iPod godfather and ex-iPhone team launch previously stealth startup
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However, it cuts both ways, people don't have obvious, specific problems with their thermostat (for the most part). It's a thing, it came with the house, it turns heat on and off, whatever. Why do I need to spend $250 on it? The very first thing (or maybe second, after the picture of the Nest) on the web site should be "See how much you can save!" with some guesstimates price-savings based on the state you're in, and when it will pay for itself. Or, if it doesn't pay for itself, how much fossil fuels/CO2 it saves, and what that translates to in conceivable units ("that's like saving 30 trees a year!").
Make it a product that provides an obvious, specific solution to a problem you didn't know you had. Right now, it looks like a luxury item for luxury people, and that's not the economy we're currently in.
EDIT: I found this information right at the bottom of: http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html , alongside "Download our white paper!" (ugh). This is what you're selling! Put it front and center!
Look at DVD -> Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray has not had a good adoption. For most people, they don't see the difference between digital and HD (see the number of people who incorrectly tune their TVs to not use the HD channels on their HD TV). All the pain points were solved by VHS -> DVD.
I hated carrying around a clunky CD player plus a collection of CDs that I could lose at any moment. Fidgeting too much with the player would also, you know, scratch and destroy the physical media that stored my music.
There were a number of obvious problems with CD players. Thermostats...not so much.
Also tout the AI aspect of it. With Siri and Watson, people recently have started hearing more about interesting AI applications. Tell them this thing learns and adapts, has AI.
There is another aspect -- energy tax credits and other incentives. Unfortunately it would be hard to get your device rated & approved I would guess. Imagine if there was a state or federal rebate to pay for 25% of the cost, even 10% would get people excited.
Up until last year there was a $1500 tax rebate on upgrading to a high efficiency HVAC systems. Some states have their own rebates on top of that. That led to quite a few people I know to all of the sudden decide to 'upgrade' their heat pumps... go figure.
I made my own computerized replacement for the thermostat in my house(1) and discovered that there were about 5 different possible wiring patterns depending on if you've got heat pumps, multi-stage, e-heat, gas, etc.
After much research I figured out how they are wired, how my house should be wired and... burned out a fuse on the circuit board inside the furnace because the original installer had switched 2 wires and just said "screw it" and left it that way.
I had to remove and trace the circuit board with my fluke meter just to get my AC back. Its one thing for rich guys building their smart-house in Tahoe to choose this, but quite another for Joe average to go grab one at Home Depot and take it home and get it going. Calling your "Nest dealer" to schedule an install just seems like a nonstarter for the added cost this will add to what already seems pretty high.
As a geek though, the wifi part seems pretty cool. As long as it was sufficiently open, it could have saved me a bunch of work making my own HVAC interface.(2)
(1) My philosophy was that I didn't need a "thermostat" at all. The computer that does all of the other smart-house stuff for me should control the temperature as well.
(2) Proliphix makes a pretty decent openly programmable WIFI enabled thermostat but they cost around $600.
If this is indeed the case, then its no surprise that thermostats are the most boring, user unfriendly things imaginable because they are more or less universally selected by price alone.
Anecdotally I certainly know several folks who have DIY'ed programmable thermostats into their homes.
The common setup is a single-stage heat/cool installation with 4 color-coded wires.
It's all low-voltage (24VAC) and the biggest problem most people run into is an older 2-wire setup (single-stage heat only), where the programmable thermostat can't be vampire powered from the circuit and either cuts out when it clicks the relay on to fire the furnace, or simply needs to be a battery-powered unit.
With all the eco-stuff and increased heating costs, installation of programmable thermostats by low-skilled homeowners is actually pretty common.
Main computer: Embedded linux platform called "Soekris Net4801". http://soekris.com/products/net4801.html
Linux Distro: "Voyage" Readonly embedded. http://linux.voyage.hk/
Lighting controls were Insteon from smarthome.com.(1)
I made one of these with arduino and a servo for the front door and linked it with xbee radios. http://hackaday.com/2011/06/30/diy-servo-activated-door-lock...
My HVAC interface was a 5-wire (we had heat-pump and e-heat) so I made a relay board that was controlled by arduino that ran off the 24v supplied by the furnace. There are common wire colors that are industry standard. Mine were installed wrong causing many headaches.
(1) Oh hey! look. They've got a selction of insteon compatible and wifi thermostats now! All for less than $200! Nice.
If you have an Omni security automation system to go with it you get IP access (again published protocol with a few iPhone apps) and the Thermostat can change temp based on security system state(away, night, etc.) or you can write automation code on the Omni to do whatever or use the IP protocol to do eve more from a real computer.
You don't want PC controlling the A/C directly, the OmniStat will continue to function without it's smarter controllers if need be, same with security, thats why I like my Omni system, it's a rock solid "lower brain stem" for my house while the PC is the "higher brain functions" that can go offline if need be without too much disruption.
http://homeauto.com/Products/Omnistat/Omnistat2Products.asp
Supports 2-stage cool/ 3-stage heat too, but really needs a common wire for power, no batteries.
Well, this is it. You're taking a boring, underserved segment of the market and revolutionizing it. And guess what, the potential for social good and the environment is much greater when you redesign the thermostat, than when you make another social mobile picture-sharing service.
I do agree that this product presents a greater benefit to the earth and humanity as a whole, but my concern is that the populous may not notice. Will enough people buy in to make this economically viable? I certainly hope so....
Call me cynical, but it doesn't sound like innovation, it sounds like hype. I have a programmable thermostat, and it turns off and on based on a temperature schedule. I mess with it four times a year: twice to change the time zone and once to turn it to "Air Conditioning" and once to turn it to "Heat." Now, do I think you can do something clever with it? Sure. How about an interface on my phone or tablet to replace the wimpy LCD screen, the fiddly plastic buttons, and the page of directions. Oh, and if the new thermostat was "smart" and saved me (potentially lots of) money? Even better.
But "beloved"? Not a chance.
Also, is there room to the thing to add "automatic lighting" and appliance control (dishwasher, washer/dryer)? Mmmaybe. But frankly, that could be done by wifi/bluetooth on the appliance and an app as well.
http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html
What I want to know: who are these people in their demo videos setting their thermostat to 80+ (Fahrenheit) degrees?!
Hopefully they will stick to already existing implementation standards (C-BUS, X10) or develop a free usable standard (beware of patents)
ah, and please offer a RESTful api for the rest of us :)
There are so many little things that I look at and say, there MUST be a better way to do this....or...why does this still look so ugly?
I am glad that Tony has done this with the Thermostat, but it just dawned on me that this could be Steve Jobs legacy.
It is these startups that are founded by people that spent a few years working with Jobs that are so unhappy with the status quo that they have to build something themselves.
The future looks bright.
Even though I don't have central cooling here in Jamaica, I can definitely understand that Thermostat problem and I feel like buying one because it looks so sexy.
It solves a major problem in an elegant way, and helps control my energy bill?
Plus 1!
That may be because (until now?) there is little to differentiate thermostats.
Also, there is the potential to hook this up to the smart grid, allowing utilities to remotely adjust thermostat settings based on the supply/demand balance on the grid. (Utilities would pay for this capability, further offsetting the costs of the device).
Who's to say this isn't the same thing with smart homes?
Here's why this thing will sell like gangbusters, though: it's aesthetically appealing. Homebuilders put aesthetically-appealing items in their new homes.
When you're purchasing a house for six figures, are you really nitpicking a $375 item? No--you're too worried about the flooring or the insulation or the plumbing or ceiling support or any other number of things. You'll glance at the thermostat, smile, then remember that you need to pull out some code-violating wiring. Then you're off again.
I predict a hit, but not in the B2C way many people are thinking about. People will implicitly pay for this thermostat in new homes, but they won't explicitly go out of their way to upgrade old thermostats.
For some reason Nest has hidden this away in their whitepaper. But - if you take the time to read that - you find, nested (ha ha - get it) towards the end, the conclusions of their simulations.
As a quick aside, let me just say, that for a company essentially selling excellent product design - they did a shit job at presenting quantifiable, easy to understand energy savings data.
Anyway, they devided their simulated case studies into two main groups, people who are gone from the house 8-hours a day 5-days a week (e.g. - your average working professional), and people who aren't (e.g. people with kids at home, or who work from home).
They found that the people gone from the house 9-5 will save an average of $227/yr, and people who need to keep their homes comfortable during the day will save an average of $116/yr.
These savings of course go up if you take a long vacation (they estimate 4 weeks of vacation will add an additional $58-$68 of savings), or if you follow the suggestions of the thermostat to lower or raise your comfort-temp by 1° (an additional $54-$60).
At my work, we do quite a bit of marketing for energy-efficiency companies. The most effective thing they can do is to go into a business or home and say, "We're going to install this energy-saving equipment. We'll pay for the install, and you can pay us back out of the energy savings. After the installation is paid off (usually 1-3 years with the companies we do work for) the savings go straight into your pocket."
Now - this might not be possible with this specific device, but they could at least make the argument that the device will pay for itself in ~3 years. I may or may not want to spend $375 for a fancy thermostat, but that purchase barrier would be much easier to overcome if I could tell myself that it'd pay for itself in a few years.
I'm not sure why this isn't front and center on Nest's site. There might be some liability issues since they've only run simulations, and don't have actual user data. But it seems like a miss on their part.
Relative to what, though? Using an ugly WiFi thermostat? Praying over chicken bones and running the AC at 65F all day? You're absolutely right--they need to sell this thermostat on energy savings.
FWIW, I'd install a beautiful thermostat if it also (a) saved the world a bit and (b) saved me some money.
But you'd be amazed at the complexity people come up with for thermostats, including hundred page manuals, etc., and no way to turn the heat off.
And those are the nice averages. Sometimes (more often than you'd guess) the temperature decides to drop to a nice −20C. In the same place, in the same year, temperature in summer can get to 30C.
I can easily agree that people over regulate temperature — 25C in winter or 20C in summer is probably not that optimal (I just don't do cooling, but offices do). But a lot of people live in areas where the outside temperature is just not an option.
The entire product is non-obvious, but when they've gone this far, seems they'd take the extra step to see if it is going to be 75 outside, and you like it at 70, and it is currently 68, to not turn on the heater, but use the air-conditioner to keep things cool.
There is a market need certainly, but is their target market big enough to support the business? I think if you can encourage users to adopt these based on the cost savings then the odds will be better. Lots of home owners will be interested in saving money on their utility bills. Just make sure the UI and features enable users to make efficient use of their HVAC systems. There will definitely have to be a campaign to educate consumers as to why they need this product.
I will be buying at least one of these.
Making sure Celsius happens is much easier than other international problems. (Say, different currencies, a problem my startup is dealing with now).
What I have are 6 independent programmable thermostats that each control an in wall heater, and a wood stove. I'd love data logging. I'd love all the sensing and intelligence. I want a thermocouple in the stove and in the flue and sensors to tell me when the dampers are in or out. Logged with house and outside temps.
I wonder if I can hack a zigbee into the current wall units.
This. I wish I had the balls to do the same!
Also, some photorshadowing:
If they truly care about efficiency then interoperability is a must. It's wasteful when you have to buy and create new products just for compatibility.
Of course, I have a dog so..