Definitely a lot of overhead keeping sockets alive for this when deltas must be few+far between. Wonder why they eschewed mqtt or rest... ? I imagine a lot of integrators are going WTF to a Firebase approach for a thermostat.

I think it's a pretty good choice. I've been using it for almost a year and a half and I visited their office when they were 4 people. It really makes sense for a real-time system if you don't want to build your own real-time message bus.

Likewise! Looking forward to more API documentation from Nest.

Also, nice work guys! This is a great step forward for Firebase.