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My Nest Thermostat was an example where I lost time. Sure I didn't have to walk down the stairs to change the temperature a few times, but as the Thermostat st

My Nest Thermostat was an example where I lost time. Sure I didn't have to walk down the stairs to change the temperature a few times, but as the Thermostat started to bug out, I spent hours trying to fix it. I lost more time than I ever saved.

tivert 3y ago
> Sure I didn't have to walk down the stairs to change the temperature a few times, but as the Thermostat started to bug out, I spent hours trying to fix it. I lost more time than I ever saved. I've got an Ecobee, and I've never had a problem. The main reason was (unlike the Nest, at least at the time) it's fully functional in offline mode (schedules and everything). I've since learned that HVAC people typically dislike Nests, though I don't remember the reasons (and they are fine with Ecobees). I'm not sure exactly what your problem with your Nest was, but they just didn't seem very reliable to me when I looked at them. Too much silicon valley in them: not prioritizing robustness, weird features that sound cool but just lead to an inscrutable device with a mind of its own, an over-reliance on the internet, etc.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  After much research, my conclusion is that my HVAC system didn't have one of the wires connected, Common, C. This was not a problem until some update that caused the rest of the wires to be insufficient to recharge completely. Over the next year or so, the battery was killed. Who knows though. It was fine for the first few years, aside from when my power company overrode my settings on hot days and my kid had a life threatening fever.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > After much research, my conclusion is that my HVAC system didn't have one of the wires connected, Common, C. This was not a problem until some update that caused the rest of the wires to be insufficient to recharge completely. My Ecobee doesn't have a battery at all, so that's something I had to deal with immediately upon installation. Luckily, I had an unused wire going to my own thermostat that I could repurpose. I believe it also came with a kit that would allow it to use a nonstandard signaling protocol so it could get needed power even if I didn't have an extra wire. I'm kind of puzzled why a Nest would even have a battery. Just a kludge to allow unreliable installation in places that don't have the proper wiring? One of the things I hate about modern software/product engineering is the over-reliance on updates and the mindset that aggressively obsoleting "old" versions. It creates a huge amount of unreliability and wasted time. IMHO, updates break things as much as they fix them. > Who knows though. It was fine for the first few years, aside from when my power company overrode my settings on hot days and my kid had a life threatening fever. Could they do that through the Nest, or did they have a separate cutout on the AC? My home has a remote operated cutout, which I'd assumed wad inactive until I randomly read by bill very carefully and realized it was active even though I never signed up for it (apparently the previous homeowner had it active, and that carried forward to my account).
0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
The Nest never made sense to me. An offline $20 digital thermostat can program a weekly schedule and requires 1 minute of maintenance per year (swap the backup battery). Never had to deal with a crash, fear of data exfiltration, or that some underlying SAAS would shutdown.
wccrawford 3y ago
I spent a couple weeks on the "learning" setting before I just disabled that. It was almost never right, and I knew I could set it to exactly the right temperatures on a known schedule. We almost never have to touch that dial. I'm having the same problem with android phone's brightness as well. I've stubbornly left it auto-adjusting, and about once a week I have to drag it from almost the bottom to almost the top again. I don't know why it thinks that's an appropriate setting because it never has been.

tivert 3y ago

> Sure I didn't have to walk down the stairs to change the temperature a few times, but as the Thermostat started to bug out, I spent hours trying to fix it. I lost more time than I ever saved. I've got an Ecobee, and I've never had a problem. The main reason was (unlike the Nest, at least at the time) it's fully functional in offline mode (schedules and everything). I've since learned that HVAC people typically dislike Nests, though I don't remember the reasons (and they are fine with Ecobees). I'm not sure exactly what your problem with your Nest was, but they just didn't seem very reliable to me when I looked at them. Too much silicon valley in them: not prioritizing robustness, weird features that sound cool but just lead to an inscrutable device with a mind of its own, an over-reliance on the internet, etc.

hospitalJail 3y ago
After much research, my conclusion is that my HVAC system didn't have one of the wires connected, Common, C. This was not a problem until some update that caused the rest of the wires to be insufficient to recharge completely. Over the next year or so, the battery was killed. Who knows though. It was fine for the first few years, aside from when my power company overrode my settings on hot days and my kid had a life threatening fever.
- tivert 3y ago
  > After much research, my conclusion is that my HVAC system didn't have one of the wires connected, Common, C. This was not a problem until some update that caused the rest of the wires to be insufficient to recharge completely. My Ecobee doesn't have a battery at all, so that's something I had to deal with immediately upon installation. Luckily, I had an unused wire going to my own thermostat that I could repurpose. I believe it also came with a kit that would allow it to use a nonstandard signaling protocol so it could get needed power even if I didn't have an extra wire. I'm kind of puzzled why a Nest would even have a battery. Just a kludge to allow unreliable installation in places that don't have the proper wiring? One of the things I hate about modern software/product engineering is the over-reliance on updates and the mindset that aggressively obsoleting "old" versions. It creates a huge amount of unreliability and wasted time. IMHO, updates break things as much as they fix them. > Who knows though. It was fine for the first few years, aside from when my power company overrode my settings on hot days and my kid had a life threatening fever. Could they do that through the Nest, or did they have a separate cutout on the AC? My home has a remote operated cutout, which I'd assumed wad inactive until I randomly read by bill very carefully and realized it was active even though I never signed up for it (apparently the previous homeowner had it active, and that carried forward to my account).

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

The Nest never made sense to me. An offline $20 digital thermostat can program a weekly schedule and requires 1 minute of maintenance per year (swap the backup battery). Never had to deal with a crash, fear of data exfiltration, or that some underlying SAAS would shutdown.

wccrawford 3y ago

I spent a couple weeks on the "learning" setting before I just disabled that. It was almost never right, and I knew I could set it to exactly the right temperatures on a known schedule. We almost never have to touch that dial. I'm having the same problem with android phone's brightness as well. I've stubbornly left it auto-adjusting, and about once a week I have to drag it from almost the bottom to almost the top again. I don't know why it thinks that's an appropriate setting because it never has been.