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Nest Announces New Smart Home API
mpicpp writes "Today, in advance of Google I/O, Nest has officially announced a new developer program and API that will allow other companies' smart devices to communicate with Nest's Protect smoke alarm and Learning Thermostat. Among the companies that Nest is partnering with for this initial publicity push are IFTTT, Jawbone, LIFX, Logitech, Mercedes-Benz, Whirlpool, Chamberlain, and Google itself—the latter two companies will release Nest-compatible features this fall, while the others are all available today.
When I looked at it earlier today, it was rather lacking. No ability to set your Home or Away status and no ability to control temperatures for people who set both an upper and lower bound rather than a single temperature. Ended up being a rather disappointing update from a user's perspective. From a developer's perspective, it was pretty meh. It's just what you'd expect, and not much more.
Here's the API reference. It doesn't let you see or do much. I though the Nest was supposed to "learn" your behavior patterns, but if it does, that info isn't exposed in the API. You can look at the temperature and heat/cool/fan status, and maybe change the setpoints. You can tell if someone is home, and when they set the time for when they were coming back.
This isn't an API for the device. It's an API for a Google-hosted service that controls the device. Google is in total control of your home.
HomeKit? I just Googled it and I wonder what they're going to do about the various companies called HomeKit around the world... my second result was www.homekit.co.nz
Surprise surprise entire API controlled from Google servers.
Yeah, don't really care. The cost of heating/cooling doesn't bother me, being comfortable is more than worth. It'd end up in manual override mode over 90% of the time anyway. But my comment was more towards making it internet connected with a web API than with programming it to turn off for a few hours during work.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Yeah, don't really care. The cost of heating/cooling doesn't bother me...
I think that's where others will disagree -- heating/cooling costs in the colder/hotter cities (in the US, at least) can be well into the hundreds of dollars per month. (And that doesn't include any environmental aspect, which it sounds like you don't care about either.) For some, a) saving money and b) running at a lower energy footprint is worth having an internet-connected thermostat.
Plus, there could be small advantages to it, as well -- driving back from the airport on a winter night, you could turn on the heat so it's nice and toasty when you get back. Sure, if this thing ends up being a security nightmare, I agree -- not worth it. But everyone's assuming this thing will be hacked instantly and cause nothing but trouble when, AFAIK, that's just speculation.
So, one small step for technology ... one giant leap backwards for your privacy?
Sorry, but no way in hell I'd trust Google with this kind of link into my home.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.