The up-side of this is that not only will NSA know that someone is home, but what room they are in

Nest Developers Program and Web API
Nest’s Next Product Will Be a Smoke Detector Called Protect

..assuming that the products interact. The smoke detectors could be remote sensors for the thermostat, feeding back both temperatures and occupancy.

I'm very close to pulling the trigger on a natural gas powered emergency generator for my house, since our neighborhood has lots of big trees and above-ground power lines. The newest generation of those generators have Ethernet jacks on them. It would be awfully nice if they could converse with the Nest to maintain a power budget (e.g., don't run both AC zones at once to make sure we stay under the generator's power budget). At least in theory, this API could make such a hack possible. Hmm.

Wow. That's pretty huge news. My primary complaint about the Nest was that it was a completely isolated automation product. It was a thermostat, and it wouldn't interact with any other home automation systems. It made no sense at all to me to have to use separate apps for each automation product in your home. Clearly they're trying to expand into a whole-home system, so that addresses that concern.

The second biggest issue I had with Nest was that aside from remote control and phone apps, I wouldn't have been able to use any of the features that make the product compelling simply for the fact that our thermostat is in a location that nobody ever walks past, so the motion-activated features would be useless. If they can make their smoke detectors act as remote motion sensors, that would be fantastic. However, I question the usefulness of smoke detectors as remote temperature sensors. I want a temp sensor to be lower in the room, not on the ceiling. But it's better than nothing.

The one issue I have with the way Nest does things that I'm not sure they can address is the issue of non-standard schedules. My wife has a 9-5 job, yes, but I do not. I work out of my home, and there is absolutely no set schedule for when I'm in and out of my house. That makes the learning aspect of the system useless, IMO.

I still have BIG questions about this new direction for Nest. The first one is: whole the heck is Control4? I don't know why, but I've never heard of them in all the time I've been into home automation. Perhaps it's because it appears they only work through authorized dealers. Ugh. So I'm guessing it's a proprietary system. How does that work with the API they're releasing? Are they going to integrate with more systems than just Control4? I have a lot of questions about this...

The smoke detectors will have built in lasers for measuring the temperature in various parts of the room....down side is you'll have to wear protective glasses all the time....

I'm interested to see where this is going, and how affordable it will be. Given how well the Nest sold, they got the pricing right with the masses.

But if I run the smoke machine so I can watch the beams scan the room, won't that set off the smoke detector? Clearly they didn't think this through.

No, you didn't read the fine print. They offer a filter kit for the sensors so you can use colored smoke and not trip the alarm.

tanstaafl.

I imagine that they use IR cameras, just like you find in those $40 temperature guns. The laser is just for aim. The camera is what's doing the work. I don't know how many cameras they might use per thermostat, but it's interesting to think about, since this would be potentially quite helpful in sorting out which rooms are getting too much or not enough air. I've run around my house tweaking with the vents to try to balance things, but this could let me get things more accurate.

Dan, do you have a "Cycle" mode on your current thermostat? It might help make things more comfortable in your house.

I certainly know what it's like to keep opening and closing vents.

I'm still a little uncertain what the deal is with this Control4 company. I have no idea what kind of tech they're using...

Nest has an option to run the fan without running the AC or heat. That chews up a bunch of power. I decided it was easier to just spend a bunch of time walking back and forth and monkeying with dampers until the rooms started to feel the same.

Does it say how much power that consumes? I wouldn't think it would be too much if the AC isn't running as well.

I'd forgotten that you already had the Nest.

Depends on the blower size. Figure a half-horsepower motor in a larger house, perhaps, drawing 5A @ 120V. That's 500-600W.

And it is live:
http://www.nest.com/blog/2013/10/08/meet-the-nest-protect-smoke-and-co-alarm/
Still trying to figure out how much use the thermostat will make of having additional sensors in the house - so far the only integration point I've picked up on is that the smoke alarm will use the thermostat to connect to the outside world....I hope there is a lot more.

My house is going to need seven of these things (gulp) but I decided to go for it. The killer feature, if you're somebody who cooks and occasionally smokes up the kitchen, is that it will give you a "heads up" and you can walk over and wave your hand to silence it. No loud alarm.

The other great feature is that I'll never have to replace 9V batteries again. It seems that once every year or two, usually when the temperature first gets chilly in the fall, all the fire alarms in the house will start chirping at 2am. This is deeply annoying. With the new Nest, this problem goes away. (Presumably, there's a rechargeable lithium battery in there, and it charges from the 120V wires that my house already has for its original fire alarm.)

Interestingly, not only will you get notifications to your phone, but they'll also directly contact the fire department for emergencies. This suggests that a future feature might be a burglar alarm, since each smoke detector is also now a motion detector. The only missing piece of hardware to add would be some sort of cellular data path in case the landline is cut.

Amusing note from the Nest Protect's user manual: Nest Protect has a limited life like any smoke/ CO alarm. Nest Protect lifetime is 7 years. You will need to replace Nest Protect after 7 years with a brand new Nest Protect. Check the date of replacement written on the back of Nest Protect.

It appears that, when it "expires" it chirps once a minute -- annoying the hell out of you until you replace it.

Three in the hardwired version version, and six in the non-hardwired version.

Given that the data path is through the internet, you'll need a dual-WAN router, with failover to 3G/4G...

Digging a bit deeper, there will also soon be something called "Nest Protect for Security Systems". Quote:

Nest Protect for Security Systems will be available in the first half of 2014.

This Nest Protect model is similar to the Nest Protect (Battery), but engineered to connect with existing security system control panels.

Nest Protect for Security Systems requires professional installation and will be available through the Nest Certified resellers.

Who knows whether they're planning to compete with them as well. I don't know, but I'd be happy to decommission my current home alarm system for something with Nest levels of spit and polish.

One last note: yee olde smoke and carbon monoxide detector, the fancy interconnectable ones, seem to cost all of $45/ea. The cheap fire-only ones that my builder installed seem more like $15/ea. Once again, Nest is charging significant more than "equivalent" products, but is getting away with it by virtue of building a better experience all around.

Good introduction video.


Product page also indicates the units all link together wirelessly on their own over 802.15.4. No need for working WiFi to still have the multi room notifications. WiFi is for setup, and for the mobile notifications integration.

Nest Protect for Security Systems is coming in 2014 (Integrates with other security systems). http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Nest-Protect-for-Security-Systems

And hoping everyone is bad at math, too.
The Nest has a battery that renders the unit useless after 6-7 years. The $45 simpler ones last for decades.

Seven years from now, I'm hoping they'll be better and cheaper in a bunch of ways to at least partially justify the "you've got to be kidding me" pain of replacing them.

CO detectors tend to have a lifespan of 2-7 years. Smoke detectors about 10. Replacement is advised after those times due to needing a newer sensor. Same applies for the Nest detector. It's not tied to battery life.

CO detector lifespan from two manufacturers:
http://www.kidde.com/customerservice/pages/replacecoalarmsevery7years.aspx
http://www.firstalert.com/faqs/co-alarm/...a-co-alarm-last

Smoke detector recommendation from fire marshals citing the 10 year recommendation:
https://www.firemarshals.org/rfsi/smokealarmfacts.html

10 years seems to have been picked based on historical failure rates. 3% fail in 10 years to detect properly. Out to 20 years and it jumps to 46% (Based on a Minnesota study, also referencing a study by the Ontario Canada Housing Corporation. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/sfm/public-...replacement.pdf )

If this is just a fancy smoke alarm, then it is over-priced. If they are not extending the capabilities of the Thermostat it is a disappointment, but they are, ever so slightly, so I suspect they will add onto that in the future, but who knows.

Thermostats are not sexy, but they got plenty of regular folks to pay $249 for them, and neither are smoke & co2 alarms, but I expect many folks will pony up $129 for them, but is seven really necessary? Dan, do you have a sprawling ranch, or are you sticking one in every bedroom?

Every Nest smoke detector has a motion detector, which is then used to feed into the "Auto-Away" aspect of the Nest thermostat. Also, if the carbon-monoxide detector alarms, it tells the thermostat to turn off the gas furnace. That's actually pretty cool. What's interesting to me is the whole house integration (e.g., "smoke detected in the kitchen" being announced throughout the house) as well as the integration with the app (e.g., a push notification to your phone that an alarm has sounded).

Why do I need 7 of them? My house was built in 2007. It's got four bedrooms, each with its own smoke detector. There are two more in various hallways, and one downstairs around the corner from the kitchen. I assume that it was some sort of building code that led the builder to install so many of them. I figure, if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right and see how well it works.

I see the cost differently I suppose. We've been promised "smart homes" of the future. To get there, someone has to actually build that smart piece. And yep, at first the cost is going to be higher.

Investments in the future cost money. Had people before me decided to not pay a bit over a million for their computer, I wouldn't have a 64 bit pocket computer today that happens to make phone calls.

I installed AC hardwired smoke detectors during the last heavy renovation. They are all wired together as part of the standard 3-conductor AC wiring scheme outlined in the installation instructions. When any one of them triggers, they all sound. I think this has become almost standard now.

Apparently most fires do not cause the AC power to fail, at least not on the circuit powering the detectors. By the time the wiring has been burned through, the people should be long evacuated. Batteries go dead much more often than AC failures coincident with unexpected fire events.

I note that the built-in Lithium battery powered smoke detectors have enough energy to run for the rated 10-year life span, at which time they start beeping to demand their retirement from service.

Yeah, and when one of them is regularly falsing at 3am, only one or two nights a year, that design means you can't tell which one falsed and needs replacing. :-)

I disconnected the inteconnection wires on them all and sure enough, one of them falsed, just one, and I finally replaced it. :-)

That's why they have a "test button". We have three smoke detectors here, all of which are 25-30 years old, and all of which still detect burnt toast just fine.

Cost was about $15 each at the time.

Well, from the Silhouette Operating Manual is says that you can tell them apart. Mind you at 3AM I might not remember what each flashing LED combo means either.

To be fair, on most any smoke detector, the test button will verify that the battery is alive and can power the speaker. It won't necessarily verify that the various sensors are operating at their original specifications.

Given that you can buy bulk packs of standard detectors for very reasonable prices, there's very little reason not to follow the fire marshall's ten year replacement recommendation. The obvious analogy is replacing your engine oil on a regular schedule, rather than waiting for something more expensive to go wrong.

That's certainly not what the test button does on the detectors we have here. When pushing the button, there's a short, noticeable delay, before the alarm is activated. That's because it really is testing the sensor, not just the (duh) battery and beeper.

These things are hazardous radioactive waste, and should not be disposed of on a whim before their useful lifespan is up. Doing so would be just like changing one's automobile oil every 2000miles (as huge numbers of wasteful people do), instead of every 5000-8000miles as recommended by the manufacturer.

In the case of smoke detectors, and lots of other "consumer goods", the maker has a vested interest in getting us to buy more, and more often, than needed. And thanks to the USA they're also far too paranoid about getting sued over defective units which expire earlier than usual. Thus the recommendations to be more wasteful than necessary.

Cheers

My situation was worse than that.

First of all, it wasn't that particular model of smoke alarm, so I'm not sure it had that LED-blinky feature at all. My house has much cheaper models that the contractors installed. It was still a Kidde brand, just a different model line. I don't remember anything in my research about light blink patterns, and I did a lot of research when I encountered the issue initially. (Other than the low-battery indicator blink pattern, which wasn't the case here.)

The worse problem was: According to that quote you cited, the blink pattern only shows during the alarm itself. My alarms would false at 3am for approximately 10 seconds, enough to wake us up and give us heart attacks, then they would stop and everything would be back to normal like nothing happened. So if there was a blink pattern, I would never have seen it.

It took a couple of years for me to realize how to do something about the issue. Since the issue was so rare, and the diagnosis so tricky. Finally digging into the wires and realizing that I could safely remove the interconnect wires from all the harness plugs was the trick.

How is it testing the sensor?

Everything I've ever seen and heard backs up what Dan said. The test button on detectors (smoke and CO) simply tests that the unit has power, and the alarm speaker functions. Actual alarm testing requires real smoke or CO to be present.

The behavior you see when there is a delay is intentional, caused by a timed relay. This is to allow time to press the button and move away, to avoid being right next to the alarm when it sounds. Not all alarms have this feature though.

You seem to know a lot about what's inside the smoke detectors here. Except there's no relay, no click, and the test ends as soon as the button is released. And it really does test the sensor.

Some detectors "test buttons" work by inserting a barrier between the emitter (radioactive or otherwise) and sensor, thereby simulating smoke.

The ones here don't do that. Instead, pushing the button activates some circuitry under the sensor, which emits something (particles, smoke?) similar to what the sensor is looking for, causing it to flag an alarm. I cannot see exactly what that is, because it's inside the same assembly as the sensor itself, and I don't want to destroy by opening it up.

However, if I provide airflow across the sensor, then pushing the test button no longer triggers it, indicating that the particles/whatever it generates, are being dispersed before they can trigger the sensor. This "works" whether the air is room temperature, or from a heat gun.

Oh, and the ultimate test: "burnt toast detection" also still works fine.

Cheers

So.. googling for the model number (WNW777DC-A), I found a link which suggests it is a rebranded "Family Guard FG888D". The user manual for that device, says it works using "ionization technolgy." So I imagine the test circuit generates some of the appropriate "ions" for it to detect.

On a related note: anybody know how to de-Googlify a Google search result? The link above is shrouded in googlisms, and I really just wanted to post the true link to the maker's manual. How to do that?

Edit: found a Firefox plug-in for it.

Thanks.

And here's a page which explains some of the "ionization technology" used in smoke detectors, including in the $4.89 Walmart version of the one I have here:

http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/cwillis/rad/smoke.html

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_detector#Ionization

W says "A self-test circuit simulates an imbalance in the ionization chamber and verifies the function of power supply, electronics, and alarm device." .. but doesn't elaborate on how it "simulates an imbalance."

You didn't notice me taking one down to look at during the visit last year?

I have an extended family member who works in the industry, so some of my information here may be more specific to his brand of detectors. They also mostly specialized in CO detectors which did have pretty terrible useful lifespans early on. 7 years now is a big jump over the initial 2 years for CO sensors.

I did find this to explain what the test button does on an ionizing detector such as yours. http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/24552/what-happens-when-you-test-a-smoke-detector There is also the lawyered up description in the patent for one method of testing these types of detectors. http://www.google.com/patents/US4456907

I believe your test results using moving air over the sensor may be due to this note later in the Wikipedia article comparing ionizing to phtotelectric smoke detectors:


Clearly the burnt toast test is proving something still works for yours though.

That's a good link, but not quite right for the detector here. On this one, pressing the switch closes a contact, rather than opening one. So perhaps the circuit has a reverse bias to that on the link you found.

The nice thing about this kind of detector, is that it is all solid state, apart from the radioactive emitter bit. So nothing to gum up or fail. If the radioactive emitter itself fails, the alarm should go off. But with a half life of hundreds of years, I think this detector has quite a bit of life in it yet.

Cheers

Hundreds of years? I'm not doubting it, but that would seem an odd choice bearing in mind the waste issue. Don't suppose you know what nuclide it is?

Peter

Thoughts:

- $129 is pretty steep, especially for newer homes like Dan's where there are a lot of detectors. However...

- I really like that it's a combination sensor. To combine heat, light, and motion into one sensor alone is pretty impressive. I know the price seems pretty steep, but I haven't seen a sensor that does those three things alone for less than $75, and this is also a smoke/CO sensor, which doesn't exist for any other HA systems for some reason.

- Isn't the current advice to use smoke detectors that use photoelectric AND ionization sensors?

- I love that it will hush with the wave of a hand. The oven in our old place made that a very desirable feature.

- These smoke alarms mostly eliminate one of my primary issues: that many people have thermostats in locations that they never walk by, so the motion sensor feature was useless up until now.

- I still don't think the "learning" feature would be worth anything for me, as my schedule is completely unpredictable.


I do think this is an exciting development, but I don't like that it's still very proprietary. We just don't know enough about where they're going with this whole thing yet, and that makes me a little cautious about going with their products yet. Like I keep saying, I have no idea who these Control4 people are, or how they fit into what Nest is doing. That's a big deal for me, because the most important part of HA for me is lighting control, and I don't know how Nest plans to work that into their system.

Nest is a really cool product, but I tend to like having a lot more control over my HA, and their focus is on making everything happen on its own. I suppose that fits more with the definition of "automation," but it's not really what I'm looking for.

The Wikipedia article suggests that americium-241 is commonly used, with a half-life of 432 years. Apparently banned for smoke detectors in parts of Europe, and for that very good reason.

Clearly, they're doing a lot of their engineering with an eye toward the future. The original Nest thermostat had an 802.15.4 antenna, and it was unused. Now, it's used to integrate with these smoke detectors.


By itself, I agree. Combined with a truly viable auto-away system, however, and it starts getting interesting. If these smoke detectors have a good idea that you're gone, then the thermostat can respond.


I'll be curious to see if other HA vendors start supporting the Nest APIs. I'll also be curious to see what Nest has planned next. The three obvious choices are door locks, light switches, and home alarm systems. All get away from their one-size-fits-all product strategy. There are tons of different lock designs, and there are a staggering diversity of different light switches, never mind that any attempt to really rethink light switches should also include rethinking the lights themselves, now that some lights can change color. Home alarm systems are probably the most likely next step. If you've got enough motion sensors around the house, then you don't really need window open / breakage sensors. All you need is a cellular outbound data path as well as some clever new way to figure out when to arm and disarm the alarm system. (Maybe integration with fancy new door locks?)

Actually, I'm not sure it is. I believe they use the wifi for that, based on talking with the nest guys in the pub last week. Seems that the zigbee chip they asked me to design into the original nest is useless

(I was ribbing them about their prehistoric wifi setup method, and asking why the nest protects couldn't get the wifi setup information over zigbee from the thermostat)

Interesting. At least my WiFi will continue to connect everything together.

That's a big mistake. From personal experience, WiFi coverage in people's homes isn't always very good. Is ZigBee a mesh protocol like zwave is? That's the strongest part of the zwave system, that all the devices can talk to each other. I have many issues with zwave, but that's the best aspect.

Zigbee does mesh, yes, but if your devices are battery powered, they won't improve the mesh - they'll just be leaves. The power consumption to be a zigbee router node (or whatever it's called) is not compatible with being battery powered.

Nest protect is also not really Zigbee, or anything else standard, from what I hear. It uses an 802.15.4 radio, but so do lots of things.

In any modestly recent construction, fire alarms should have AC power behind them, allowing the Nest Protects to set up a proper mesh network amongst themselves, whether or not they also mesh with the Nest Thermostat. In my house, I've got good WiFi coverage everywhere, but in houses without that but with enough fire alarm density, the mesh network should do the job.

Curious thought: these Nest Protects have all the necessary hardware to become WiFi APs, possibly spreading service throughout a house using the mesh network as a backhaul.

Indeed a curious thought, have you seen the type of bandwidth you get on 802.15.4?

Yep, I'm sure the powered ones do some sort of meshing, and the unpowered ones may also get in on the action in case of an actual alert situation - might as well use that battery up before it's toast, eh?

I'm not sure if you guys saw Revolv on The Verge, so I'll post it here. Looks like a good solution for bridging the void between these various home automation products (which has been my main complaint about all of them so far).

But it's irrelevant to me because they don't support Android. Ugh.

*edit*
And when I say various, I mean Nest and Hue and all those new siloed automation products, as well as ZWave, Zigbee, and Insteon. That's the part that got me listening...until I saw they don't care about me...

Just spit ballin' here:
Given that the Nest Protects are hardwired (yes, I'm ignoring the pure battery ones) could they run ethernet over powerline in addition to the smoke alarm to smoke alarm communication. Then the Nest Protect with the strongest wireless signal would bridge with that network and the other Protects would be come wireless access points.

Having said all that, it would be a shift away from the core product offering, and likely increase the number of support calls, for minimal gain in revenue.

Double or nothing: whole-home audio support! Build in a modest class-D stereo amp chip and you could rig the Nest Protects to support in-ceiling speakers. Support Apple Airplay and/or whatever other standards are out there.

Google to Acquire Nest

$3.2B in cash? Nest must have a lot in the pipeline beyond the current thermostat, smoke alarm, and coming alarm system integration...

Odd. The first time my thermostat or smoke detector tries to share stuff on Google+, I'm done with them.

I hope Hugo got paid

You are OK with Google knowing how you live, what your life patterns are inside your own home?

With occupancy sensors in multiple rooms, including the sleeping areas and kitchen, this feels something like an in-home panopticon.

I'm not really okay with that either. But I'm not paranoid about it. I appreciate the benefits Nest has brought me in the past. Assuming those continue, I simply see the Google buyout as one enabling Nest to continue on.

Google's ad business and push into G+ bothers me more, simply because I've detached most of the other Google hooks into my life. They've been minimal anyhow, as I never really trusted them with my e-mail, documents or much else.

My two times of trying to adopt Android creeped me out too much to ever want to go back. Mostly because their engineering focus has them blind to the privacy issues at times, not out of malice to spy on everything I do. (well, outside spying to provide me "relevant ads").

Which reminds me. If my future Nest ever pops up an ad for an air conditioner on it's screen, that would also be a breaking point.

Yeah, that would be very weird.





I don't see what they, Nest or Google, would have to gain from such sharing.

That was my first thought when I saw the number, too.

I'm not going to argue with the Google privacy fear, which has been the main reaction to this news. I know your minds are set on that issue.

But I'd appreciate if anyone could take a break from that usual tune to discuss the potential positives of this acquisition. It would be refreshing. I'll start:

As a home automation enthusiast, I never once considered getting a Nest thermostat or smoke detector. I thought they were great products, but it didn't fit into my vision of home automation. I saw Nest as part of the obnoxious trend of recent home control gadgets that were siloed off from each other and had no way of speaking to one another. That isn't home automation to me.

I admit, I have no way of knowing whether this acquisition will change any of this, but I have more confidence that Google might make home automation products more accessible to the end consumer than any other company before them. So far the market has been a mess.

I guess the question is if google/nest will follow and adopt the emerging industry standards or go their own way.

Matt, what is your vision of home automation?

My vision is that if you want to automate your home, all of the parts need to be able to talk to each other. The Nest could not (and still can't).

It's the same with WeMo, Hue, and every other recent "home automation" product we've seen.


I really have no idea. I'm not sure what would be the best route, either. The existing standards all have their own problems.

What I'd love to see is for Google to make a new, unencumbered standard that anyone can use (like Android). License fees seem to hurt the prices of devices based on current standards, but I don't have anything to back that up...

When Google creates stuff it can still have 'encumbrances'. One is that Google later loses interest and subsequently shuts down or abandons the effort.

Another is that the standard is so 'open' that multitudes of variations and not-quite-compatible sub-standards appear.

It can be quite difficult to create a well rounded and substantive standard that is not reliant on a specific funding model. Would Google have interest in a standard which did not allow Google to peer into the data?

We like standards, but 'we' often want them to be 'free' (that is, somebody else is paying for the creation, maintenance and future proofing of said standard).

That's all true, but here's the thing: someone has to do it, and why not Google?

The fact is, there are already several standards for home automation. I use ZWave, but there's also Insteon, Zigbee, X10, and others. None of these standards talk to each other, but they've lasted as long as they have because enough companies have created products around each standard to outfit a home to the extent that people are happy with.

We might as well give Google a try here, because the current trend is to create businesses around a product and not a standard. When that happens, the path to an automated home full of products that talk to each other is slowed or blocked completely.

Don't get me wrong, I have very little optimism that Google can pull this off. It's going to be a HARD thing to do. But there has to be some way to integrate the products in this space because it's only then that you can do some really cool things with this stuff.

Aye, there's the rub. Most of the negative press about the buyout is precisely in answer to that question. The negative opinion states that Google is the last company you want to be exposing your privacy to. Here is a well-stated opinion piece on that topic. I'm unsure whether I agree or disagree with that opinion yet.

Given that it appears Tony has been told he can continue to run his own ship, I don't see them adopting anyone else's standard; the fact that there's little else convincing out there supports this position. Making their own though, is another thing.

In the Verge interview with nest's Matt (the one in the fire truck) he clearly hinted that they were working on integrating other devices into the nest "ecosystem" (hue bulbs were mentioned); this sounds like integration up at an API level like others are doing - Revolv, Zonoff, etc - vs direct device to device. Personally I think that's the best way to go anyway, because you stand a chance of building something that actually works with a decent number of devices.

...and yes, I got stock for my work. Very happy about how that worked out, which was a long way beyond my wildest dreams. Of course, if I'd joined I would have done a lot better, but then I wouldn't have had all this fun working on electric imp

Yes, I fully realize that. It's been impossible to miss because that's ALL that people are talking about with this. That's why I wanted to take a break from that privacy scare stuff to talk about how this could play out in some sort of positive way. I'm bored of the privacy scare stuff. Really, how much can we say about it? At some point people are just going to have to deal with the fact that the company got bought and it's done. Lets move on.

When I asked "why not Google," it was to ask who might be interested in creating something that addressed those concerns I raised earlier. Everyone is saying that the company that should have bought Nest was Apple. Yeah, like the product couldn't have gotten any more siloed that it already was.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but Revolv isn't working with an API. They're basically hoping that Hue, Nest, and the others, don't break their product. It's a bit of a crap shoot.

I should have clarified this point, too. When I said there should be a standard, I should have said that I'd be fine if that standard was basically cobbling together a bunch of APIs from the various companies. But it didn't seem like these guys were that interested in doing that. And Nest joining Hue didn't excite me because that's still extremely limited.

Revolv has the right idea, but it still has very limited support. I've checked, and most of my ZWave modules and switches are not supported by their product, not to mention that they don't even have an Android app yet. Just because they say they support ZWave doesn't mean it's anywhere near FULL support.

Then you have efforts like CoAP.

When has Google made or used an unencumbered standard, and stuck to it without restrictions? Based on Google's past behavior, I'd answer no to K447's question.

Google's track record is not a good one in this regard. So even dismissing the privacy concerns, how does Google regain the trust on the standards side to be able to push forward with a home automation one? Why would the community trust Google when the next version of the standard could just pull something critical from the open side, screwing over say Hue (similar to how Google continues to pull stuff from the ASOP side and bring it into the Google Licensed side of Android).

Well, depending on what you mean by "unencumbered", there's the VP9 video codec. That does have a pretty extensive IP portfolio backing it (as do the video standards coming out of the MPEG group), but it's open and royalty-free (unlike the standards coming out of the MPEG group). Whether or not Google will eventually abandon VP9, like they did VP8, I couldn't say, as H.265 doesn't (yet) have the same dominance that VP8's competition, H.264, did when VP8 was released.

They also developed SPDY, which is being used as the starting point for the HTTP 2.0 standard.

And they certainly use HTML5.

So, off the top of my head, there are three unencumbered standards that Google has made, contributed to, or used. They're also members of the Open Handset Alliance, which develops a lot of standards being used in Android (that are open for use in non-Android phones, too).

So, it's not impossible.

But I do think it's unlikely. I think Nest is going to go the same route as other home automation brands. Their stuff will work with their stuff, and they're not interested in being "integrated" into a system filled with a bunch of NIH devices.

Agreed this is an area where they seem to be on the right path by trying to compete instead of catch up. Though the VP8 history looks bad for VP9 to work out. Mozilla bought into the message Google preached about VP8. Google then never followed through with dumping H.264 from Chrome, which ended up hindering VP8 adoption and widespread use. Having Google owned Motorola sue and lose over standards essential H.264 patents also didn't help.


Ooo, thanks for that reminder. I had forgotten about SPDY, and hadn't realized HTTP 2.0 is based off it. This could be promising if Google's work continues to be migrated to a proper unencumbered standards organization.


They do, but they also actively embraced Flash inside Chrome and Android, just to spite Apple's own HTML 5 efforts with the iPad. I still don't trust Google in this realm. Especially since today I still can't play videos on Google+ inside Firefox properly. (also related to the VP8 issue above).

Personally, I just hope Google exits this blind rage mode they seem to be in, striking out at their big competitors in negative ways. It reminds me too much of Microsoft's behavior. The rivalry between Google and Facebook seems to be very unhealthy for Google. To the point it's lead to the negative reaction of them buying Nest. I can see lots of potential positive from it, especially considering the design angle Nest brings.

Hopefully it works out in a positive way. And congrats to Hugo for getting a small piece of that payout, it's well deserved

Internet of Things: The "Basket of Remotes" problem

Exactly. This is what is bothering me so much about the current trends in this space. These products have great marketing and design, and often have better ideas than the products that came before them. But they don't work together, which minimizes what we're able to do with a whole-home system.

There have been some efforts to get these things to work together, but it's mostly through hacks or IFTTT. I love IFTTT, but it's too slow and limited.

Hue published their API and I believe nest finally did too (or at least they are working with partners on an API). I don't believe this is all reverse-engineered stuff.

Published API can be deprecated or abandoned.

...which then upsets your customers. What's your point there?

Even a published and currently supported API is only as reliable as the company(s) providing it. Which is nothing new, of course.

It is unclear where or how a decent set of reasonably long-term interoperable standards will evolve in this space. The long term part is hard since home automation equipment tends to be adopted and used over many years.

That X-10 is still around could be viewed as testament to how slowly the wider consumer home automation space moves.

Perhaps Google + Nest will surprise me and create something durable that can outlast Google's direct interest and support.

I'm glad to hear that these companies have finally published their APIs. Excellent. Honestly, that would mostly take care of one of the two big issues I have with recent automation devices.

I don't want to continue my negativity, but I still have issues with the direction these recent systems are taking. It's still a bit of a mess to get all these disparate systems working together. For one, you're going to end up with multiple controller modules. If you want to control those Hue lights you still need the Hue controller, for example. The Rovolv talks to that controller, not the lights.

Second, unless I'm missing something, all the commands have to be sent over the internet. This seems pretty slow to me. I'd be interested in seeing a full setup and how responsive it would be. The goal of ZWave was to have a protocol that responded instantly and without fail (it's the entire reason I switched from X10 to ZWave). The speed with which this happens can be impressively fast, and doesn't depend on WiFi, which much of these new devices do.

Lastly: cost. This is still a huge obstacle to home automation adoption. In fact, it's even worse now. The Nest is about twice as expensive as other HA thermostats, and the Hue bulbs will bankrupt you if you wanted to outfit your whole home with them. High prices have always been a problem with HA. I only afforded the equipment I have because of a radio shack firesale.

All I'm trying to say is that everyone is acting like Google buying Nest was the worst thing in the world. My counter is that Nest wasn't going to be the company to bring home automation to the masses on their own. It just wasn't going to happen. Why not see if Google can do something in this space?

I also find it humorous that it seems like most of the people freaking out over the acquisition are Nest owners but not home automation enthusiasts, and they're the ones saying how bad this is for home automation. I'll be the first person to say that home automation is in a terrible place right now, and I want to see if someone can do it right. I don't know if Google is that company, but this market has been around for decades without someone getting it right, so lets give them a freaking chance.

Being one of these people, it's been because I wanted to wait. I was a PDA (Palm, iPaq) enthusiast, but saw the nightmare that were smartphones pre 2007. Waiting got me the iPhone. Waiting on home automation got me the Nest. Sure, both were expensive. But because I didn't buy into the bad marketplace before, my TCO for a smartphone, or home automation just for a thermostat was still lower then many people. And I voted for my wallet on what I saw as a superior clean start to the issues in both markets.

I also have the living situation of being in and out of various apartments over the past few years. Installing a Nest thermostat was easy. Trying to install all the automation stuff at every location would have not been worth it to me. Once I have a more settled place again, then maybe.

I'll wait and see how the Google deal turns out. I just don't hold much hope of it being some sort of magical solution in the space. If Google leaves Nest alone for the most part but lets them tap into more resources of the mothership, then perhaps it will work out. But if Google tries to shove Nest into the ad revenue category that the rest of the company operates at, it's game over for me. I prefer to pay for products, not be the product sold.

I get all of what you're saying, but I also don't understand the assumption that Nest was going to turn into a complete home automation company that could hand you all the tools you needed for...well...an automated home.

That's what bothers me here. It was already clear that Nest had no intention of doing that. They were partnering up with a systems integration company. If you thought installing past home automation products in your various apartments was difficult, Nest didn't have a plan to improve that for you. If anything, it would be worse because you'd have to hire a company to do it for you, pay their overhead, and rely on whatever solution they installed for you.

Again, I have no idea what Google is going to do with Nest. I only have a small idea of what Nest would have done on their own, and it wasn't what you seem to be thinking, though I may not understand what you were expecting out of them.

By the way, I want to address one more thing about the Nest: it just doesn't work for everyone.

We've talked about this before. To sum up: I have a completely erratic schedule and never leave or return at the same time. When I am home I'm the only one there, and I spend most of the day in front of a computer. Lastly, my thermostat is in the least busy area of the house (the dining room, where nobody ever walks through).

This means that the Nest isn't a choice for me, and at best the only way I could use it would mean I'd have to buy at least one Nest Protect for my office to show it I was home.

That's a PITA. You know what's easy? Tapping a single button when I leave, and another one when I come back. Actually, I have an NFC tag outside my home that adjusts the temperatures for away mode. I have another tag in my car that I tap when I'm heading home so it can set comfortable temps. This way my thermostat is immediately stopping (I'm not wasting time ramping it down), I have precise control over my home/away schedule, and - most importantly - every other part of my automated home is controlled at the same time. That tag outside my house turns off all the lights and makes certain the door is locked, for example.

I'm glad you voted with your money and waited for the Nest. In the meantime, I was enjoying years of having a home full of lights I could control from my couch as easily as I could from Europe. If I'd waited for a fancy thermostat, I'd still be waiting on those lights.

*edit*
BTW, I'm not sure what moving around had to do with waiting for the Nest. Every other thermostat that integrates with home automation wires in exactly like a Nest. If anything, the Nest is a more difficult thermostat to swap into a rental property due to its shape...

The security aspects of externally (Internet) controlled and/or monitored home equipment and devices is a largely under appreciated issue.

I found this article to provide an informed perspective. Bruce has been providing thoughtful and deep insight on security related matters for many years.

How the ongoing provision of security updates and enhancements to the multitudes of in-home connected devices is going to be funded and actually delivered (enforced, almost) is an open question.

Perhaps these devices need to have two part funding. You buy the thing, but the thing only works if you subscribe to a service that maintains and updates it. The service needs to actually provide good security/service or the affected devices will develop negative reputations and the users or device manufacturers will shop elsewhere.

And somebody needs to be able to audit the actual security as implemented in those devices and updates. All this has costs. The Internet of things seems to be very much not 'easy' to build properly.

It is not only the (home) user that is affected by breached security. For example, large scale botnets exist primarily because there are so many computers, and now other devices, that were unable to resist being compromised. Those botnets are an actual force in the real world, affecting real users and costing real money.

Up to now most of the compromised devices on the Internet were (presumably) Windows computers. Perhaps as the population of attackable routers and other 'smart' devices continues to expand it will be profitable to compromise and conscript these routers, Nests and other plastic devices.

The compute power inside these things may seem modest, but the average compute power will increase as Moores Law progresses, and legions of such conscripts can provide sufficient parallel computation to be worth pursuing. Since these things tend to be powered and connected 24/7 and their activity largely goes unmonitored, they seem ideal for conscript purposes.

Bitcoin itself is in part threatened by the mining of coins at scale using 'stolen' computing cycles

A recent malware attack which locks computer users out of their own data until a ransom is paid (via bitcoin) highlights the potential for compromised security on a device to become a real monetary cost.

Indeed, the archaic wiring system used for HVAC is a problem. Adapting an ancient hard wired 5-conductor system at the far end of the cable seems backwards.

The furnace itself should have the Ethernet or WiFi connectivity. The thermostat and/or room sensors (temperature, occupancy, whatever) should in no way be restricted by where the original in-wall thermostat wiring happened to terminate. I suggest it be abandoned as if it was an old knob and tube wire.

The classic 5-wire HVAC system carries no smarts at all. No remote diagnostics, no protocols for relaying service or maintenance information. The primary method the furnace has for signaling a problem is partial or complete shut down. When the occupant notices the house getting cold, that is the only signal the furnace could send.*

When confronting the unhappy heating equipment in person, often the only user interface is a single blinking LED. Which can only be seen by peering into a sight hole, and for which the code pattern is erased as soon as the main access panel is removed!

Quite ridiculous, really. In North America the bulk of home HVAC equipment is manufactured by a handful of consolidated companies. It is possible for a far more modern and intelligent HAVC control method to be be defined, implemented, and sold.

* I just diagnosed and repaired a neighbor's natural gas furnace last week. It would sometimes delay or completely refuse the thermostat's demand for heat. Turned out to be a cracked transition assembly which was affecting an air pressure sensor. The furnace would sometimes be able to start, sometimes not. If it could not start four times in a row it would shut down for three hours, then try again.

When the furnace access panel was removed it affected the ambient pressure just enough to allow it to start more often, making accurate fault diagnosis difficult.

The thermostat was replaced as the initial diagnosis suggested it may be a factor. Installed a Honeywell color LCD thermostat with WiFi connectivity . Of course this fancy thermostat still had no idea what was going on with the furnace since it was hamstrung by the antiquated control wiring system.

That furnace was manufactured in 2010. I certainly hope the next furnace will have nothing to do with that dumb five wire system.

Do any furnaces have an OBD2 type port? Or do they all do the flashing LED as their peak form of diag output?

According to this article ;

Unclear whether there is any standardization on the smart link(s) between furnace and controller, or proprietary in each case.



Here is the Energy Star 2014 most efficient furnace list

My goals are different, and having a better thermostat was a key one at the time. Turning on or off lights isn't a priority to me. The thermostat was in control of much of my monthly bill in Texas. My belief is that Nest wanted to reinvent common home items, adding smarts to them. In time, it would grow more into the general automation space. They also were able to push for integration with many utility companies.

Kinda like the iPhone. The first version didn't even have apps, cut and paste, and many other features. But yet, by starting from scratch and growing, it is now a dominate platform and pivoted the entire industry.

To me, most classic home automation approaches for the thermostat would have meant some ugly box to replace the previous thermostat. Then for the motion sensing if they wanted the auto away, individual detectors wired around the house somehow.

Nest instead built the detectors into the smoke/CO alarms. While also again improving the product they wanted to replace, instead of just wiring the same old stuff into a network. You see it as a PITA, I see it as a nice benefit that tackles two problems in one (Annoying alarms and the need for more sensors).


Lighting, I'm much more interested in something like Hue, since it does something more then just replace my light switch. It also allows some interesting mood/color stuff, which could be extended into a light based notification system. Again, without bringing the baggage of home automation attempts from the past few decades forward.

I look at old home automation efforts the same way we see floppy disk now. Some people tried to extend the floppy (Zip, LS-120). Others rethought it from the ground up and made USB thumb drives. Was Nest going to be the only one pushing forward? No. They also helped pivot the industry, thus improvements across the board.


Nothing does.


Doesn't sound automated to me. In Texas, if I were to forget, it's a noticeable hit on the AC bill for the month. I understand this setup works for you, but it doesn't work for everyone


I already said it was easy, but it seems you didn't believe I meant what I said. So I'll expand.

It was easy for me to swap, as they actually designed it to be so. From the details on how the wires mount into the back plate, to the adapters in the package to cover up odd paint spots due to larger units on the market. Again one of the reasons I appreciated Nest, they had such a strong sense of design. I didn't need any tools outside what came in the box and was up and running in 15 minutes.

No, it seems you didn't understand what I said. You implied that one of the reasons you finally installed the Nest was because you were moving around a lot. I was asking why that had anything to do with it, since it's as easy to install as any other thermostat. I like that they supply an adapter and good wiring diagrams, but thermostats really aren't difficult things to replace. Armed with a screwdriver, anyone can do it.


As for the rest, I'll keep it brief. I still prize interoperability. Just because you don't want or need automated lighting doesn't mean I shouldn't push for it. You've been assuming a lot about Nest's intentions before the buyout. The only evidence I've seen (partnering with Control4) indicates they did not have these grand designs that you're ascribing to them.

In the end, this is currently moot. The controller I use for my home automation setup is the Vera Lite. It has user-made plugins for both the Nest and the Philips Hue. Thanks to the type of thinking that "old style" automation brought us, I can bring some of these products into my system... but I don't want to. The $150 I saved on my ugly ZWave thermostat means I can pick up 2-3 light switches.


Okay okay, I should have been more clear on that. How about this: for some people, the Nest offers nothing over a wifi thermostat. How about that?

Tom, I think I'm just confused about that you're arguing for. This is not at all an "iOS vs Android" thing here. I'm not arguing "vs," I'm arguing "and." I think Nest is a really nice product (for some people). Why can't Nest do what it does and also talk to other things in your home? You seem to be arguing against that, and the only reason I'm hearing is that you're worried the other products it could partner with would have bad design.

Any other normal thermostat, perhaps. But no on any other thermostat with WiFi at the time. They all required the extra C wire with 24V for power. None of the apartments I've lived in had this wire. And trying to install a C wire for voltage jumps install time from 15 minutes to involving building management to make modifications to wiring.


I assumed Nest would continue to make more smart products for the home. And they have hints of home automation just from the aspect of being more smart then previous products in the space. Your home automation efforts let you set a temperature from somewhere other then the thermostat. Nest gave me that home automation feature too.

So far, my assumption is true with the release of Nest Protect. Never anything more then this. I made one comment that the Nest could be the start to my own home automation efforts. Looking back to refresh my own memory, you and Bruno were having the home automation talks in the initial Nest thread.


As answered before in that old thread in 2012, it is likely due to Nest's startup nature. Startups (from personal experience) have to run lean. Trying to interoperate before shipping a product is a potentially startup dooming waste of time. Even with the second Nest Protect product out the door, Nest was still in investment seeking mode.


That may be the problem. I wasn't arguing, I tried to give you the perspective I thought you asked for as a Nest owner, but not a home automation enthusiast. Then it turned into an argument. I personally never had the assumption that Nest was going to be a full home automation solution, and my posts dating back to their initial announcement reflect this. It might have kickstarted me more into it, had I had a stable living situation. But until that happens, I haven't done a deep dive into the space and simply have a casual surface view dating back to the X10 stuff.

I probably should have just stopped when this was said:

Fair enough. Sorry to get you riled up again I guess we both should have been clearer about where we were coming from and what we were debating. I realize now that I was adding too many secondary thoughts about my opinion of the Nest product, and that was getting me away from my primary thesis.

I still think Nest had no intention of expanding much farther than they had, and even if they did I didn't see them interoperating with other systems, but as I said it's starting to not matter. As long as these companies publish open APIs, other people will take on that "startup dooming waste of time" for them, as people have already done with Revolv and Vera. We're both getting what we want. I also (to get back to the original question) don't see why Nest couldn't continue down the road you envisioned for them.


I swear I'm not being antagonistic here, I'm just curious because I don't understand. The Nest doesn't need a C wire? It doesn't run on batteries so I assume a C wire is necessary... Sorry, I'm just still curious how the wiring is different from other thermostats.

I didn't have a C wire behind my original thermostat either when I moved in, so I didn't know what I was going to do for power. I'd read a few things about running an AC adapter up to the thermostat, but clearly that would be really ugly. Finally I read a tip that I might actually have the wire, just not visibly. Sure enough, I pulled the cable further out of the wall and found that they'd cut and pulled back extra wires and left them wound around the outer sleeve. I picked a color, added it to the C Wire terminal on my new thermostat, and connected the other end to the power terminal at the furnace. Worked like a charm!


Oh good god, I'm very sorry. X10 is the worst. I used X10 for the first 8-10 years that I was playing with automation, and I pretty much always hated it. It was completely unreliable, and "scenes" were handled in the worst possible manner. I remember having a scene in my condo that turned on 12 lights to specific dim levels. It would send the on command to the first light, then slowly dim it to the desired level, then repeat with the second light, and so on. It took about 2 minutes to turn them all on. That's if all the signals got through and there was no noise on the power lines. Yikes.

I may think home automation hasn't gotten very far, but it's still way better than X10. Thank goodness

Thermostats can leech small amounts of current from the other 4 wires in the absence of a C wire (depending on the furnace), usually enough to operate on.

They do this by inserting a resistive load across the "fan relay" wiring, such that it doesn't supply enough current to actually turn on the furnace fan, but still causes enough current to flow to power the thermostat.

I didn't do this for my own setup -- adding a C wire was simple enough and easier for a non hardware geek (me) to figure out.

Cheers

I happen to still suffer from the presence of some X10 pieces in my home.

They remain mostly due to reluctance to pay for suitable replacements. All are wired in switches, relays and in one case a 240 volt X10 relay/switch.

The 240 volt switch is the most troublesome as it controls a high wattage electric floor heater and likes to turn itself on randomly, thereby costing real money until I notice it is on. I have no idea how long it was on, of course.

The remote control switches for my X10 are all in wall types.

I would actually prefer a WiFi enabled 240 volt relay that I could control from anywhere.

Suggestions for suitable replacement tech?

Well clearly I'm in the ZWave camp. (BTW, could we break this out into its own thread? I'd love to talk home automation in general)

I haven't looked at the alternatives very much, but it seems to me like the two main camps are ZWave and Insteon. Both are designed to be mesh networks, ZWave uses wireless and Insteon combines wireless with powerline. Insteon is also a little different in that all devices can also be controllers (of a sort). I'm actually not sure exactly how that works, but I guess it just means that devices can be the command issuers instead of sending a signal back to a central controller which then sends a signal back out to whatever you're looking to control. I'm still not sure how that gets programmed in Insteon's case, but that's because I've never had any hands on with that technology.

The best performance I've ever had from automation technology was when I simply had a GE remote control and ZWave switches/modules. The response time was instantaneous. The problem was that I was extremely limited in what I was able to do, and I couldn't control anything from other locations. I added in the Vera Lite and this created an occasional lag, but that could be in my head. The initial switch from X10 to ZWave was probably what made me so impressed, since it was such a significant jump in performance.

I do, however, have good news for you. The Vera Lite is capable of controlling X10 products. That means you could do a slow migration to ZWave if you like. You need some extra hardware and some additional setup, but it's possible and plenty of people have done it. There's a decent community of Vera users on their forums (that's a link to the thread about using Vera with X10).

Once you start adding ZWave to your system, you can get devices to handle those things you're mentioning. I'm a little unclear as to how your electric floor heater is powered, but it sounds like it's turned on by a wall switch to a controlled outlet? There's two solutions there. Either get a switch like this to turn the outlet on and off (make sure you're getting that on/off switch and not a dimmer in this situation), or you could replace the outlet with a ZWave outlet (I think the switch is the better option for this situation). I'm pretty sure that switch can handle the load.

Is that floor heater just for comfort or is it the primary source of heat for the room? If it's the latter, you could add a temperature sensor and create a virtual thermostat in Vera, telling it to turn on the floor heater when the sensor detects that heat dropped below a certain range.

Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't really give much comparison of technologies, but I've only had extensive dealings with X10 and ZWave. I made a clean switch from one tech to the other, so I can't speak to the process of migrating, but I'm very happy that I made the move.

The one problem is, as I've been saying in all these discussions, the price (and you clearly have the same problem). I was fortunate because at the time I was looking to switch to ZWave, Radio Shack was getting rid of all their GE automation products. This resulted in an absurd fire sale, the likes of which I hadn't seen since the empeg days I picked up dimmer switches that list for $42, and took them home for about $5 a piece. The same with lamp modules and other stuff. I swapped out all the light switches in my condo at the time for about $40, and had at least one ZWave remote in every room. If I hadn't had that sale, I never would have been able to amass the collection of ZWave devices I have now.

Also, don't get the GE ZWave remotes. They don't really work with Vera

A separate thread might be good...

My 240 load is 4Kw of electric heating cable that is installed outside. It provides ice melting and snow clearing for a stone walkway.

A lot of remote relay stuff assumes either 120 volt AC or that a neutral/white wire is available. Not the case for my load, 240 volts with no neutral at the connection box.

I do have the option of moving the control point to a new junction box next to the breaker panel, which gives me the neutral. But still must control a 240 volt load.

I would like to be able to control this load, and see the current status (on-off) from anywhere on the Internet. SInce I already have WiFi everywhere in the building, I was hoping for a device that had it all together.

I'm not aware of an all in one solution, but this appears to be the ZWave solution. There's a lot of different ZWave modules out there...

As for other devices needing a neutral wire, that's actually not always the case. The GE switches I picked up from Radio Shack needed neutral, but these days most of the ones you'll find don't. At least the cheap ones don't. You can actually find ZWave switches at Lowe's now, usually around their Iris stands.

The nicer switches/dimmers usually require neutral. You also need neutral if you want to use LED bulbs.

Nest doesn't do that (themostats that do want the voltage drop across this bleed resistor). The scheme I came up with has a high voltage buck feeding a current limited battery charger/smartpath power controller (actually, a generic Linear tech part trimmed slightly differently at the factory). This works pretty well in most cases, and can be software configured for different max current draws to accommodate different HVAC equipment.

Yeah, I meant to comment on this, because it seems like the Nest needs the C wire. So I'm still confused about Tom's story. Oh well.

No, nest doesn't need it. It has an internal battery which is recharged by trickling from the aforementioned circuit.

In my case, it works perfectly (but it should as my boiler is what it was prototyped against); I only have a two wire hookup and being in a single story concrete slab house with no attic or crawlspace, pulling new wire would have been a nightmare.

Ah, okay then, very neat. Thanks for the clarification.

Sorry...too funny, I had to share

https://nest.com/letter-from-the-ceo/

Ouch. Setback for Nest Protect, but it's good that they are responding the way they are with such a critical safety product.

Their response to this issue will likely shape the companies future.

I am impressed.

It puts me in mind of Tylenol's response decades ago with the product tampering attack. Their response was so immediate and so... draconian (they immediately pulled all Tylenol products from all the shelves in North America and redesigned the packaging before restocking) that the consensus was that their actions saved the company.

Kudos to Nest!

tanstaafl.

One of my Nest Protect thermostats had a false alarm a month ago. I was traveling and my wife, alerted to where the problem was ("smoke in the office") turned on the ceiling fan there and it got happy. Probably some dust got in there? Hard to say. I'm not sure whether I should bug Nest to replace it or not. Other such incidents seem to happen now and again, at least based on what I see on the Nest chat forums.

So, yeah, I'll still count myself happy with my Nest Protects. I hope they invent some other way to shut them up in the case of false alarms. The hand-wavy thing is pretty cool. Maybe they'll shoehorn it into their app?

There's one thing I've been wondering about the Nest Protect. I think I've asked it before but I can't remember if it's been discussed. Does the Protect have both kinds of smoke detection? I was under the impression that it was only either photoelectric or ionization, and the current recommendation was to get detectors that have both.

I filled in some contextual info with parentheses in the above quote.

Ah cool, thanks.

My cynical brain is worried: If you're not connected to our system, connect forthwith! Yeesh.

-jk

Nest and Google are in damage control mode about ads on thermostats. Glad to see Tony Fadell trying to sort it out and assure owners that ads won't be part of their experience.

http://recode.net/2014/05/21/nests-tony-fadell-no-ads-on-thermostats/

I know the first image that Nest owners have in their heads is one of ads being displayed and spoken to them from their thermostats, but isn't it more likely that Google would make use of their existing mobile ad platforms and put ads in the app, and not on the actual device?

Everyone knows I'm a Google fanatic, but I'd never want them to put ads on the actual device. On the app, however, I don't see it being the end of the world.

I have no insider knowledge of Google or Nest's plans. That said, the way they think about advertising isn't going to be about plastering ads on any surface with a screen. Instead, they want to use all sorts of sensors to learn more about you: when you're home, when you're away, etc., and feed you ads that are contextually relevant when you're somewhere that ads are acceptable (e.g., watching YouTube, doing web searches, running an app with banner ads).

That leads to the question of what they can learn from your thermostat & fire alarm that they can't learn from your phone and computer. I suspect the answer is "not very much yet" but Google is definitely keen to be a player in the "Internet of things" and Nest is a big player in that space. At the point where every light bulb, every electrical socket, every home appliance is connected to your home network, Google wants to be there. "Gosh, your dishwasher says the JetDry reservoir is empty. Buy more, click here!"

I was in a bar in Yosemite a few weeks ago and had a brief chat with a Nest employee. How did I know he worked for Nest? A t-shirt with "nest" on it Quite common for people in CA to wear company-branded clothing I've found.

For me, it would be the end of Nest in my home if they did this. (well, first I need to move back to a Nest compatible home). Up front, I paid for not just a chunk of hardware to sit on my wall, but also the services tied to it including the app.

I have a near zero tolerance for paying for something and still getting ads. It's a big reason I don't use XBox Live or the XBox 360, Hulu, or cable TV. It feels like a slimy double dip move.

Nest Protect units are back on sale at $99 now (was $129). Existing owners can log into their account for a $33 refund per unit.

The wave feature is still disabled, and no word on any progress towards it's return.

Data from the existing units has been used in a CO whitepaper (PDF link).

That sounds like nothing but good news. And certainly getting under that magical $100 price point is a significant change.

As an owner of seven Nest Protects, I'd discourage any of you from buying into the system until they acknowledge and repair their false alarm problem. Since installing mine, I've now had two false alarms. If you poke around the Nest support forums, you'll find many other unhappy customers. They'll replace or refund them without issue, but the real question is whether they'll fix them so they work reliably.

Out of curiosity, what were the false alarms for you? Fire or CO detection? I haven't heard much about the false alarm issue, but just enough to know something was going on.

Both were "smoke". There's no way to cancel it short of pulling it off the ceiling and removing the battery, or just turning on your room fan and waiting it out with the hope that whatever got clogged in there gets out again.

Nest's response to my WTF email was "we'd be happy to replace the unit, please call us" but my unanswered question remains: is there anything different between the replacement unit and the original?

Well, it looks like Nest is finally giving me the good news I've been hoping for (and complaining about incessantly) and released their API.

This is a good step towards making it usable with other systems. Naturally, the first thing I did was head to the automation forum I frequent and see what the reaction was there. The folks on those forums have been working for a while on integrating Nest with the Vera controller I use. They seem pleased that the API has been announced, though they also seem displeased about a few omissions:


I still think there's enough in the API to make this useful, though.

Seems it's a new standard called Thread.

I don't love that Samsung is involved, but I'm actually OK with this, depending on how it all shakes out. I've said all along that I just want everything to be able to talk to each other.

At some point we'll still have the problem of multiple standards. ZWave isn't going to go away just because Thread is here. I've personally spent at least a couple thousand dollars on outfitting my home with ZWave, so there's no chance I'm going to switch to Thread overnight. So I'll either need to stick with ZWave or hope that someone figures out a way to make the two work together (I don't see why not).

Mainly, I want to see how the prices shake out. I think the main problem with Zigbee is that there just aren't that many types devices supporting it. I can't get a wall switch, for example. And there aren't many popular controllers that I've seen.

The primary problem I've always had with ZWave is the cost, and I've always assumed that has a lot to do with its proprietary nature. I'll be interested in seeing if Thread devices will be cheaper, because right now none of these devices are in the price ballpark for wide adoption.