Please put something on your website that I can read. I do not want to watch a video, and that's all you have, so now I will never learn about your product.
This also applies to programming screencasts and slides which are becoming more and more prevalent. I guess it works for some people but when I look at code I like to skim and use ctrl-F...
In this case it might be justified. The guy is trying to convince you to buy their design, really. How would they entice you into buying a thermostat with words? It would be really difficult.
Also, when I do watch the video, at least give me a hint of how your product works and what it does. Don't bullshit me with things like "XXX never stops learning" or "XXX saves energy" during the whole video.
Please don't put a ream of text on your landing page that I have to read in order to learn about your product. I'm a visual person, and the web has not been a text-only medium for quite some time now. Something like a video, relevant pictures, and big bold text will do just fine thanks.
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here. This is actually what I prefer, and I think they did a good job.
I understand what you're saying--nobody wants to land on a stuffy wall of text. But in this case, there's nothing to find but the window dressing. I'm fine clicking on a "find out more" link that takes me to more detail. But that's missing here entirely.
No, I truly didn't have an issue with the usability of their landing page. There's a clear link to more information in the CTA area (which is a page with video and a breakdown of features). There's also a clear call to action "pre-order" button. Then 3 more links with more info above the fold.
Then if you end up with the living-with-nest page you get a slideshow, video link, clear links to more info, a step by step slick UI describing it, etc.
I'm pretty impressed with the balance of information and usability. If I had to nitpick one thing it would be that the "Meet the Nest Learning Thermostat" link could be a little more obvious (being next to a button hides the fact that it's a link).
I also hate sites where the only information is offered through a video and I would like to have readable information as close to the landing page as possible, preferably on it.
It turns out that Nest doesn't have it smack dab on the landing page, but you just need to make the logical (to me) choice of clicking on the "Meet the Nest Learning Thermostat" link and the information is there. Scroll down at your leisure and skim through the text and the illustrations. It's not even one of those annoying PowerPoint-like presentations; you just need to scroll down.
If you cared to look for more than 5 seconds, the "Our Thermostat" link at the top of the page takes you to a nice page all about the Nest with just text/images.
You laugh, but TOTO is a hugely successful corporation that's spent millions on toilet R&D. If this bathroom doesn't fall into "object of day to day use made into a cherished item" I don't know what does: http://www.totousa.com/Neorest/NeorestSuite.aspx
Even TOTO's bare-bones low-volume-flush toilets are remarkably effective and well-designed. I replaced some very expensive Kohlers with TOTOs and was impressed.
Nearly shit myself when I saw the price tag on some of those! Looks nice, but damn. A $250 thermostat is fairly reasonable, but a $5k toilet is way outside the WAF (Wife Approval Factor).
From personal experience... my grandparents had one in their house (I think it must be a decade old) that would wash and dry everything. You could control the temperature and water pressure. It also had temperature controls for the seat. I think there were more functions I didn't know how to use.
It is strange that we haven't made this as comfortable an experience as our modern technologies/engineering allow. It's the equivalent of us still using the same type of mattress they used in the 1920's. I sleep on a "sleep number" and it's WAY more comfortable. I should be able to take a deuce on a way more comfortable toilet. Heated seat, automated flushing and paper dissension, automated seat rising and collapsing. When you are done using it, it should revert to a "closed" or "sleep" mode. The flush should be a pleasant sound enhanced by audio of your choosing etc. It should be a personalized experience.
A toilet that tells you if are dehydrated and need to drink more, that'd be neat. Or perhaps automatically checks if your kids are doing drugs (maybe that's too far).
A normal toilet is a problem for most men: it's either loud to use, or you get some sprayback. A solution to this problem would capture the entire toilet market.
A learning toaster that can find the sweet spot between warm bread and coal. Works if I've put in frozen bread or bread from fridge or bread from the bread bin.
Somebody please make this! How hard could it be? No, forget about that -- I'd throw money at you. Heck, I'd work for you while throwing money at you while coding for you.
There are already "transparent" toasters with windows on their sides. This is low-tech, but I imagine works better and is cheaper than having a camera inside your toaster (an environment which is dark and hot).
I remember seeing a guy design a toaster that had a component from a smoke detector in it which (i'm quoting form memory here) monitored the amount of carbon or something being released (???).
The problem, as I'm sure we're all aware, is that toasters are very slow when you start using them, but if you make three or four rounds of toast one ofter the other, each batch toasts quicker. This smoke detector method solved that problem....
Although I've not seen it on the market, so perhaps it didn't work. But still, a novel idea.
I've used a couple of taps that actually have a nice, smooth gradient between cool and warm, though it would be fun to design a temperature-controlled tap that cranks open the hot water as the water heater tank is drained.
They've been out for a while. Expensive, and I don't remember the name, but they are there. My shower has "scald control" so if someone flushes a toilet nearby the temperature doesn't change, but I don't think that's what you are after?
Search the usual suspects" Moen, Delta, Kohler, etc.
Well, probably most of us don't see their utility bills as a problem per se but wouldn't mind 50% reduction. And Nest claims to deliver that. Certainly that claim is to be taken with a grain of salt but I don't think that it's a bad idea.
Do they actually claim that? Their page claims that 50% of household energy usage is governed by the thermostat, but they are very careful to avoid any specific claims about how much Nest would reduce this usage.
Assuming the learning algorithm is perfect and always gives the desired temperature, then a saving of 50% means that your desired temperature pattern is 50% cheaper than the temperature pattern you would program with a regular thermostat. That could be true, or it could even be more expensive.
Also, it might be annoying to have a thermostat trying to second guess what temperature you want through a "learning" algorithm, rather than the deterministic temperature you have programmed or adjusted manually.
My guess is that most of the savings come from the auto-away feature that's apparently backed by some sensors (motion detection?). I don't doubt that auto-away could save energy as most people probably don't either care or remember to adjust their thermostats when leaving home.
I don't think that the auto-adjustment really is that much more annoying than programming a regular dumb thermostat. Of course the end result being annoying depends on the algorithm design more than anything else.
They sense three things: (1) light, (2) motion (close-range) (3) motion (wide field/longer range). Presumably if nobody turns on the lights at night or walks past in a while, it decides nobody is home and gradually lets the temperature drift closer to the "nobody is home" range. Then brings it right back up as soon as it senses activity.
It makes sense to start out selling this as just a thermostat, but I wonder how long it'll be before they add a "burglar alarm" module?
I don't know anything about their algorithm, but I highly doubt that it 'guesses' the desired temperature. It looks like it simply records the users preferences based on time of day and day of week, and then tries to mimic those preferences. It will be interesting to see if they also provide a web based interface that allows users to have more direct control over the algorithm (for example hard coding certain scheduled times for the thermostat to turn on or off)
If the house is cooling down while you are away - don't you need more energy to warm it up again than you would use to just sustain the temperature?
I'd say that an 'intelligent' thermostat has greater chance to balance this right than anyone could with a manual adjustments.
No, I don't think so. Go to the extreme and think about leaving for a week or a month - it is quite clearly more efficient to let it cool and then warm it back up again. On a shorter time scale, your house will lose heat at a faster rate when the temperature differential to the outside is higher, so letting the house cool will reduce the rate of energy loss over the time period the house is cooler. The amount of time you are able to leave the heating off while the house cools will compensate for the higher load when you need to heat it up again.
No, there is no "stiction" with thermal loss. It is most efficient to not add any energy (heating or cooling) when you are not at home. That is as long as you do not mind it being too hot or cold when you first get back home.
Every time all winter my wife asks me to get out of bed to go downstairs to change the thermostat that's awkward to use and hard to see in the available light, you can bet I'm going to be thinking about how I could have a Nest and just adjust it from bed using my phone. Combine that with plausible claims of it saving us $100+ a year in energy bills, and this is a very appealing product, IMO.
It could have something to do with power supply. Different countries have different mains voltages. I think it's a lot higher here in the Britain than in the US, which could fry a device like this perhaps.
Usually two wires, often AC mains voltage Live and Load but some newer systems use low voltage. My own house has a thermostat that wirelessly communicates with a receiver near the gas combination boiler (water heating for hot water and radiators). The receiver simply closes an electrical contact to signal heating demand.
Could this have an API? Thinking about it, some neat things could be done. For example, might it be possible to infer from electricity use if somebody is home or not? Also all sorts of fancy remote control options could emerge (Twitter is a must :-)
Pure genius! Just one thing, anyone upgrading from an old mercury switch thermostat will be left with a mercury waste disposal problem. Properly disposing of these can be a real hassle and some not-so-environmentally responsible customers are likely to just chuck them in the trash. Nest could raise the bar of their environmental responsibility another notch by including a postage-paid mailer and some bubble wrap to return your old thermostat to them for proper disposal.
I hope there's an override for auto-away. Imagine going away over Christmas and your pipes freeze because there has been no heating at all...
Not a problem in California where this has been developed but a realistic problem in much of the world.
That's not sufficient for many home designs, though; you may need to keep the interior temperature into the 40s or 50s to keep the pipes in the wall above freezing, depending on the outside temperature and your house design. One reason the default "away" temperature for many thermostats is actually pretty high, like 55 or 60.
True, and just "learning" your regular day-to-day habits would not necessarily inform the system about an absolute lower bound on temperature.
I think the thermostat control problem is harder than I might have given it credit for. Any time you have to learn in a nonstationary environment (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NonstationaryTimeSeries.html), nasty surprises can happen. The future may not look like the past.
Yeah, there are some counter-intuitive things you need to think about with baseboard heat and very cold temperatures in New England. Normally it is just fine and dandy to let your fancy thermostat drop the temps to the high 50s at night except when it is 10 degrees outside - in that case you want to turn up the temperature so you don't freeze your pipes :) Sadly I speak from experience.
The manufacturer mentions that it has a link to the web and can consult weather forecasts. This should allow it to kick the heat on if the forecast calls for freezing weather and your not home.
The first section of their information page (click "Meet the Nest..." in the middle of the landing page) suggests that an absolute min/max temperature range is programmed when the thermostat is first installed.
In addition to being a touch screen it has hard buttons labeled: PROG, MENU, MODE, FAN, and SAVE ENERGY
It is a total disaster. When I went away for vacation this summer I wanted to turn off the daily program and hold at a max of 85. Instead I put it into winter hold mode and it maintained a chilly 62 for the entire week I was away. The WiFi link failed the first day I was away for some reason and the iPhone app happily reported the last temperature it had received as current so I had no hint there was any trouble.
I'm pretty sure my alarm clock's manual is on another continent.
Then again, it doesn't take me a manual to figure out the "mode" button cycles between showing seconds, day of the week, time in both current and configured secondary time zone, and time and date in secondary time zone. I'm sure it could be made much more user friendly, material efficient, durable, and affordable with a touchscreen.
I've had that particular problem with an old thermostat before. No wifi or anything, but when the batteries would run out, it would get stuck into AC mode, no matter the previous settings. Getting back from vacation was like a meat locker. It seems weird that the "failure" mode of these things seems to be make the plants think it's winter.
This is interesting. I've been involved in home automation for about 15 years now, and HVAC controls are one of the top things to control in most systens.
Occupancy sensing is also extremely difficult to do passively in any kind of reliable scenario, especially when your occupancy sensor is limited to a single location in the house.
I've frequently seen two broad categories around regulating HVAC systems:
1) People keep a fairly regular schedule, and a standard 7-day programmable thermostat works sufficiently.
2) People keep a very non-regular schedule, and a standard programmable thermostat doesn't work, nor is there any inferable pattern to their home/away schedule.
In case #2, it is usually more beneficial to get home/away status from something with a more direct output eg: a burglar alarm system, vehicle presence detectors in the garage (photobeams), status of lights, etc.
I'll be very curious to see what the real-world reactions are to the Nest thermostat. If they can come up with some truly creative solutions it could be a really cool device.
From what's on the website it looks like they're trying to learn largely from user feedback of the "I wanted it cooler/hotter" variety. Agree that this will be a problem in case #2, without good occupancy sensing, because the prediction problem is inherently impossible to do well with only time-of-day-and-week if there isn't much regularity.
I would guess the real target audience is people who fall into #1 but never get around to programming their thermostat, and maybe don't even have an accurate self-assessment of their home/away or sleep/wake patterns. In particularly warm or cold climates this might also include people who make wrong guesses about latency, e.g. how early before they return the heater needs to kick on for it to be comfortable by the time they get home. I could see it being useful in that case: there's a regular enough pattern to infer a reliable heating/cooling schedule, but the person doesn't want to, or isn't able to manually program that pattern.
Why not setup a system that detects the presence of your Bluetooth phone? Perhaps even look for your phone on the wireless network if a sensitive detector is not sufficient?
It would not be a stretch at that point to have a simple website served from the device that let you see the history and choose some basic night/day setback points.
It takes some time to raise/lower the temperature of the house depending on the outside temperature so learning the rate at which the house warms/cools is required to reach the desired set point at the requested time. Including the local weather forecast as a sensor and being able to see a graph of temps and system demand cycles would be really nice.
I would be willing to carry something-er-other in my wallet which would alert my home automation system (which I don't have) to my presence/location in my home. I usually leave my wallet in our bedroom when sleeping, so it would still be accurate at night. My wife might be willing to wear a small ring or something like that, but it would be a harder sell.
The benefits to the phone, you already have it and keeping it charged and in general not forgetting it at home are more or less taken care of.
If I were considering options for additional units to purchase for determining occupancy (perhaps the kids do not have cellphones yet) then a small zigbee type mesh sensor would be ideal. This type of solution would give many options for those with zone based heating and cooling and would lend itself to even more pretty visualizations.
Edit: Getting a post right the first time from a phone is harder than it should be.
I had something a while back... A little script thingy I found online that would lock/unlock my laptop (MBP) based on if it was paired via BT to my phone. The problem with BT occupancy sensing is that the range is kind of limited, so you need several sensors, and the pairing dance that goes with that, it's kind of a hassle.
Why not simply have it get the data from an online API connected to something like Google Latitude or Apple's Find My Friend system? Then you could even have it make decisions when the users are much farther away, e.g. "he's 100 miles away, just keep the house above freezing" or "he's come back within 10 miles, return the house to comfortable levels."
I know some folks who have a heater in their winter cabin they can activate remotely (via text, I think) to turn on before they arrive for the weekend. An automated version of that would be even better.
It would be great if this also supported Z-Wave, Insteon or ZigBee. Z-Wave would probably be more advisable since ADT and a few others are jumping on the Z-Wave protocol.
That's why I like my OmniStat with my OmniPro security/automation system, it can change temp based on security system state (away, night, etc.) And if you still wanted occupancy based learning, it can be done with your security interior motions and Omni programming.
Also the Haiku iPhone app for my Omni just added changing flags in the OmniPro based on iPhone location triggers, this would allow proximity tstat changes if you really wanted that.
I have an OmniProII system, but have scaled back what I am using it for. In many cases though it makes a very nice security, HVAC, automation and audio platform.
This is way too cool. Wonder if the device can actually detect the number of people in the room and adjust the temperature for that room accordingly. Not sure how this will work in age old central heating systems which contain one thermostat for a 10,000 sq ft building.
Some readers complained about the content of the website, I think they are missing the point.
Most people aren't HN minded, they are not really into how Nest learn about your Energy needs. They just want simple and short content that explain in basic words. Nice looking design will give them confidence that this thing works really well.
The Website and the product are very well designed, and this is something that is not quite common in such products. It's really well designed.
That plate looks way too small and square to cover up the holes left by most rectangular thermostats. Look at 0:12 in the intro video, you can see the mounting holes for the "old" device. Interesting that the holes are painted white and have no screws in them.
I'm guessing this will have premium pricing, in which case, are the people who care about shaving a few $100 off their energy bill going to have the forsight, disposable income and knowledge of installation to make the purchase?
Cool looking product, but too many barriers to purchase for my liking.
Preorder price is 250. About 100 bucks more for professional installation. 25 extra for each additional terminal. It doesn't seem too bad ... I was expecting 500 after watching the video.
My biggest concern is installation. I live in a rental, so I will have to uninstall the Nest with me when I leave. They have a nifty video plus compatibility checking app. Will try it when I get home tonight.
I did not see the price. Looking at it now, I'd say it seems nice in relation to the iPhone price point, but remember what this is. It's just a nicer looking thermostat.
The learning functionality is next to useless for most as they're in and out during the day/evening, so it needs constant changing just like a regular thermostat regardless. Effectively, the patterns can't be learnt. My thermostat is beside my front door. I enter my home, I set it, then again before bed and in the morning again. There's not much to it and I wouldn't cede control for $250+$100. $50, yeah. Maybe even $100 for a cool looking, easy to install device. But not $250.
Sure ... I don't think this will be useful for everyone. I've wanted a product like this ever since I went for a 2 week vacation in the middle of winter with the heaters on. I actually had a thermostat at that time but it was too stupid-complicated. The ability to control the heating/cooling system wirelessly, and a UI that doesn't suck are the main selling features for me.
Regarding learning, I don't know if it will work or not. I am also skeptical of their claims. In fact, my worry is that the learning system can't be disabled, and it will start to do stupid things! Then again, it might work ... we'll find out soon :)
It is, if they can truly intelligently control the modes.
In much of the US, we are in that time of year where it can be cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon. A common thermostat on full auto mode will be running the heat in the morning and the A/C in the afternoon. Most people opt to set their thermostat for one mode or the other, usually forgoing the A/C in the afternoon, knowing that it will soon cool back down naturally.
Full HVAC control is one of those things that is really hard to get right with just a mostly passive device like this.
I noticed that the Nest asks you for your zip code. Maybe it uses the Wi-Fi connection to pull weather information so it can make adjustments like this?
You're right, it does check the weather through the Wi-Fi connection:
"Nest uses its Wi-Fi connection to keep an eye on current weather conditions and forecasts so it can understand how the outside temperature affects your energy use."
There's a section in there that talks about switching it from heat to cool when the seasons change. I don't know if that's more of a suggestion to this device or not, but something tells me it's that same damn heat/cool switch.
I wonder if they'll provide an API. Are any companies in this space taking a platform-oriented approach to their domestic gizmos? Someone needs to put my home on the command line.
27. Hardware/software hybrids. Most hackers find hardware
projects alarming. You have to deal with messy, expensive
physical stuff. ...
There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in hardware; you can
often do dramatically new things by making comparatively
small tweaks to existing stuff.
While Nest doesn't fall in the young startup category, Next is still a great example of what you can do with hardware and software, where "the software plays a very visible role." The design speaks for itself, but the magic is in the software---meaning whatever tricks they pulled from AI, machine learning, control theory or other fields.
Of course, "small tweaks" might not be the best way to describe it from the hackers POV, but it makes sense if you're using this device.
"The auto-away feature is based on algorithms that
interpret occupancy sensor data and provide a confidence determination of
whether or not the occupants are away from the home. When the confidence
level is high that occupants are away, the autoEaway feature makes a decision to
override the existing schedule to save additional energy"
it has sensors for movement, temperature, humidity, and light.
Here's what I don't get -- why have the display to begin with? Why can't the whole thing be programmable via API/Web/Mobile App/Watch/Whatever.
Ideally that's what I'd like -- some kind of intelligent device that lives inside of my house that connects to my boiler and AC unit, as well as other major appliances if possible and provides an open API for people to build on top of, and can connect to my router.
If someone wants to make a thermostat that looks like Nest, then, it could be something that you just stick to the wall but requires no direct wiring. But it also means that I never need to buy a new thermostat: if I get tired of the Nest, I can switch it like I can any other app. Or just keep it controlled from my phone or tablet or the web.
My guess is that many consumers have replaced thermostats before and have found the process fairly painless. Or, maybe they understand the idea of replacing one dingus on the wall for another. The idea of cutting wires in one's basement is much scarier. Your suggestion is quite rational but probably hurts sales.
Wattvision is making the 'no display' bet, instead opting for a smartphone webapp, or our full website. Check us out at www.wattvision.com. We're just whole-house energy monitoring, right now.
203 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadEdit: Ah, created by an ex-Apple guy behind iPod and iPhone. No wonder it looks so damn slick.
TC link: http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/24/ipod-godfather-tony-fadell-...
:)
And costs $249.
Please put something on your website that I can read. I do not want to watch a video, and that's all you have, so now I will never learn about your product.
Please don't put a ream of text on your landing page that I have to read in order to learn about your product. I'm a visual person, and the web has not been a text-only medium for quite some time now. Something like a video, relevant pictures, and big bold text will do just fine thanks.
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here. This is actually what I prefer, and I think they did a good job.
I understand what you're saying--nobody wants to land on a stuffy wall of text. But in this case, there's nothing to find but the window dressing. I'm fine clicking on a "find out more" link that takes me to more detail. But that's missing here entirely.
Then if you end up with the living-with-nest page you get a slideshow, video link, clear links to more info, a step by step slick UI describing it, etc.
I'm pretty impressed with the balance of information and usability. If I had to nitpick one thing it would be that the "Meet the Nest Learning Thermostat" link could be a little more obvious (being next to a button hides the fact that it's a link).
It turns out that Nest doesn't have it smack dab on the landing page, but you just need to make the logical (to me) choice of clicking on the "Meet the Nest Learning Thermostat" link and the information is there. Scroll down at your leisure and skim through the text and the illustrations. It's not even one of those annoying PowerPoint-like presentations; you just need to scroll down.
I liked it, a lot.
http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html
"Here's a plain everyday thing that everyone wants to ignore, let's make it a cherished item"
[1] http://www.geberit.co.uk/web/appl/uk/wcmsuk.nsf/pages/prod-a...
How much of their millions in R&D goes toward that?
I love toast.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Kitchen-Home-Supplier-HD2580...
The problem, as I'm sure we're all aware, is that toasters are very slow when you start using them, but if you make three or four rounds of toast one ofter the other, each batch toasts quicker. This smoke detector method solved that problem....
Although I've not seen it on the market, so perhaps it didn't work. But still, a novel idea.
I haven't tested this, but you're probably have issues with e.g. dark rye.
Search the usual suspects" Moen, Delta, Kohler, etc.
Here's one: http://bathroom-kitchen-faucets.com/hot-cold-automatic-senso...
EDIT: No they don't actually claim that, my bad.
$173 in savings in 12 months on an average annual energy bill of $2200.
12.7% in savings over 12 months.
Also, it might be annoying to have a thermostat trying to second guess what temperature you want through a "learning" algorithm, rather than the deterministic temperature you have programmed or adjusted manually.
I don't think that the auto-adjustment really is that much more annoying than programming a regular dumb thermostat. Of course the end result being annoying depends on the algorithm design more than anything else.
It makes sense to start out selling this as just a thermostat, but I wonder how long it'll be before they add a "burglar alarm" module?
1. High utility bills (any solution that saves you money is a solution to a problem)
2. Global warming
Also I wouldn't be surprised if, like the iPod, it didn't come with a manual because it's so easy to use.
Quick, does anyone use their iPad to "store recipes"?
Or perhaps not. I'm just speculating.
1. Should get feedback for actual energy consumption from the meter.
2. Should allow installation of extra sensors that are wirelessly connected to the main unit, in case the main unit is far from the couch/bed.
I was thinking it would be great to have an extra sensor or two that would help detecting the auto away.
I think the thermostat control problem is harder than I might have given it credit for. Any time you have to learn in a nonstationary environment (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NonstationaryTimeSeries.html), nasty surprises can happen. The future may not look like the past.
http://www.radiothermostat.com/filtrete/
In addition to being a touch screen it has hard buttons labeled: PROG, MENU, MODE, FAN, and SAVE ENERGY
It is a total disaster. When I went away for vacation this summer I wanted to turn off the daily program and hold at a max of 85. Instead I put it into winter hold mode and it maintained a chilly 62 for the entire week I was away. The WiFi link failed the first day I was away for some reason and the iPhone app happily reported the last temperature it had received as current so I had no hint there was any trouble.
Perhaps I should upgrade to something with a touchscreen and wifi.
Then again, it doesn't take me a manual to figure out the "mode" button cycles between showing seconds, day of the week, time in both current and configured secondary time zone, and time and date in secondary time zone. I'm sure it could be made much more user friendly, material efficient, durable, and affordable with a touchscreen.
Occupancy sensing is also extremely difficult to do passively in any kind of reliable scenario, especially when your occupancy sensor is limited to a single location in the house.
I've frequently seen two broad categories around regulating HVAC systems: 1) People keep a fairly regular schedule, and a standard 7-day programmable thermostat works sufficiently.
2) People keep a very non-regular schedule, and a standard programmable thermostat doesn't work, nor is there any inferable pattern to their home/away schedule.
In case #2, it is usually more beneficial to get home/away status from something with a more direct output eg: a burglar alarm system, vehicle presence detectors in the garage (photobeams), status of lights, etc.
I'll be very curious to see what the real-world reactions are to the Nest thermostat. If they can come up with some truly creative solutions it could be a really cool device.
I would guess the real target audience is people who fall into #1 but never get around to programming their thermostat, and maybe don't even have an accurate self-assessment of their home/away or sleep/wake patterns. In particularly warm or cold climates this might also include people who make wrong guesses about latency, e.g. how early before they return the heater needs to kick on for it to be comfortable by the time they get home. I could see it being useful in that case: there's a regular enough pattern to infer a reliable heating/cooling schedule, but the person doesn't want to, or isn't able to manually program that pattern.
At $249 though it needs to make some sort of sell that I can recoup more than those costs.
It would not be a stretch at that point to have a simple website served from the device that let you see the history and choose some basic night/day setback points.
It takes some time to raise/lower the temperature of the house depending on the outside temperature so learning the rate at which the house warms/cools is required to reach the desired set point at the requested time. Including the local weather forecast as a sensor and being able to see a graph of temps and system demand cycles would be really nice.
If I were considering options for additional units to purchase for determining occupancy (perhaps the kids do not have cellphones yet) then a small zigbee type mesh sensor would be ideal. This type of solution would give many options for those with zone based heating and cooling and would lend itself to even more pretty visualizations.
Edit: Getting a post right the first time from a phone is harder than it should be.
I know some folks who have a heater in their winter cabin they can activate remotely (via text, I think) to turn on before they arrive for the weekend. An automated version of that would be even better.
Also the Haiku iPhone app for my Omni just added changing flags in the OmniPro based on iPhone location triggers, this would allow proximity tstat changes if you really wanted that.
http://homeauto.com/Products/Omnistat/Omnistat2Products.asp
ZigBee wireless sensors can be built rather cheaply if the intelligent components are centralized on the primary controller.
My boiler has 19 buttons and 3 dials, I just don't have the time to understand it. This I understand.
Most people aren't HN minded, they are not really into how Nest learn about your Energy needs. They just want simple and short content that explain in basic words. Nice looking design will give them confidence that this thing works really well.
The Website and the product are very well designed, and this is something that is not quite common in such products. It's really well designed.
This page (http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html) explain in simple and basic sentences how the device will work out for you. Pretty simple, yet convincing.
Yes, it's missing the hacker part. But I doubt that people are interested in that. I actually wish that more businesses invest in such designs.
Cool looking product, but too many barriers to purchase for my liking.
My biggest concern is installation. I live in a rental, so I will have to uninstall the Nest with me when I leave. They have a nifty video plus compatibility checking app. Will try it when I get home tonight.
The learning functionality is next to useless for most as they're in and out during the day/evening, so it needs constant changing just like a regular thermostat regardless. Effectively, the patterns can't be learnt. My thermostat is beside my front door. I enter my home, I set it, then again before bed and in the morning again. There's not much to it and I wouldn't cede control for $250+$100. $50, yeah. Maybe even $100 for a cool looking, easy to install device. But not $250.
Regarding learning, I don't know if it will work or not. I am also skeptical of their claims. In fact, my worry is that the learning system can't be disabled, and it will start to do stupid things! Then again, it might work ... we'll find out soon :)
In much of the US, we are in that time of year where it can be cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon. A common thermostat on full auto mode will be running the heat in the morning and the A/C in the afternoon. Most people opt to set their thermostat for one mode or the other, usually forgoing the A/C in the afternoon, knowing that it will soon cool back down naturally.
Full HVAC control is one of those things that is really hard to get right with just a mostly passive device like this.
"Nest uses its Wi-Fi connection to keep an eye on current weather conditions and forecasts so it can understand how the outside temperature affects your energy use."
Of course, "small tweaks" might not be the best way to describe it from the hackers POV, but it makes sense if you're using this device.
"The auto-away feature is based on algorithms that interpret occupancy sensor data and provide a confidence determination of whether or not the occupants are away from the home. When the confidence level is high that occupants are away, the autoEaway feature makes a decision to override the existing schedule to save additional energy"
it has sensors for movement, temperature, humidity, and light.
Ideally that's what I'd like -- some kind of intelligent device that lives inside of my house that connects to my boiler and AC unit, as well as other major appliances if possible and provides an open API for people to build on top of, and can connect to my router.
If someone wants to make a thermostat that looks like Nest, then, it could be something that you just stick to the wall but requires no direct wiring. But it also means that I never need to buy a new thermostat: if I get tired of the Nest, I can switch it like I can any other app. Or just keep it controlled from my phone or tablet or the web.
My guess is that many consumers have replaced thermostats before and have found the process fairly painless. Or, maybe they understand the idea of replacing one dingus on the wall for another. The idea of cutting wires in one's basement is much scarier. Your suggestion is quite rational but probably hurts sales.