a good alternative to Nest products? I've never liked their marketing and this blog post doesn't do much to alleviate that feeling (even though he's on the way out, the tone remains).
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  Well they have several products so are there specific alternatives you're looking for? I've heard great things about Honeywell thermostats but honestly haven't pulled the trigger on any yet. The Dropcam is okay but, in my opinion after using them for so long, they're way, way over priced for what little they do. I've never tried the smoke detector though their initial issues kinda scared me off from even trying them.
  - exstudent2 10y ago
    Mostly the thermostats but thanks for the tips on the other products as well!
  - tacos 10y ago
    +1 for Honeywell thermostats and security. Only thing that reliably worked in my (very simple) home.
- varikin 10y ago
  If you are looking for a thermostat, I have heard good things about the Ecobee3. It can have several remote sensors around house, integrates with Smartthings and maybe just zigbee/zwave in general. I only got the Nest because of a great deal from a family member with an extra one. The downside is that is can be trickier to wire up. If you furnace is older, you may have to run an extra wire.
  - skolos 10y ago
    I have 3 Ecobee3 thermostats at home and in general very pleased with them. The only issues I had - from time to time they loose connection to remote sensors (reconnect back without me doing anything) and once a thermostat got stuck on heating - rebooting fixed the issue. Otherwise works great, with great set of features that work as advertised and new updates coming regularly (Ecobee3 was first thermostat natively supported by Amazon Echo)
pboutros 10y ago
Is Marwan Fawaz also lebanese-american? Tony Fadell is, and Marwan's LinkedIn looks like he went to a high school in Lebanon. What are the odds! https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz
- dguaraglia 10y ago
  Not sure why you are being down voted, unless people are reading some kind of undertone I'm not seeing.
  - pboutros 10y ago
    I hope they aren't - I'm american/lebanese as well, hence noticing.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- zefhous 10y ago
  I couldn't find anything to confirm this, but as a Lebanese-American myself — I'd say from his name, looks, and speech I heard in a video on YouTube, he's probably Lebanese and possibly Syrian.
manav 10y ago
For a company whose primary product is/was the Nest Thermostat, I've found they have been terrible at innovation and keeping up with competition. The product has been virtually unchanged for the last 3-4 years. What have they been up to? I switched to an Ecobee3 system and found it was far superior in many ways. Alexa integration, remote sensors (for actual temperature measurements in rooms), easier install and compatibility if you don't have power going to thermostat, better wifi, touchscreen interface. With Google Home coming I wonder what this means for Nest. Maybe it will be fully absorbed into Google?
- X86BSD 10y ago
  +1 For Ecobee. After wanting a "smart" thermostat for some time and researching and researching nothing really blew my socks off. But the Ecobee was the closest one to impressing me. So I finally pulled the trigger for downstairs. It's been doing great and I love the features. So now it's time to put one upstairs. If you are thinking of the Ecobee, do it! :)
  - praveenster 10y ago
    SDGE is offering free Ecobee installs. Check with your local electric company, they might be offering it for free too. We got two units installed and really love it.
    - zippergz 10y ago
      They actually give you the unit for free, or just the installation labor?
      - thecosas 10y ago
        More info here (albeit vague): http://www.sdge.com/business/programmable-communicating-thermostats http://www.sdge.com/business/programmable-communicating-ther...
      - praveenster 10y ago
discreditable 10y ago
Good lord, that grey text on white background is awful. I had to change it using dev tools to finish the article.
yuhong 10y ago
I wonder if the fact that he left a day after a lawsuit was filed was not a coincidence: https://www.theinformation.com/former-nest-employee-takes-aim-at-googles-media-policy https://www.theinformation.com/former-nest-employee-takes-ai...
marme 10y ago
I love that he put "leaving the next" in quotes. He was leading that company down the drain and got fired, they just dont want to make it look that way. They have had so much bad press the past year, from nest employees complaining of a hostile work environment to customers complaining about products being intentionally bricked. This news is shocking only in that it took this long to happen
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Absolutely. When you're at a certain executive level, you no longer get fired, you get "asked to resign". No doubt Google was done with him.
  - harryh 10y ago
    "No doubt"? Really? He's been there 2.5 years which is longer than most founders stay on after acquisition. It's certainly possible he was fired. Maybe even likely. But I certainly have some doubt.
    - rconti 10y ago
      He's an "advisor". He has neither moved on to a more prestigious role in Google/Alphabet, nor has he started a new company (that he's announcing publicly), nor has he moved to a prestigious position elsewhere. It's clear that he's been pushed out.
      - harryh 10y ago
        Lots of people quit jobs and take some time before doing their next thing.
      - nostrademons 10y ago
        Curious why he would need to move to a more prestigious position? Most people realize by their 30s that prestige is a sucker's game; it's a way of inducing people to do things that aren't much fun and they wouldn't really want to do on their own, by lauding them with accolades from people they don't really care about.
jusben1369 10y ago
That awkward balancing act they do between "I'm gone but don't be too scared I'm still here but really I'm gone" I mean this is like a sentence tennis match: ```Although this news may feel sudden to some, this transition has been in progress since late last year and while I won’t be present day to day at Nest, I’ll remain involved in my new capacity as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry Page. This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters! I will miss this company and my Nest family (although I’ll be around to provide advice and guidance and help the team with the transition), but I am excited about what’s coming next, both for Nest and for me.```
meerita 10y ago
I have never used a product like Nest. What is it like for those who are used to? I live in Barcelona and I never seen anyone using a product like that.
- uptown 10y ago
  It's a thermostat with a digital display, and some learning capabilities that figure out how you usually manually adjust the temperatures based on your weekly routine. It can also detect when you're home or not, and adjust accordingly. You can also use your phone to adjust the temperature remotely. The idea is it'll dial down your energy usage better through intelligent management of your heating and cooling systems and a slick interface.
  - Ressuder 10y ago
    I think that what gets confusing for a lot of us from Europe is taht we don't generally have temperature control of our homes like that. There might be some kind of radiators for heating, but that's generally it.
rdtsc 10y ago
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 --- outside1234 109 days ago I worked there. It was literally the worst experience of my career - and I have worked at all of the hardest charging blue chips and two successful startups - so it is not about high expectations - but abuse. I still wake up with something like PTSD occasionally from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell almost literally every day while I was there. I have a distance from it now -- and a way better job. It made me realize that the culture of a place is really what makes it and that "how" you get results really matter. I bought into the Apple pedigree of the place without understanding that the way Tony got there was through essentially wrecking other people's lives. I have no idea why Google bought this. Tony literally stood up at an all-hands after the Alphabet thing and said "Fuck being Googley" (direct quote). Frankly, if I could offer Larry Page once piece of advice it would be to take Tony out front of TGIF and fire him publicly -- all of this comes from Tony. Matt is just his hatchet man and fake cofounder. There are a lot of great people at Nest and they deserve a better leader. ---
- outside1234 10y ago
  Kudos to Larry for recognizing it was time to do the right thing and remove Tony. In this day and age, that sort of courage is pretty rare. Do no evil indeed.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - danudey 10y ago
    Arguably, the time to do the right thing was years ago, when Tony was abusing his employees and Nest was making no money other than what Dropcam was making (meaning that buying Dropcam instead of Nest would have made vastly more sense).
    - yuhong 10y ago
      I wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11425718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11425718
Analemma_ 10y ago
I already knew that Fadell was a jerk, but apparently he's delusional as well. Via http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/flying-google-s-nest-fadell-defends-his-record-and-methods http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/flying-goo...: "I don’t know why I feel this way, but between working closely with Bill Campbell, working closely with Steve Jobs and watching a lot of my mentors pass on, unfortunately, I feel like I bear this responsibility now. There’s a few of us who are keepers of that knowledge. It’s almost our responsibility to be able to continue that way of thinking, that way of working. Expect excellence, respect excellence, drive hard, change things, don’t accept the status quo, push yourself, push the people on your team harder than they could ever imagine, and they will do more than they could have ever imagined." You gotta love these incompetent execs, who have taken nothing away from Steve Jobs' legacy except "be an asshole". Tony, listen: Steve Jobs succeeded in spite of being a massive douche, because he was a genius who essentially invented new product categories, and made them work really really well. You, on the other hand, stuck networking interfaces in common household appliances, usually making them worse. Your psychopathic treatment of your employees gains you nothing in that case.
- rsync 10y ago
  "There’s a few of us who are keepers of that knowledge. It’s almost our responsibility to be able to continue that way of thinking, that way of working." Uhmmm ... the line of thinking that has your smoke detector talking to remote servers and dealing with a social layer (logins, smart apps, etc.) ? That line of thinking is a cancer. It's a scourge on all of us that needs to be stamped out wherever we see it. A pox on him and his house!
- ajsharp 10y ago
  Bill Campbell: Maker of Silicon Valley Assholes.
- nashashmi 10y ago
  Working under a jerk for a very long time can also teach you to be a jerk. Being a jerk for a very long time is what makes you feel normal. There is this multiplier vs. diminisher comparison. A lot of people originally start out as multipliers but having worked under diminishers makes them forget or never realize what gifts their original talents could bring about.
hiven 10y ago
Glad to see him go based on what I have read here and elsewhere.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Fricken 10y ago
Okay, so Fadell is out, following reports that Nest is a mess. Verily, the life sciences arm has similar CEO problems: https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exodus/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exo... Boston Dynamics and Schaft are being sold off, and who knows if the rest of Rubin's robot companies are on the auction block. And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Things at Alphabet are not looking good.
- ghaff 10y ago
  >And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. That seems to be mostly because even though many researchers in the field think that door-to-door Level 4 autonomy is decades out, Google is apparently uninterested in any intermediate steps. Which pretty much rules out any partnerships with automakers etc. who are interested in things they can sell in interesting commercial horizons.
  - Fricken 10y ago
    The viability of door-to-door level 4 depends on which two doors you're talking about. Chris Urmson, the lead engineer will tell you that cross country, all weather level 4 might be 30 years out, but their Koala cars would be doing publicly accessible trials around Mountain View right now if it weren't for regulatory hang-ups.
- beambot 10y ago
  > And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Except for the Ford partnership [1] and a strategic investment in Uber [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-team-up-tosupport-driverless-cars.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-t... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-i...
supergeek133 10y ago
Wow. I think he and Google keep figuring out.. hardware is well.. hard! I mean they started a revolution in Smart Thermostats (they're also now the reason people are willing to pay $200+ for a thermostat). They had a good innovation, found a market at the right time, got bought, and realized sustaining that type of business isn't easy.
DonHopkins 10y ago
Just incredible: he used the word "journey" un-ironically. http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
> This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters! It sounds to me like he's done a terrific job disrupting people's lives and careers. I find more and more than people who speak like this are interested in fulfilling their narrow goals at the cost of everything and everyone around them. After a few years and the novelty of the invention wears off it just looks petty.
tomphoolery 10y ago
this is why we need an open-source thermostat
dclowd9901 10y ago
Man what I wouldn't pay to see some memes from the internal Google meme host right now.
- shawndumas 10y ago
  As a happy Nester it's been sad to see...
  - dclowd9901 10y ago
    As a former sad nester, I think this news is going to make your life much better.
max_ 10y ago
Imagine if Tony had a HN account and was actualy reading these cmments. How would he feel?
dreamcompiler 10y ago
Tony and Elizabeth Holmes should team up to create a wifi-enabled device that regulates blood sugar for diabetics. It can be hidden in the collar of your turtleneck. And when it loses connectivity or misreads your glucose level, you get to meet Steve Jobs.

429 points by shawndumas 10y ago

I was at work the other day when I got a push notification that there was smoke upstairs from Nest protect. I left work immediately and arrived home to the smell of burning, an incense plug had been left in and was melting. Nest saved me, the ROI for me is priceless. Thanks Tony, good luck in your next venture - learn from your mistakes.

aboodman 10y ago

I interviewed at Dropcam right before it was acquired, and it was clear that it was an amazing place. The team there was so solid. I didn't realize until recently, but am not surprised to learn, that the people at Dropcam went on to found several interesting startups: - https://eero.com/ - https://www.lily.camera/ - https://claralabs.com/

justinv 10y ago

Marwan Fawaz as new CEO. Anyone know much about him?

shawndumas 10y ago
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz
- gordon_freeman 10y ago
  I think this should not be downvoted as people can learn a lot about someone's professional career by skimming through their LinkedIn profile.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
SlyShy 10y ago
Marwan Fawaz used to run Motorola Home. It didn't really have much to do with "Home" in the sense of Nest though.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Well TV Set Top Boxes are in the same bucket of "home appliances" for me.
Splendor 10y ago
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he was CEO for Motorola's Home division at some point.
netinstructions 10y ago
> Mr. Fadell will be succeeded by Marwan Fawaz, a former executive vice president of Motorola Mobility > In the troubled Motorola acquisition, Mr. Fawaz led a financial bright spot, Motorola Home, a television set-top box business. He pared its product line, cut costs and oversaw its sale in 2013 for $2.35 billion to the Arris Group, a cable television equipment maker. From the NY times article - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/technology/tony-fadell-nest-google-alphabet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/technology/tony-fadell-nes...
- rrrx3 10y ago
  seems like we can reasonably expect him to come in swinging the axe again, then.
kwisatzh 10y ago
He was an advisor for an analytics startup I used to work for. Really unimaginative and uninspiring. Zero vision. I was very surprised how he was appointed as an advisor (and got a good chunk of equity).

pfarnsworth 10y ago

Wow. I honestly never thought this would happen. Hopefully this means that the change in culture at Nest is real, and we can expect better innovation going forward. As a heavy Nest customer (thermostat, 2 protects and 5 cameras), I've been sorely disappointed over the last 2 years, and hopefully this means that my investment in their technology isn't for naught.

kevan 10y ago
>I've been sorely disappointed over the last 2 years I bought a thermostat about a year ago and I've been disappointed too. The marketing I read and a couple people I knew that worked there implied that new features were in the pipeline but since I've installed it I haven't seen a single substantive improvement in the experience.
- cgriswald 10y ago
  I'm disappointed even with what I purchased, new features aside. I have two sets of furnace/AC for my house and two Nest thermostats. My wifi access point when I installed it was downstairs, about 10 feet from the downstairs thermostat with nothing but air between the AP and the thermostat (I moved the AP around a bit too). The unit would not connect even though the upstairs unit connected without issue. Worse, every time I tried to connect it, it would make me re"type" my wifi password. My password is around 30 characters long and contains a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols. Entering a password on a Nest thermostat is absolutely terrible, which I kind of expect, and which is okay if you only have to do it ONCE. But I was trying to troubleshoot a problem with wifi and it wouldn't remember the password because it wasn't connecting... I ended up changing my wifi password temporarily until I could get it to connect and update, hoping the update would fix whatever the problem was. That said, now that they're installed and connecting, they're fine, I guess. But the "wow" factor is pretty much over for me, and with what I've heard about the smoke alarms, I doubt I'll be buying another Nest product.
  - circuit_breaker 10y ago
    My wifi key is also insanely difficult. Spinning that wheel and pressing down on the face to select one of the characters is so annoying, you can easily get the character next to the one you intend. And the selector for the space character isn't obvious either. I had to reset mine 3 times, and enter that key each time. I refuse to do it again, that's how annoying it is to anyone who cares about decent wifi keys

0xADADA 10y ago

death knell

f_allwein 10y ago

previous (Feb) discussion about "Troubles at Nest": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510

RankingMember 10y ago

From what I've read of this guy, this change is long overdue and hopefully a sign of better things to come (culture-wise and product-wise) at Nest.

ArmandGrillet 10y ago

"We should all be disrupters!": I really don't like reading bullshit like this in the middle of a blog post. Anyway, I hope this announcement means that Nest employees will have a better work-life balance, it looked pretty terrible from the recent articles posted on HN.

jaawn 10y ago
I have been cringing every time I see/hear the word "disrupt" (in its various forms) for a couple years now. In pretty much all cases, the more often a given person uses that word, the more vapid I come to think they are.
- yoodenvranx 10y ago
  "disrupt" is for startups/VC what "beautiful" is for Javascript/CSS frameworks.
  - trhway 10y ago
    and "delightful" for user experience
    - gfodor 10y ago
      truly, the worst of all
    - jkestner 10y ago
      "Trying to mass-produce [delight] and inject it into interactions is like forcing waiters to wear 37 pieces of flair on their uniforms." http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042849/delightful-interaction-design-needs-to-die http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042849/delightful-interaction-d...
    - foolfoolz 10y ago
      "elegant" for libraries

HemanHeartYou 10y ago

thought this would be social commentary on why i haven't left my parents basement yet

Geekette 10y ago

I wonder if this has to do with the internal problems at Nest[1][2]. [1]http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510

pkaye 10y ago
I believe there was a 2 year vesting on stock or bonuses at Next. They got acquired around early 2014 so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I expect a whole bunch of others may leave depending on how the new CEO is.

c-slice 10y ago

He will remain as an "advisor" to Alphabet. That's an honorary position if I've ever heard of one.

gregdoesit 10y ago
This will likely mean he gets to keep his invested shares.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  invested shares or non-vested shares? (I'm assuming you mean the latter, and in that case you are right -- that will make a huge difference)
RankingMember 10y ago
Yep, definitely looks like a face-saving maneuver. <Tony> "Hey Lar I can at least call you every now and then still, right?" <Larry> "uh ok". adds "Senior Advisor to Alphabet/Google" to LinkedIn profile
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Well it has the word Senior in it, so it seems like an important position /s
niccaluim 10y ago
So many people did this at one company I worked for that it became something of a joke for low-level employees to say they were "staying on as an advisor" when they left.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

vincefutr23 10y ago

Pushed from the nest?

newjersey 10y ago
Regardless of the semantics, one can only hope the change is for the better. Nest can't lose much goodwill at this point. Previously, on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11435245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11435245

paul 10y ago

I wonder when Google will do a writedown on this deal? $3.2B seems like a lot to pay for a thermostat company.

jamra 10y ago
Especially considering that their product is not at the forefront of smart thermostats. The learning capability is harmful if you have kids or live in colder climates. Nest works poorly with home automation solutions as well. Dropcam was a good product that didn't change since they were bought out. I am looking into other thermostats and I can't wait to switch. It seems to me that Google caught a ride on the Nest hype train.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Out of academic curiosity, which product(s) is considered to be at the forefront of smart thermostats?
  - joezydeco 10y ago
    Not really an issue of bleeding-edge technology, but probably whomever owns the most relevant patents. Honeywell? Siemens?
  - karmicthreat 10y ago
    Probably depends on what you need the thermostat for. A home has a very different set of requirements than say the Burj Khalifa. And a warehouse or apartment complex might have their own very specialized requirements. That said Honeywell has products that cover most of those bases at least acceptably. If you just want something for your house though EcoBee seems to be the device to get.
- ufo 10y ago
  How is the learning capability harmful?
MichaelGG 10y ago
At the risk of sounding completely ignorant, how hard is it to make a thermostat? I opened one up and it seemed to be a bit of mercury that completed a circuit. Is slapping a UI and a "learning" system on that big of a deal? I can see how it's a useful product and might seem really cool, but it seems sort of simple to make. Sure, making physical products isn't as easy as software and all, but still, what am I missing?

exstudent2 10y ago

Does anyone know of a good alternative to Nest products? I've never liked their marketing and this blog post doesn't do much to alleviate that feeling (even though he's on the way out, the tone remains).

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
Well they have several products so are there specific alternatives you're looking for? I've heard great things about Honeywell thermostats but honestly haven't pulled the trigger on any yet. The Dropcam is okay but, in my opinion after using them for so long, they're way, way over priced for what little they do. I've never tried the smoke detector though their initial issues kinda scared me off from even trying them.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  Mostly the thermostats but thanks for the tips on the other products as well!
- tacos 10y ago
  +1 for Honeywell thermostats and security. Only thing that reliably worked in my (very simple) home.
varikin 10y ago
If you are looking for a thermostat, I have heard good things about the Ecobee3. It can have several remote sensors around house, integrates with Smartthings and maybe just zigbee/zwave in general. I only got the Nest because of a great deal from a family member with an extra one. The downside is that is can be trickier to wire up. If you furnace is older, you may have to run an extra wire.
- skolos 10y ago
  I have 3 Ecobee3 thermostats at home and in general very pleased with them. The only issues I had - from time to time they loose connection to remote sensors (reconnect back without me doing anything) and once a thermostat got stuck on heating - rebooting fixed the issue. Otherwise works great, with great set of features that work as advertised and new updates coming regularly (Ecobee3 was first thermostat natively supported by Amazon Echo)

pboutros 10y ago

Is Marwan Fawaz also lebanese-american? Tony Fadell is, and Marwan's LinkedIn looks like he went to a high school in Lebanon. What are the odds! https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwanfawaz

dguaraglia 10y ago
Not sure why you are being down voted, unless people are reading some kind of undertone I'm not seeing.
- pboutros 10y ago
  I hope they aren't - I'm american/lebanese as well, hence noticing.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zefhous 10y ago
I couldn't find anything to confirm this, but as a Lebanese-American myself — I'd say from his name, looks, and speech I heard in a video on YouTube, he's probably Lebanese and possibly Syrian.

manav 10y ago

For a company whose primary product is/was the Nest Thermostat, I've found they have been terrible at innovation and keeping up with competition. The product has been virtually unchanged for the last 3-4 years. What have they been up to? I switched to an Ecobee3 system and found it was far superior in many ways. Alexa integration, remote sensors (for actual temperature measurements in rooms), easier install and compatibility if you don't have power going to thermostat, better wifi, touchscreen interface. With Google Home coming I wonder what this means for Nest. Maybe it will be fully absorbed into Google?

X86BSD 10y ago
+1 For Ecobee. After wanting a "smart" thermostat for some time and researching and researching nothing really blew my socks off. But the Ecobee was the closest one to impressing me. So I finally pulled the trigger for downstairs. It's been doing great and I love the features. So now it's time to put one upstairs. If you are thinking of the Ecobee, do it! :)
- praveenster 10y ago
  SDGE is offering free Ecobee installs. Check with your local electric company, they might be offering it for free too. We got two units installed and really love it.
  - zippergz 10y ago
    They actually give you the unit for free, or just the installation labor?
    - thecosas 10y ago
      More info here (albeit vague): http://www.sdge.com/business/programmable-communicating-thermostats http://www.sdge.com/business/programmable-communicating-ther...
    - praveenster 10y ago

discreditable 10y ago

Good lord, that grey text on white background is awful. I had to change it using dev tools to finish the article.

yuhong 10y ago

I wonder if the fact that he left a day after a lawsuit was filed was not a coincidence: https://www.theinformation.com/former-nest-employee-takes-aim-at-googles-media-policy https://www.theinformation.com/former-nest-employee-takes-ai...

marme 10y ago

I love that he put "leaving the next" in quotes. He was leading that company down the drain and got fired, they just dont want to make it look that way. They have had so much bad press the past year, from nest employees complaining of a hostile work environment to customers complaining about products being intentionally bricked. This news is shocking only in that it took this long to happen

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Absolutely. When you're at a certain executive level, you no longer get fired, you get "asked to resign". No doubt Google was done with him.
- harryh 10y ago
  "No doubt"? Really? He's been there 2.5 years which is longer than most founders stay on after acquisition. It's certainly possible he was fired. Maybe even likely. But I certainly have some doubt.
  - rconti 10y ago
    He's an "advisor". He has neither moved on to a more prestigious role in Google/Alphabet, nor has he started a new company (that he's announcing publicly), nor has he moved to a prestigious position elsewhere. It's clear that he's been pushed out.
    - harryh 10y ago
      Lots of people quit jobs and take some time before doing their next thing.
    - nostrademons 10y ago
      Curious why he would need to move to a more prestigious position? Most people realize by their 30s that prestige is a sucker's game; it's a way of inducing people to do things that aren't much fun and they wouldn't really want to do on their own, by lauding them with accolades from people they don't really care about.

jusben1369 10y ago

That awkward balancing act they do between "I'm gone but don't be too scared I'm still here but really I'm gone" I mean this is like a sentence tennis match: ```Although this news may feel sudden to some, this transition has been in progress since late last year and while I won’t be present day to day at Nest, I’ll remain involved in my new capacity as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry Page. This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters! I will miss this company and my Nest family (although I’ll be around to provide advice and guidance and help the team with the transition), but I am excited about what’s coming next, both for Nest and for me.```

meerita 10y ago

I have never used a product like Nest. What is it like for those who are used to? I live in Barcelona and I never seen anyone using a product like that.

uptown 10y ago
It's a thermostat with a digital display, and some learning capabilities that figure out how you usually manually adjust the temperatures based on your weekly routine. It can also detect when you're home or not, and adjust accordingly. You can also use your phone to adjust the temperature remotely. The idea is it'll dial down your energy usage better through intelligent management of your heating and cooling systems and a slick interface.
- Ressuder 10y ago
  I think that what gets confusing for a lot of us from Europe is taht we don't generally have temperature control of our homes like that. There might be some kind of radiators for heating, but that's generally it.

rdtsc 10y ago

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510 --- outside1234 109 days ago I worked there. It was literally the worst experience of my career - and I have worked at all of the hardest charging blue chips and two successful startups - so it is not about high expectations - but abuse. I still wake up with something like PTSD occasionally from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell almost literally every day while I was there. I have a distance from it now -- and a way better job. It made me realize that the culture of a place is really what makes it and that "how" you get results really matter. I bought into the Apple pedigree of the place without understanding that the way Tony got there was through essentially wrecking other people's lives. I have no idea why Google bought this. Tony literally stood up at an all-hands after the Alphabet thing and said "Fuck being Googley" (direct quote). Frankly, if I could offer Larry Page once piece of advice it would be to take Tony out front of TGIF and fire him publicly -- all of this comes from Tony. Matt is just his hatchet man and fake cofounder. There are a lot of great people at Nest and they deserve a better leader. ---

outside1234 10y ago
Kudos to Larry for recognizing it was time to do the right thing and remove Tony. In this day and age, that sort of courage is pretty rare. Do no evil indeed.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- danudey 10y ago
  Arguably, the time to do the right thing was years ago, when Tony was abusing his employees and Nest was making no money other than what Dropcam was making (meaning that buying Dropcam instead of Nest would have made vastly more sense).
  - yuhong 10y ago
    I wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11425718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11425718

Analemma_ 10y ago

I already knew that Fadell was a jerk, but apparently he's delusional as well. Via http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/flying-google-s-nest-fadell-defends-his-record-and-methods http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/flying-goo...: "I don’t know why I feel this way, but between working closely with Bill Campbell, working closely with Steve Jobs and watching a lot of my mentors pass on, unfortunately, I feel like I bear this responsibility now. There’s a few of us who are keepers of that knowledge. It’s almost our responsibility to be able to continue that way of thinking, that way of working. Expect excellence, respect excellence, drive hard, change things, don’t accept the status quo, push yourself, push the people on your team harder than they could ever imagine, and they will do more than they could have ever imagined." You gotta love these incompetent execs, who have taken nothing away from Steve Jobs' legacy except "be an asshole". Tony, listen: Steve Jobs succeeded in spite of being a massive douche, because he was a genius who essentially invented new product categories, and made them work really really well. You, on the other hand, stuck networking interfaces in common household appliances, usually making them worse. Your psychopathic treatment of your employees gains you nothing in that case.

rsync 10y ago
"There’s a few of us who are keepers of that knowledge. It’s almost our responsibility to be able to continue that way of thinking, that way of working." Uhmmm ... the line of thinking that has your smoke detector talking to remote servers and dealing with a social layer (logins, smart apps, etc.) ? That line of thinking is a cancer. It's a scourge on all of us that needs to be stamped out wherever we see it. A pox on him and his house!
ajsharp 10y ago
Bill Campbell: Maker of Silicon Valley Assholes.
nashashmi 10y ago
Working under a jerk for a very long time can also teach you to be a jerk. Being a jerk for a very long time is what makes you feel normal. There is this multiplier vs. diminisher comparison. A lot of people originally start out as multipliers but having worked under diminishers makes them forget or never realize what gifts their original talents could bring about.

hiven 10y ago

Glad to see him go based on what I have read here and elsewhere.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Fricken 10y ago

Okay, so Fadell is out, following reports that Nest is a mess. Verily, the life sciences arm has similar CEO problems: https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exodus/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exo... Boston Dynamics and Schaft are being sold off, and who knows if the rest of Rubin's robot companies are on the auction block. And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Things at Alphabet are not looking good.

ghaff 10y ago
>And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. That seems to be mostly because even though many researchers in the field think that door-to-door Level 4 autonomy is decades out, Google is apparently uninterested in any intermediate steps. Which pretty much rules out any partnerships with automakers etc. who are interested in things they can sell in interesting commercial horizons.
- Fricken 10y ago
  The viability of door-to-door level 4 depends on which two doors you're talking about. Chris Urmson, the lead engineer will tell you that cross country, all weather level 4 might be 30 years out, but their Koala cars would be doing publicly accessible trials around Mountain View right now if it weren't for regulatory hang-ups.
beambot 10y ago
> And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Except for the Ford partnership [1] and a strategic investment in Uber [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-team-up-tosupport-driverless-cars.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-t... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-i...

supergeek133 10y ago

Wow. I think he and Google keep figuring out.. hardware is well.. hard! I mean they started a revolution in Smart Thermostats (they're also now the reason people are willing to pay $200+ for a thermostat). They had a good innovation, found a market at the right time, got bought, and realized sustaining that type of business isn't easy.

DonHopkins 10y ago

Just incredible: he used the word "journey" un-ironically. http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

> This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters! It sounds to me like he's done a terrific job disrupting people's lives and careers. I find more and more than people who speak like this are interested in fulfilling their narrow goals at the cost of everything and everyone around them. After a few years and the novelty of the invention wears off it just looks petty.

tomphoolery 10y ago

this is why we need an open-source thermostat

dclowd9901 10y ago

Man what I wouldn't pay to see some memes from the internal Google meme host right now.

shawndumas 10y ago
As a happy Nester it's been sad to see...
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  As a former sad nester, I think this news is going to make your life much better.

max_ 10y ago

Imagine if Tony had a HN account and was actualy reading these cmments. How would he feel?

dreamcompiler 10y ago

Tony and Elizabeth Holmes should team up to create a wifi-enabled device that regulates blood sugar for diabetics. It can be hidden in the collar of your turtleneck. And when it loses connectivity or misreads your glucose level, you get to meet Steve Jobs.