Nest - Developer Program

[dgage]

Looks like Nest is finally opening up.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/25/nest-unveils-web-app-developer-program/
http://nest.com/developer/

 

[az1324]

• near real-time web API
• early 2014

So nothing yet and looking like no direct local control

 

[ano]

Sales must be down.

 

[Madcodger]

Best news all day!

Best stat I ever owned, by a wide margin.

 

[Del91574]

Considering they're putting a smoke detector on the market to an essentially orphaned product that has no verticals....gotta do something to remain relevant.

 

[Timoh]

I pondered the Nest for a while, but then went with a cheapo wifi thermostat with a documented REST API.
 
I think Nest is a great product...  For none HA DIYers.   I think we like to tinker too much and like to pull all our data easily back to our controllers where we can write rules and integrate.
 
Tim

 

[wuench]

If they opened up the direct communication API and made the whole cloud business optional they would tap into a whole new market.  

 

[Del91574]

Then again, what would the nest do that couldn't be had with any number of other units?
 
Only item going for it would be the I-device footprint and GUI, but we all know why those items look so similar

 

[Madcodger]

Talk down all you want about it, boys, but that stat has done more to bring HA to the general public than all the geeky little stat gadgets we've all played with over the years, combined. It's well designed, well made, and frankly it just works (well, I might add).

And I've seen NO data to indicate they're having any trouble selling them, or that they have anything but a very bright future. This is a good move for many of us as hobbyists, and brings HA much more mainstream than efforts by those who only try to serve the "HA community".

 

[pete_c]

Whatever happened to the patent thing that was going on between Nest and Honeywell?
 
Some of the Honeywell patents made for some interesting reading. 
 
My old "just in case" failsafe manual thermostat is an old circular Honeywell thermostat with the little mercury reed switch in it.

 

[Del91574]

Talk down all you want about it, boys, but that stat has done more to bring HA to the general public than all the geeky little stat gadgets we've all played with over the years, combined. It's well designed, well made, and frankly it just works (well, I might add).

And I've seen NO data to indicate they're having any trouble selling them, or that they have anything but a very bright future. This is a good move for many of us as hobbyists, and brings HA much more mainstream than efforts by those who only try to serve the "HA community".

I wouldn't go that far....they just modified a programmable T-stat and built a widget that gets the unit on a WAN and able to be controlled via the latest I-droi-pod. It got the technology out to a wider audience, but no different than how the cable companies and Big Blue alarm companies got HA to the mass market, they simply put a monthly price on it and added some bells and whistles.
 
Not intended to sound crass, but people have moved away from functionality to the interface and GUI being a slick item that is the latest toy on the smartphone platform. It holds true in the security and camera industry extensively right now. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice concept, but it's really repackaging what has been available in many flavors for years. All you need is to put it into a "fruit" sort of GUI and UI and people look at it more so than they used to.

 

[damage]

Whatever happened to the patent thing that was going on between Nest and Honeywell?
 
Some of the Honeywell patents made for some interesting reading. 
 
My old "just in case" failsafe manual thermostat is an old circular Honeywell thermostat with the little mercury reed switch in it.

 
nest made a deal with the devil, possibly to license/acquire patents that may counter honeywell's 

 

[az1324]

Talk down all you want about it, boys, but that stat has done more to bring HA to the general public than all the geeky little stat gadgets we've all played with over the years, combined. It's well designed, well made, and frankly it just works (well, I might add).

And I've seen NO data to indicate they're having any trouble selling them, or that they have anything but a very bright future. This is a good move for many of us as hobbyists, and brings HA much more mainstream than efforts by those who only try to serve the "HA community".

 
I definitely wouldn't say that because you have a Nest you have home automation.  Good design, ok.  Remote control, yes.  Built-in intelligence, fine.  But does it empower the user in the way that a home automation product should when it deserves to be championed, no I don't think so.  In fact it is setting the wrong precedent for home automation devices.  Companies should definitely build nice things and customers should pay for them, but they should always have the option of full control over what is in their homes.  That is what home automation is: taking complete control of the features of your home. 

 

[Madcodger]

Good points all 'round, frankly. It's no secret that I like the Nest unit, and I agree that their big achievement is in the "wrapper". And I also agree that this wrapper provides more of a convenience than an advance in true functionality / features. But I think we discount just how important that interface and ease of use can be to the average user, or for that matter to an experienced user. We use the term WAF and we chuckle about it, but there's an underlying truth to it that too many tech companies - especially in HA - have ignored. What Nest has done is to take a fairly mundane "appliance" and turn it into something that people enjoy using and without much trouble CAN use. They look at the human side of the problem before the machine side, and that adds value. More HA manufacturers / developers should do the same if they want to grow beyond our little hobbyist niche, or the limitations of the high end pro/installer community.

As for full (local) control being necessary for true HA, I see the point. But I think we're going to see more and more of these cloud-based services as we go forward. It's the difference between managing your own server vs. using a cloud-based service to share files and access them remotely. Managing your own has many benefits, but also many costs and requirements. And as we see with everything from Dropbox to Pandora, there is a very big market for the ease of use these services offer. The security is admittedly lower, and the quality may be compromised. But it works, it's easy, and it doesn't require a person to become a hobbyist / professional to use it. So "good enough" works for most people, even if it doesn't cut it for many of us.

My whole point is that we discount these features because they aren't so important to US. But we're not the norm! We - and many of the manufacturers we support - could learn much from the folks at companies like Nest. Design, convenience, and ease of use really do matter.

 

[dgage]

I'm not sure where some of this dislike of the Nest comes from except maybe their initial attempts to stop external interfacing to the Nest. I wanted some remote control of my thermostats so I replaced my downstairs thermostat with a 3M Filtrete 50 Wifi thermostat and I must say, regardless of how experienced I am in picking up user interfaces, that the interface is pretty bad. So just from that aspect right there, the Nest sounds good. My upstairs thermostat was positioned in the hallway when I moved in and that is not representative of the temperature in the rooms at all. So I replaced it with a remote Venstar unit and that works well besides not having remote control/access. But the biggest issue I have with my thermostats is I don't have a schedule. Sometimes I'm home and obviously sometimes not. Sometimes when I'm home I'm working outside, in the basement, or in my bedroom office. Which brings me to what I like most about the Nest, the motion detection, although that will mean I need to run a new thermostat cable in my living room and upstairs master bedroom to get the most out of them. However, that is a lot better than having to setup multiple motion detectors and write some code to replicate Nest's occupancy functionality.

Regarding recurring costs, I don't like them either but the Nest has not had any monthly fees.

And I guess I don't understand the wrapper to the Nest interface. It's not like the Nest is going to reject some commands because it knows better than you.

I should put a disclaimer that I don't own a Nest and haven't used one. I was actually planning to purchase a RadioRa 2 thermostat "system" but may wait to see how the Nest shakes out. Besides, Dean at CQC hasn't added support for the RadioRa 2 thermostats yet. Which shows a down fall of HA right there; so many devices, so little time.

David