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Dear god no. I have a Nest thermostat and it drives me nuts with its inappropriate learning behaviour. I can just imagine the toaster learning, incorrectly, t

by adriand 13y ago

Dear god no. I have a Nest thermostat and it drives me nuts with its inappropriate learning behaviour. I can just imagine the toaster learning, incorrectly, to what degree I wish my bread to be toasted and thus giving me levels of crispiness that I did not expect or want. I really think there's a problem with over-engineered products these days. Not every appliance needs a motor or batteries, let alone a computer. I'm still very happy with my manual can-opener (the most reliable ones are the most basic, in my experience, like this one: http://meridianvale.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/can_opener.jpg http://meridianvale.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/can_opener.j...) and my analog meat thermometer.

colechristensen 13y ago
Things aren't over-engineered, they're poorly engineered. It's supposed to be the art of taking away until nothing unnecessary left. The common practice is to replace things which are difficult to engineer or expensive to manufacture with electronics and _that_ is the failure.
- sp332 13y ago
  The Nest isn't that kind of engineering. It took a programmable thermostat (already overkill for most people's use cases) and added even more automation on top.
  - duncan_bayne 13y ago
    Do you know how much money you can save with a programmable thermostat? We took a good 25% off our gas central-heating bill by having one fitted.
    - cantankerous 13y ago
      His point isn't that a programmable thermostat isn't worthwhile, but that most people don't want it even if they should. Moreover, the OP notes that the Nest is overkill as far as programmable thermostats go.
- derleth 13y ago
  > It's supposed to be the art of taking away until nothing unnecessary left. Except if I can't understand your use case, none of the complexity related to it is needed, so it's all excess and must be removed. After all, we have a Model T, so why do we need a Ford Focus? They both move you along under engine power. In other words, a lot of engineers seem to have a Procrustean Bed and a deep need to cut problems down to size in the name of cutting solutions down to size. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes
  - hvidgaard 13y ago
    You're taking it too literally. Since Model T, cars have improved tremendously. Efficiency, comfort, and safety are still getting better year after year. That is engineering with a goal, to make a better vehicle. Things like hydraulic power steering is a good thing. It is there for a reason, and taking it away does not make better engineering. It is however being replaced with electronic power steering, for the exact engineering reasons. Before we could make reasonable good electronic power steering, there was nothing to take away from the hydraulic steering, but taking away the power steering itself, would be a step back.
snom380 13y ago
Could you elaborate on the Nest? I was considering getting one.
- adriand 13y ago
  Let me start with the positive: the Nest is beautifully designed and easy to install and in every respect appears to be a high quality product. The negative, for me and my coworkers (the Nest is at my office - it was a gift from a client), is very simple: there are times when you find yourself asking the question, "Why the hell is the heat / air conditioning on right now?" This never happens with a normal thermostat. The basic issue, as far as I can tell, is that the Nest learns from people. This seems like a benefit but when you consider the way people behave doesn't work out that way in practice. People get hot because they just exercised; or they get cold because they got a chill waiting for the bus; or they are naturally warmer or colder than someone else; or they're coming down with something, etc. They change the temperature of the office as a result. And maybe a bit later someone else changes it back, or changes it more, or whatever. So you end up with these weird patterns where the heat is at 19C usually, but for a two hour period in the morning it jumps to 22C, then goes back to 19C, then back to 20C for an hour in the afternoon, etc. Our previous office thermostat, where you programmed a weekly schedule but could set it to a new temperature for three hours before it went back to its schedule, worked much better in practice. These days I believe we have the Nest just set to keep things at a constant temperature all the time, which really defeats the purpose and is worse for resource usage than our old thermostat.
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    All of Nest's learning features can be individually enabled/disabled, at least. If you don't want the automatic scheduling, you can turn it off and set the schedule yourself. You'll still benefit from the other things it does that other thermostats don't (learn when it's in direct sunlight to compensate, manage your humidity, learn how efficient your heat/air is so that it can reach scheduled temperatures at the scheduled time by turning on early, keep your office cooler with less a/c usage by running the fan a while even after the condenser shuts off). In a home, being able to turn the temperature up or down a degree with your phone when you're on a different floor than the thermostat is nice.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
timmaxw 13y ago
Incidentally, those aren't the most basic can openers; it's possible to make a can opener with no moving parts. Search for "swiss army knife can opener" to see some pictures. Personally, I first learned to use the simpler design; when I saw the kind with the gears and handle, it seemed over-engineered to me. I find them equally easy to use, but I've seen the handles break on the more complicated kind (they were plastic, not metal) and I've also seen the gears go out of alignment. Yet the simpler design is rarely seen except in swiss army knives and military rations. This seems to support the idea that some added complexity can be worthwhile for most users as long as the product is otherwise well-designed and well-built.
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
> Not every appliance needs a motor or batteries, let alone a computer. So true. What's even worse is the half-baked stuff. There are, like, a dozen clocks embedded in various objects in my house. I've learned the whole list. How, you ask? I need to change them back or forward 1 hour twice a year. The darned things are not DST-aware, to say nothing about the absence of any capability of syncing to NTP or GSM or GPS.
astangl 13y ago
Amen. In the market for a new garbage disposal recently, I was looking at the top-of-the-line Insinkerator Evolution Excel model until I saw a note about the delay in power-up being due to "microprocessor initialization". Microprocessor in a garbage disposal?!?
Geee 13y ago
Wow, those american-style can openers are the worst piece of engineering I have ever seen. The first time I saw one of those, it took me 15 minutes to figure out how it's operated, and I was baffled why there was a need to invent such a thing. Exemplary over-engineering. This is a well-engineered can opener: http://www.fiskars.eu/Kitchen-Household/Products/Utensils/KitchenSmart-Utensils/838076-KitchenSmart-Can-opener-all-steel http://www.fiskars.eu/Kitchen-Household/Products/Utensils/Ki...

by adriand 13y ago

colechristensen 13y ago

Things aren't over-engineered, they're poorly engineered. It's supposed to be the art of taking away until nothing unnecessary left. The common practice is to replace things which are difficult to engineer or expensive to manufacture with electronics and _that_ is the failure.

sp332 13y ago
The Nest isn't that kind of engineering. It took a programmable thermostat (already overkill for most people's use cases) and added even more automation on top.
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  Do you know how much money you can save with a programmable thermostat? We took a good 25% off our gas central-heating bill by having one fitted.
  - cantankerous 13y ago
    His point isn't that a programmable thermostat isn't worthwhile, but that most people don't want it even if they should. Moreover, the OP notes that the Nest is overkill as far as programmable thermostats go.
derleth 13y ago
> It's supposed to be the art of taking away until nothing unnecessary left. Except if I can't understand your use case, none of the complexity related to it is needed, so it's all excess and must be removed. After all, we have a Model T, so why do we need a Ford Focus? They both move you along under engine power. In other words, a lot of engineers seem to have a Procrustean Bed and a deep need to cut problems down to size in the name of cutting solutions down to size. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes
- hvidgaard 13y ago
  You're taking it too literally. Since Model T, cars have improved tremendously. Efficiency, comfort, and safety are still getting better year after year. That is engineering with a goal, to make a better vehicle. Things like hydraulic power steering is a good thing. It is there for a reason, and taking it away does not make better engineering. It is however being replaced with electronic power steering, for the exact engineering reasons. Before we could make reasonable good electronic power steering, there was nothing to take away from the hydraulic steering, but taking away the power steering itself, would be a step back.

snom380 13y ago

Could you elaborate on the Nest? I was considering getting one.

adriand 13y ago
Let me start with the positive: the Nest is beautifully designed and easy to install and in every respect appears to be a high quality product. The negative, for me and my coworkers (the Nest is at my office - it was a gift from a client), is very simple: there are times when you find yourself asking the question, "Why the hell is the heat / air conditioning on right now?" This never happens with a normal thermostat. The basic issue, as far as I can tell, is that the Nest learns from people. This seems like a benefit but when you consider the way people behave doesn't work out that way in practice. People get hot because they just exercised; or they get cold because they got a chill waiting for the bus; or they are naturally warmer or colder than someone else; or they're coming down with something, etc. They change the temperature of the office as a result. And maybe a bit later someone else changes it back, or changes it more, or whatever. So you end up with these weird patterns where the heat is at 19C usually, but for a two hour period in the morning it jumps to 22C, then goes back to 19C, then back to 20C for an hour in the afternoon, etc. Our previous office thermostat, where you programmed a weekly schedule but could set it to a new temperature for three hours before it went back to its schedule, worked much better in practice. These days I believe we have the Nest just set to keep things at a constant temperature all the time, which really defeats the purpose and is worse for resource usage than our old thermostat.
- dangrossman 13y ago
  All of Nest's learning features can be individually enabled/disabled, at least. If you don't want the automatic scheduling, you can turn it off and set the schedule yourself. You'll still benefit from the other things it does that other thermostats don't (learn when it's in direct sunlight to compensate, manage your humidity, learn how efficient your heat/air is so that it can reach scheduled temperatures at the scheduled time by turning on early, keep your office cooler with less a/c usage by running the fan a while even after the condenser shuts off). In a home, being able to turn the temperature up or down a degree with your phone when you're on a different floor than the thermostat is nice.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

timmaxw 13y ago

Incidentally, those aren't the most basic can openers; it's possible to make a can opener with no moving parts. Search for "swiss army knife can opener" to see some pictures. Personally, I first learned to use the simpler design; when I saw the kind with the gears and handle, it seemed over-engineered to me. I find them equally easy to use, but I've seen the handles break on the more complicated kind (they were plastic, not metal) and I've also seen the gears go out of alignment. Yet the simpler design is rarely seen except in swiss army knives and military rations. This seems to support the idea that some added complexity can be worthwhile for most users as long as the product is otherwise well-designed and well-built.

Florin_Andrei 13y ago

> Not every appliance needs a motor or batteries, let alone a computer. So true. What's even worse is the half-baked stuff. There are, like, a dozen clocks embedded in various objects in my house. I've learned the whole list. How, you ask? I need to change them back or forward 1 hour twice a year. The darned things are not DST-aware, to say nothing about the absence of any capability of syncing to NTP or GSM or GPS.

astangl 13y ago

Amen. In the market for a new garbage disposal recently, I was looking at the top-of-the-line Insinkerator Evolution Excel model until I saw a note about the delay in power-up being due to "microprocessor initialization". Microprocessor in a garbage disposal?!?

Geee 13y ago

Wow, those american-style can openers are the worst piece of engineering I have ever seen. The first time I saw one of those, it took me 15 minutes to figure out how it's operated, and I was baffled why there was a need to invent such a thing. Exemplary over-engineering. This is a well-engineered can opener: http://www.fiskars.eu/Kitchen-Household/Products/Utensils/KitchenSmart-Utensils/838076-KitchenSmart-Can-opener-all-steel http://www.fiskars.eu/Kitchen-Household/Products/Utensils/Ki...