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Comment by manav | Hacker News Reader

For a company whose primary product is/was the Nest Thermostat, I've found they have been terrible at innovation and keeping up with competition. The product has been virtually unchanged for the last 3-4 years. What have they been up to?

I switched to an Ecobee3 system and found it was far superior in many ways. Alexa integration, remote sensors (for actual temperature measurements in rooms), easier install and compatibility if you don't have power going to thermostat, better wifi, touchscreen interface.

With Google Home coming I wonder what this means for Nest. Maybe it will be fully absorbed into Google?

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I have been incredibly frustrated with how they acquired Dropcam and completely killed not only the soul of the company, but real features the existing devices already had.

The setup process for the Dropcam was absolutely magical. You plug a new one in, open the app and it would configure the camera via Bluetooth 4.0. You could then go back in and change WiFi settings by simply being near enough for the Bluetooth 4.0 connection.

Then Nest bought them, and completely removed that feature. They issued a firmware update that made it so now the camera that used to have this wonderful feature now requires me to plug it into my computer's USB and execute some janky app from a flash drive. Of course, if you buy one of their new devices, you a setup process somewhat similar to the original Dropcam. But existing customers are out of luck. In fact, the Dropcam Pro included a 1080P sensor but they did not enable it for various reasons. When Nest released their flavor of the camera, they enabled 1080P, but not for existing Dropcam Pro customers.

The DVR functionality is inferior too.

I wish I could get a refund. I personally feel like it is a bait and switch scenario. :(

I haven't setup any of the new Nest cameras, they REMOVED bluetooth? Completely non-sensical.

The new Nest app on the phone is just now, finally reaching feature parity years and years later and its still not fully there. The 1080p debacle is terrible as well, they also compress the hell out of video now, it feels far worse than when I first got my cameras years ago (presumably to save on the storage space I'm paying quite a bit for).

It's funny, you rarely know the moment a company goes off the rails but I know exactly when it happened for me, for Dropcam.

I was out to dinner a year or so ago and all of us who had Dropcams got emails from nest about needing to migrate to nest accounts, and found that:

A) our access to our camera's was completely cut-off B) the migration process was completely broken, at first we thought just on mobile but it still didn't work when I got back to a computer, it took a few DAYS before I could migrate my account and access my cameras again.

This was terrible, I was 1000 miles from home and unable to access any of my cameras, I completely lost faith in the company at that moment and I know all of my friends did too.

Bluetooth LE for setup was not removed from the camera. Nest Cams and Dropcam Pro's can still be set up via Bluetooth LE via the Nest app.

Setting up cameras was removed from the (un-maintained) Dropcam App, to encourage users to migrate to the Nest app, which has more ongoing development.

The video on cameras is no more compressed than it ever was. I know it can feel worse, but nothing has changes there.

(source: I work at nest)

Whoa, this must be relatively recent. As recently as 6 months ago, the instructions on your website explicitly said that if you had a Dropcam you had to plug into USB. I desperately tried to find another option to no avail.

Can you point me to it? AFAIK, It's always been there.

There is a distinction between original Dropcam/Dropcam HD setup and Dropcam Pro setup -- may be part of the confusion? Dropcam Pro had BLE setup, previous versions did not and require USB setup.

iirc there were some iot webcams with publicly hacked streams up on a website. either way, removing bt had to be security related.

that said, it is a core component, and basically the innovation/disruption if you even want to call it that, that the conpany was providing. i mean without a clean wireless interface, its basically a webcam/thermostat ect on a hone depot timer

> iirc there were some iot webcams with publicly hacked streams up on a website. either way, removing bt had to be security related.

You can't feasibly stream someone's IoT camera from their home via BT; any kind of hack like that happens over Wi-Fi or Ethernet connections.

You use the BT to get it to use YOUR (the attacker's) wifi.

At that range a malicious actor would be better served by attacking your actual wifi network.

You can still set up using Bluetooth LE from the Nest app. Your existing account can be used to log in to Nest App, and your cameras will be there. https://nest.com/support/article/FAQs-about-moving-from-the-...

This is interesting. I have had Nest thermostats for several years, and overall I think they're great, but I have definitely felt the need for remote sensors (our upstairs thermostat in particular is in a really bad spot). A couple of months ago I seriously considered getting an Ecobee, but I read a bunch of reviews that complained of stuff like unresponsive touchscreen, bad UI, etc. The main thing I love about the Nest is that the UX is very simple, and works well. Anyone in the house can use it without instructions, and it feels like a thermostat, not a slow Android device or something.

Did you find those to not be issues? Definitely most of the reviews were good, so maybe it's just isolated people having problems. But I couldn't tell if it was that, or more that people either aren't as picky about UX as I am, or they didn't have another point of comparison... I'm very open to re-considering them if someone can convince me this stuff is a non-issue, because the remote sensor would certainly make our system work better.

I had same reservations as you before I bought my first Ecobee3. I probably read same negative reviews as you. However the thermostat worked very well for me, without all the issues that I've read. I bought two more over the year. In terms of UI and ease of use - I prefer a thermostat with which I don't need to fiddle after I program it. Ecobee3's programming and automatic features worked well for my family in two zones. Kitchen zone (used mostly by my wife) was impossible to program to her satisfaction but integration with Amazon Echo solved the issue.

Has not been an issue for me (I do have a second generation). I believe there was a firmware fix sometime down the line. Actually that is another plus, they have been better about updates than Nest. My Nest actually stopped working on more than one occasion after a software update.

My thermostats are in areas that are not indicative of the actual room temperature at all so the sensors are useful for me. I don't have a more complicated setup with dampers to divert air to a specific room, but that could be a cool addon if they made it compatible.

I've had an ecobee 3 since November, and the UX has been very responsive and intuitive to me. My wife can use it well enough to set manual away and temperature overrides, which is pretty much all that you might need to do after you've set it up. The android and ios apps are nothing special, basically just a clone of the thermostat's UI itself, but they work. The web app is very good, and the graphs are very nice and useful, including the ability to export all data as a csv. I've never used a Nest so I don't know how it compares but I'm quite happy with the ecobee.

should check us out - got your remote sensors covered :) https://flair.co/products/puck

Looks cool, but nowhere on your product page does it say it's compatible with Nest.

Its on the FAQ but not the product page. Working through the official works with nest stuff behind the scenes.

I have the honeywell 9000 with remote sensors. While getting the internet connectivity was a little odd (you need this weird redlink device to bridge the devices for web management) They work and are remotely managed extremely easily.

They're not 'machine learning' thermostats, but they work predictably, reliably well. Cheaper than a nest, too..

+1 For Ecobee. After wanting a "smart" thermostat for some time and researching and researching nothing really blew my socks off. But the Ecobee was the closest one to impressing me. So I finally pulled the trigger for downstairs. It's been doing great and I love the features. So now it's time to put one upstairs.

If you are thinking of the Ecobee, do it! :)

SDGE is offering free Ecobee installs. Check with your local electric company, they might be offering it for free too. We got two units installed and really love it.

They actually give you the unit for free, or just the installation labor?

Everything. Free units, install and configuration. Additionally, during high consumption periods, SDGE will offer incentives if you shut your AC. It is super convenient to do this even if you are not at home.

More info here (albeit vague): http://www.sdge.com/business/programmable-communicating-ther...

The problem with temperature sensors is where you put it... if you put it upstairs and run that temp down to say 78 in the summer.. the rest of your house (especially the basement) is an icebox.

That's the problem with so called 'lazy zoning'.

However that being said, if you want something like this and don't have an ecobee, SmartThings starter kit comes with multiple sensors that read temperature.

From talking to my colleague with an ecobee, that's not the point. If the ecobee detects a big swing between the two sensors, it'll run the fan, but not the heat/cool. That balances the rooms. It makes sense.

Yeah, I get that. I was speaking generally about what that does. That's how Ecobee works, but even still I'm sure it's not perfect. (I haven't tried it myself, just similar types of setups).

I guess, hardware is far more complex than writing the next Twitter. Plus, if you are bought by another company, expect product development to stall due to changes and people who don't like changes.

Except the parent was specifically referring to a competing thermostat.

My folks have an Ecobee and if I didn't have a Nest already, I might consider it. The remote sensors are a huge plus.

Can the Ecobee3 be installed without the dreaded C wire? edit: Nope. You lose fan control.

The Nest cannot, well it CAN, but you lose fan control in the process making it worthless. I never understood why no thermostat supports alternative power, considering tons of property would be an easy installation without the rarely available C wire.

Quick shout out for the Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Touchscreen Thermostat. It too requires the C wire, costs the same as Nest, but has a much better touch interface than the Nest while providing the same-ish automatic functionality.

Yup: https://www.ecobee.com/faq/i-do-not-have-a-c-wire-or-common-...

You don't lose fan control with the ecobee3 Power Extender Kit. Also, the C wire is not rarely available, basically any house since the early 90s will have one already wired up, and any house that has upgraded hvac unit in say the last 15 years will have the capacity to install one by running a wire to the mainboard.

> You don't lose fan control with the ecobee3 Power Extender Kit.

Read page 12 of their guide. The PEK requires additional connectors that not all systems even have. A lot of people will lose fan control, just like the Nest.

> Also, the C wire is not rarely available, basically any house since the early 90s will have one already wired up

Our house was built in 1998, doesn't have it, a coworker's house was built in 2005 and had to get it installed for their Nest ($120 callout + $120 in time), the in-laws returned a Nest because their home from roughly 2001-02 lacked it. Where are you getting this information? There's nothing in building codes that requires running the C wire, so builders will only run it if the thermostat requires it and most included ones do not.

> any house that has upgraded hvac unit in say the last 15 years will have the capacity to install one by running a wire to the mainboard.

Running wires behind walls isn't trivial in an already built home. Least of all if you're going up two to three floors.

My house and all houses in my development were built in 1995 and have one. Most programmable thermostats recommend using a C wire(or batteries, but if they're being put in a new development they generally put the C wire in), and programmable thermostats have been "strongly recommended"/mandatory in many states for new developments for quite a while.

Also have a relative in an older development that used the PEK and he can control his fan independently of the hvac just fine... I've actually more commonly heard of some control boards that mess with the fan if you use the C wire rather than the power extension kit, since the control board basically fakes the C wire using the G wire as the Nest does if you don't have a C wire. The PEK works differently.

It has nothing at all to do with programmable Vs. non-programmable. All of the homes I mentioned above, including ours, have a programmable thermostat.

You don't need a C wire for a programmable thermostat. The other channels provide power, the C wire just provides more. It is useful if you want to run a color LCD screen or WiFi. If you have a thermostat with a black & white calculator-like LCD, it likely doesn't have a C wire running to it.

> I've actually more commonly heard of some control boards that mess with the fan if you use the C wire rather than the power extension kit, since the control board basically fakes the C wire using the G wire as the Nest does if you don't have a C wire.

What? That would burn out thermostats. How would the control board know to pass 24Vac through a low voltage line? Can you link anything to this "common thing" that control boards do? Sorry but I'm extremely skeptical of that, it doesn't even make sense from a thermostat signal point of view, since they'd just assume you would run C if C was required during installation rather than doing the hack you're suggesting here.

The reality is that C isn't required on almost any included thermostat, programmable or simple. Good installers run the C but terminate it, bad installers just don't run the unneeded C. I've never heard or read about a first party control board which acts like a bypass kit out of the box, and I don't even understand the point.

House built in '99/00 by a large builder: No C wire.

With that said, the Ecobee that I bought off eBay included the PEK. It required a few hours up in the attic but was easier than I thought it was going to be.

"so builders will only run it if the thermostat requires it and most included ones do not."

From what i can tell, this is wrong. I asked 30 builders in 3 states (a mailing list), and every single one of them basically agreed with the statement that they have put them in all homes they've built since 1990.

The truth is, AFAIK, the largest homebuilders in the US do it as a matter of policy.

The building code does not require running low voltage wiring (including RG6) anywhere, either, but most do it nowadays.

I really think you are wrong about this :)

Can you link to the mailing list? I'd like to read the replies.

A lot of houses have the thermostat wire run for it but the installer just cut it off to hide it.

In my old house from 1950s the furnace had the terminal so I just ran a new wire. Easy if you have some fishtape or something similar. Kind of depends how far your thermostat is from your furnace though.

I had two Honeywell Smart thermostats get fried by power surges. Because the design of these 'smart' thermostats is just stupid.

It's wrong for any of these thermostats to be using these wires for power. That is not the purpose of those wires. For that matter, it's shit engineering to require the thermostat be mounted on the wall hooked up to those wires like your old thermostat. The purpose of those wires, with their 24V AC, is to toggle relays. They could just as easily be done directly _at the furnace_, or just have a low-power battery powered radio module on the relay wires, with a WiFi or other wireless receptor talking to your sensors elsewhere, and with an app on your phone or tablet to control it.

Nest is an absolutely terrible design that everyone else copied. Its terrible design is crap for installation, customer support, and maintenance. It's needlessly complex.

But it looks nice?

What relay does a C wire toggle? From what I've read its only purpose is to provide a continuous stream of power. There's nothing in the spec that forbids using the R and C wires for power, in fact that is their stated purpose.

Now, these bypass kits or similar, are a little hacky. But you're talking about the C wire itself being so, which just isn't the case. IF you have one available that is exactly what it is design to do.

But, yes, I'd prefer USB at the thermostat.

Wifi is really hard to run constantly on battery. Honeywell makes the Lyric which has power stealing (charges when the equipment runs) so it doesn't require a C-wire.

Or, you can also install a wire saver: http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-THP9045A1023-WireSaver-Prest...

I, too, have been wondering what the hell they have been up to. Their most recent thermostat upgrade was kind of a joke.

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