wrote:
On Monday, January 27, 2014 10:53:43 AM UTC-5, wrote:
I first heard about this a couple years ago and the whole

concept sounded a bit dubious. Apparently the guy responsible

for the Ipod design at Apple started a company to make a

thermostat. It's a beautiful design, a retro, round thermostat

that look really cool. But, even upon first hearing about it,

I was a bit skeptical. It has motion sensors in it and it's

supposed to come up with a setback schedule based on how it

learns your temp settings and occupancy patterns. It was

a thermostat for those too lazy to spend 15 mins figuring out

how to program one of the typical digital ones. For me,

it made little sense. But, I could see it being used in

say vacation rental properties.



Recently, I got a little more cuious and started to check it

out. Anyone that's interested in a good laugh, should see

the reviews at Amazon. What a cluster f**. From reading

the reviews, apparently some of the major problems a



It lacks a hold button. So, this thing that makes up schedules

on it's own, can set the temp to whatever it pleases and

you can't just set a temp and select to hold it. Could

anyone be so dumb as to not include that? And they've

been told for years now that customers say that's a big

problem. You come home from work sick, set it to 72 and

then it just proceeds to do whatever it wants and you

don't even know what it plans to do. So, 30 mins later,

it could be back to 60F and without checking it constantly,

you wouldn't even know.



In the interests of widespread compatibility, they pretend

it can work with systems that don't have a wire for power.

So, they try to steal power to charge the battery from the

wires coming from the furnace. That was probably OK when

everyone had an old furnace with a Xformer and relay. But

now furnaces have circuit boards that use little current.

Net result, the battery doesn;t get charged. And in an

attempt to charge it, the Nest apparently fires up the

HVAC even when it's not needed. but even that doesn't

appear to work.



To try to fit 10lbs of stuff into a 2 lb little round

thermostat, apparently they put FET transistors into

the base, instead of using relays like most thermostats.

The FETS are apparently failing all over the place and

when they fail, they fail ON. So, you have many people

reporting that the Nest has either the heat or the AC

on constantly. Some have BOTH on at the same time!

There are reports of people coming home when it's 20F

outside and finding their AC running. And this from

a widget that was gonna save you money.



Then there is the self-heating problem. It has wifi

built in, which I'd want in a new thermostat. But,

cramming that 10 lbs of stuff into a 2 lb bag apparently

has resulted in the unit self-heating. So people are

saying that the house is 75 but the thermostat thinks

it's 80, so it's running the AC.



Then there is the issue that since it's wifi connected,

Nest can download new software to it at any time and

you have no option to decline. Apparently they just

did such a download, and it drained people's batteries

so the thing no longer worked. Would you not have an

option to be able to choose when you do an upgrade on

a mission critical device?



It;s really an unbelievable example of making something

cute without regard for reliability. IMO, it's a bunch

of hippies with no HVAC experience trying to trick people

into something that's cool for $250.



And to top it off, Google just bought this pile of crap

for $2bil. Unbelievable.

Forgot to include the link to the 1900 reviews at Amazon:


http://www.amazon.com/Nest-Learning-...owViewpoints=1

How something this crappy can have a 4 star rating at Amazon
is another interesting question.....

Hi,
You have to read reviews with grain of salt.
I even suspect there are paid professional reviewers
praising junk products. On the other hand some good stuffs
are rated low because buyer(s) not smart enough to
use the product properly. I think technology advancement
makes people dumber. I am afraid down the road Google will even own some
government(s), LOL!