6 ms·

While not exactly aligned to the research, I've been surprised how poor Nest Thermostat's learning feature is. The main selling point for Nest is having a "lea

by cj 4y ago

While not exactly aligned to the research, I've been surprised how poor Nest Thermostat's learning feature is. The main selling point for Nest is having a "learning thermostat". Perhaps my schedule is just not predictable enough, but the auto-generated temperature schedules it generates after its "learning" period is not even close to what I would manually set up on a normal thermostat. Maybe I'm just an "edge case" or part of the "long tail"

actusual 4y ago
Nah, you're not. I just gave up on mine and have a schedule. I also turned off "pre-cooling" because it would just kick on at like 6pm to "cool" the house for bedtime. I also bought several temperature sensors to use, which are fun. At night I have the thermostat use the sensor in my bedroom, then goes back to the main thermostat during the day.
- foobarian 4y ago
  See the next logical step is to outfit the output vents with servo-controlled actuators so you can fine-tune where the air is going!
  - actusual 4y ago
    Additionally: - Use a python script to switch heating from my heat pump to my gas furnace when energy prices invert. - Have live monitoring of my HVAC pressure health so that my servo controlled actuators don't bork my system.
PaulHoule 4y ago
When people hear that FAANG is involved in something an "Emperor's Clothes" effect kicks in and people stop making the usual assumption that "if it doesn't work for me it probably doesn't work for other people"
bell-cot 4y ago
Or, maybe they invested far more cash and care in marketing that feature than in programming that feature...
Slackwise 4y ago
"Why am I sweating right now? Oh, the Nest set the temperature too high again!" And then after a few instances, I just turn off all the automation and set up a schedule like normal. Same with the "away from home" which seems to randomly think I'm away and I have no idea why. Oh, and the app doesn't show me filter reminders, only the actual device, which I never touch all the way downstairs. There's not even any status to let me know if it's accepted a new dialed-in temperature, as I've had it fail to capture a request, and then I go back, and see it never updated/saved the new temp. Just zero feedback to confirm that the thermostat has responded to any input, and zero notification from the app if this happens. Just thoroughly unimpressed. Thankfully I didn't buy this junk, as it was pre-installed by the owner of my rental. Can't imagine actually paying for something that's only real feature is being able to remotely control my temperature once in a while.
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  Same story. We moved into a house that had a Nest preinstalled. Got everything set up, and noticed after a couple of days we would always wake up freezing in the early morning. Nest was all over the place and I just turned off the automation.
- dominotw 4y ago
  Maybe it considers environmental impact of air conditioning in its models and tries to nudge users into tolerating higher temps.
  - idontpost 4y ago
    If you have to guess why it's making decisions you don't want, it's a shitty product.
  - tristor 4y ago
    Which is not respecting your users. In fact, in my previous house the Nest was provided by the utility company and they used it /exactly/ for this purpose (although were legally mandated to notify us and allow us to opt out on a daily basis) where they'd intentionally raise your temperature during the hottest part of the day to reduce energy usage. But the thing is, I work from home, and if I'm sweating out a liter of fluids while I'm trying to work, I am getting nothing done and look unpresentable on meetings to boot. In the end because most of the house was empty, I let the Nest do its thing and installed a separate mini-split AC in my office I kept set at 72 year-round because that's a sane and reasonable temperature for an office. Don't try to "nudge me into tolerating higher temps", respect my agency and choice about what is a comfortable environment for me to work in. As a side note, I will never again buy a Nest product.
pid_0 4y ago
Nest is a terrible product. The learning aspect did not work at all and their app always takes forever to refresh. I switched to ecobee and couldn’t be happier. HomeKit and home assistant integration without hassle. Google products are generally quite terrible.
runnerup 4y ago
I also hate how Nest only let me download at most 7 days of "historical" data. They have the rest of my historical data, but I can't get a copy of my own data.
- amelius 4y ago
  Presumably they don't want the average consumer to be aware of that fact.
sdoering 4y ago
The same for me when I am looking for very specific terms and search engines think the know better and autocorrect me. Having to make an additional click because I receive something I have never searched for is unnerving.
kayodelycaon 4y ago
Things like this are exactly why I went with less "intelligent" smart thermostat. (Honeywell T9) The only learning feature it has is figuring out how long it takes to heat or cool the house given the current weather. Before a schedule change, can heat or cool the house so it hits next target temperature on time. This seems to work extremely well. Everything else like schedule and away settings are configured by the user. Once nice feature is it is fully programmable from the thermostat, without internet. You only need the app for setting a geofence for automatic home/away.
- connicpu 4y ago
  Building my own thermostat so I have total control was a fun project, I learned a lot about electrical engineering and built a circuit with some TRIACs to control the HVAC lines. Though I still need to give it an interface so I can program it some way other than uploading the program as a JSON blob to my raspberry pi!
  - bavell 4y ago
    This has been on my project list for a long time haha, would you happen to have any blog posts or references for those of us who aspire to do the same?
    - connicpu 4y ago
      Sorry for the late reply! Hmm, I don't have any particular posts I followed on hand, but I learned a lot by watching ElectroBOOM and Ben Eater's videos on YouTube. A general background in C++ development made getting started with Arduino code (you can use arduino frameworks for chips like the ESP8266) a snap as well
- Melatonic 4y ago
  Sounds nice. Let the machine figure out something other than people - it will probably be much better at that.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nahname 4y ago
It is bad. I dislike most "smart" things though, so take my agreement with a grain of salt.
baxtr 4y ago
Google destroys any great product they acquire (except google maps and YT I guess).
fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
Not only does the Nest ignore my preferences, I think it actually lies about the current temperature. Example: Setting is 72, reading is 73. AC is not on, I guess the thermostat is trying to save energy. I lower setting to 71, reading instantly drops to 72! I don’t think it’s a coincidence, this has happened several times.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  > Setting is 72, reading is 73. AC is not on, I guess the thermostat is trying to save energy. This can be explained by hysteresis [0], which all thermostats use to avoid cycling the A/C too fast. But the second part where the reading drops instantly is strange. Sounds like some kind of software heuristic where they're trying to make the user feel more comfortable about the hysteresis interval. Or something. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis
foobarian 4y ago
Well, the main selling point when it came out was that it was the iPhone of thermostats. It was the only thermostat at the time that did not have a terrible UI cobbled together by communist residential block designers or people who think that setting your own IRQ pins with jumpers is fun. But yeah I never understood the point of the learning feature; maybe a checkbox that needed to be ticked or a founder's pet feature.
- avereveard 4y ago
  It's mostly to trick people in thinking they don't need as many sensors for a smart home, once the nest is bought the sunk cost fallacy kicks in.
switchbak 4y ago
The Ecobee is not really any better. It has various "features" which all end up in setting the temperature at a very uncomfortable setting even when you're home. If I wanted those kind of savings, I could have just turned down my thermostat myself. Jeesh. Matt Risinger (youtube expert builder guy) mentioned these are not anywhere near as valuable as they seem, and I'm inclined to agree. It's nice to be able to flick it on vacation mode when you're away I suppose. I'd still buy it again, nice geeky metrics, and it's a quality company, but it doesn't save me anywhere close to 30% (or whatever the claim was).
kumarvvr 4y ago
Haha. For current state of AI and ML, 95% of the target users would be categorized as "long tail"
ryangittins 4y ago
This has been my experience as well. I was very excited to turn on the learning mode when I got it, only to turn it off a few weeks later in favor of scheduling. I've tried turning it on a couple times since then, and I always revert to a simple, manually-programmed schedule.

by cj 4y ago

actusual 4y ago

Nah, you're not. I just gave up on mine and have a schedule. I also turned off "pre-cooling" because it would just kick on at like 6pm to "cool" the house for bedtime. I also bought several temperature sensors to use, which are fun. At night I have the thermostat use the sensor in my bedroom, then goes back to the main thermostat during the day.

foobarian 4y ago
See the next logical step is to outfit the output vents with servo-controlled actuators so you can fine-tune where the air is going!
- actusual 4y ago
  Additionally: - Use a python script to switch heating from my heat pump to my gas furnace when energy prices invert. - Have live monitoring of my HVAC pressure health so that my servo controlled actuators don't bork my system.

PaulHoule 4y ago

When people hear that FAANG is involved in something an "Emperor's Clothes" effect kicks in and people stop making the usual assumption that "if it doesn't work for me it probably doesn't work for other people"

bell-cot 4y ago

Or, maybe they invested far more cash and care in marketing that feature than in programming that feature...

Slackwise 4y ago

"Why am I sweating right now? Oh, the Nest set the temperature too high again!" And then after a few instances, I just turn off all the automation and set up a schedule like normal. Same with the "away from home" which seems to randomly think I'm away and I have no idea why. Oh, and the app doesn't show me filter reminders, only the actual device, which I never touch all the way downstairs. There's not even any status to let me know if it's accepted a new dialed-in temperature, as I've had it fail to capture a request, and then I go back, and see it never updated/saved the new temp. Just zero feedback to confirm that the thermostat has responded to any input, and zero notification from the app if this happens. Just thoroughly unimpressed. Thankfully I didn't buy this junk, as it was pre-installed by the owner of my rental. Can't imagine actually paying for something that's only real feature is being able to remotely control my temperature once in a while.

TaupeRanger 4y ago
Same story. We moved into a house that had a Nest preinstalled. Got everything set up, and noticed after a couple of days we would always wake up freezing in the early morning. Nest was all over the place and I just turned off the automation.
dominotw 4y ago
Maybe it considers environmental impact of air conditioning in its models and tries to nudge users into tolerating higher temps.
- idontpost 4y ago
  If you have to guess why it's making decisions you don't want, it's a shitty product.
- tristor 4y ago
  Which is not respecting your users. In fact, in my previous house the Nest was provided by the utility company and they used it /exactly/ for this purpose (although were legally mandated to notify us and allow us to opt out on a daily basis) where they'd intentionally raise your temperature during the hottest part of the day to reduce energy usage. But the thing is, I work from home, and if I'm sweating out a liter of fluids while I'm trying to work, I am getting nothing done and look unpresentable on meetings to boot. In the end because most of the house was empty, I let the Nest do its thing and installed a separate mini-split AC in my office I kept set at 72 year-round because that's a sane and reasonable temperature for an office. Don't try to "nudge me into tolerating higher temps", respect my agency and choice about what is a comfortable environment for me to work in. As a side note, I will never again buy a Nest product.

pid_0 4y ago

Nest is a terrible product. The learning aspect did not work at all and their app always takes forever to refresh. I switched to ecobee and couldn’t be happier. HomeKit and home assistant integration without hassle. Google products are generally quite terrible.

runnerup 4y ago

I also hate how Nest only let me download at most 7 days of "historical" data. They have the rest of my historical data, but I can't get a copy of my own data.

amelius 4y ago
Presumably they don't want the average consumer to be aware of that fact.

sdoering 4y ago

The same for me when I am looking for very specific terms and search engines think the know better and autocorrect me. Having to make an additional click because I receive something I have never searched for is unnerving.

kayodelycaon 4y ago

Things like this are exactly why I went with less "intelligent" smart thermostat. (Honeywell T9) The only learning feature it has is figuring out how long it takes to heat or cool the house given the current weather. Before a schedule change, can heat or cool the house so it hits next target temperature on time. This seems to work extremely well. Everything else like schedule and away settings are configured by the user. Once nice feature is it is fully programmable from the thermostat, without internet. You only need the app for setting a geofence for automatic home/away.

connicpu 4y ago
Building my own thermostat so I have total control was a fun project, I learned a lot about electrical engineering and built a circuit with some TRIACs to control the HVAC lines. Though I still need to give it an interface so I can program it some way other than uploading the program as a JSON blob to my raspberry pi!
- bavell 4y ago
  This has been on my project list for a long time haha, would you happen to have any blog posts or references for those of us who aspire to do the same?
  - connicpu 4y ago
    Sorry for the late reply! Hmm, I don't have any particular posts I followed on hand, but I learned a lot by watching ElectroBOOM and Ben Eater's videos on YouTube. A general background in C++ development made getting started with Arduino code (you can use arduino frameworks for chips like the ESP8266) a snap as well
Melatonic 4y ago
Sounds nice. Let the machine figure out something other than people - it will probably be much better at that.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nahname 4y ago

It is bad. I dislike most "smart" things though, so take my agreement with a grain of salt.

baxtr 4y ago

Google destroys any great product they acquire (except google maps and YT I guess).

fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago

Not only does the Nest ignore my preferences, I think it actually lies about the current temperature. Example: Setting is 72, reading is 73. AC is not on, I guess the thermostat is trying to save energy. I lower setting to 71, reading instantly drops to 72! I don’t think it’s a coincidence, this has happened several times.

dreamcompiler 4y ago
> Setting is 72, reading is 73. AC is not on, I guess the thermostat is trying to save energy. This can be explained by hysteresis [0], which all thermostats use to avoid cycling the A/C too fast. But the second part where the reading drops instantly is strange. Sounds like some kind of software heuristic where they're trying to make the user feel more comfortable about the hysteresis interval. Or something. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis

foobarian 4y ago

Well, the main selling point when it came out was that it was the iPhone of thermostats. It was the only thermostat at the time that did not have a terrible UI cobbled together by communist residential block designers or people who think that setting your own IRQ pins with jumpers is fun. But yeah I never understood the point of the learning feature; maybe a checkbox that needed to be ticked or a founder's pet feature.

avereveard 4y ago
It's mostly to trick people in thinking they don't need as many sensors for a smart home, once the nest is bought the sunk cost fallacy kicks in.

switchbak 4y ago

The Ecobee is not really any better. It has various "features" which all end up in setting the temperature at a very uncomfortable setting even when you're home. If I wanted those kind of savings, I could have just turned down my thermostat myself. Jeesh. Matt Risinger (youtube expert builder guy) mentioned these are not anywhere near as valuable as they seem, and I'm inclined to agree. It's nice to be able to flick it on vacation mode when you're away I suppose. I'd still buy it again, nice geeky metrics, and it's a quality company, but it doesn't save me anywhere close to 30% (or whatever the claim was).

kumarvvr 4y ago

Haha. For current state of AI and ML, 95% of the target users would be categorized as "long tail"

ryangittins 4y ago

This has been my experience as well. I was very excited to turn on the learning mode when I got it, only to turn it off a few weeks later in favor of scheduling. I've tried turning it on a couple times since then, and I always revert to a simple, manually-programmed schedule.