Nest's Time At Alphabet: A 'Virtually Unlimited Budget' With No Results (arstechnica.com)

Ron Amadeo, reporting for Ars Technica (edited and condensed): Nest CEO Tony Fadell wasn't officially "fired" from Nest, but it certainly feels like it. In just the last few months, Nest has had to deal with reports of an "employee exodus," a string of public insults from Dropcam co-founder and departing Nest employee Greg Duffy, news that even Google supposedly didn't want to work with Nest on a joint project, and fallout from the company's decision to remotely disable Nest's deprecated Revolv devices. [...] It's hard to argue with the decision to "transition" Fadell away from Nest. When Google bought Nest in January 2014, the expectation was that a big infusion of Google's resources and money would supercharge Nest. Nest grew from 280 employees around the time of the Google acquisition to 1200 employees today. In Nest's first year as "a Google company," it used Google's resources to acquire webcam maker Dropcam for $555 million, and it paid an unknown amount for the smart home hub company Revolv. Duffy said Nest was given a "virtually unlimited budget" inside Alphabet. In return for all this investment, Nest delivered very little. Two-and-a-half years under Google/Alphabet, a quadrupling of the employee headcount, and half-a-billion dollars in acquisitions yielded minor yearly updates and a rebranded device. That's all.

Comments

BizX's Time Owning Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtually unlimited goodwill from users with no results

Re:BizX's Time Owning Slashdot

[CrashNBrn]

Whatt'ya mean? It's 2016, and Slashdot almost supports ANSI.

This is what happens when you have

[bravecanadian]

a solution looking for a problem.. that causes other problems.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[RatPh!nk]

In terms of energy efficiency, it is smart. The rate at which your house warms and cools, especially as a function of outside temperature, is a much better algorithm for controlling a heating and cooling system. However, I admit even as a gadget geek with some superfluous income it just isn't $250 cool, to me. Purely a values thing. I'd definitely be in for $150, maybe at $200. Price point is just off for what it does.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[QuietLagoon]

a solution looking for a problem.. that causes other problems.

It was a solution for two problems:

.
1) how to gather information about the interior of people's houses

2) how to get people to install yet another advertisement screen in their houses.

To your point, the problem with Nest is that the solutions were not for problems that the people buying the device had, Nest was a solution to Nest's business partners' problems.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

If your house is empty most of the day, or unpredictably empty, it will more than make up for the cost of purchase in at the most, a year

Re:This is what happens when you have

[gmack]

$250 per thermostat which is tolerable if you have central heating. In my case, my apartment has 7 thermostats that's almost $3000. On top of that, each device needs batteries which I would find myself constantly replacing.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[CrashNBrn]

Math much? 8 Thermostats would be $2000. Also, the Nest has a C-line for power.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Your *apartment* has 7 thermostats? That seems to be its own problem. Does every closet have its own thermostat?

Re:This is what happens when you have

[known_coward_69]

yep, some of us aren't so OCD that coming home to a too hot or cold home is a big deal. we tough it out for 30 minutes instead of turning the AC on remotely of having it run all day. this seems like a millennial product for the younger crowd who are still in their whiny everything must be perfect phase of their lives. us old people in the we're too cheap phase will tough it out and save the cash. and electricity isn't that expensive if you don't use a lot. in NYC my bill is like $70 most months unless it's a hot summer. i turn all the lights off, the TV, all the computers, nothing running or torrenting 24 hours a day, no SAN's or other geek nonsense sucking up electricity. absolutely no need for one of these gizmos or you buy a new home with all the energy efficiency bells and whistles so that this isn't a problem in the first place. and new homes already have automation options you can buy.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when you can also find claims of energy bills going up with the addition of a Nest to your house.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[gmack]

Your *apartment* has 7 thermostats? That seems to be its own problem. Does every closet have its own thermostat?

One per bedroom, plus livingroom, kitchen, bathroom and entranceway. Not my favorite design.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[green1]

My house is very unpredictably empty. But I've also seen nothing to indicate that Nest can handle that any better than my existing "dumb" thermostat.
It can only detect people if they walk near the thermostat (which is in an upstairs hallway that I don't walk by very often), it can guess at schedules, but I can guarantee it can't guess at ours. I could manually program a schedule in to it, but it would always be wrong, and It would be just as easy to manually adjust the thermostat each time.

Now if they implemented something that looked at multiple google calendars, and assumed that if there was nothing scheduled on any of them that there'd be someone home, then it would be useful, but right now it only works if your house is PREDICTABLY empty.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's what happens when you have poor management with little to no accountability. Marketing can create the illusion of the problem your device solves, but you still need to know your feature set. Put in random features? Sure. Marketing can say how they add value, but you need a stopping point and you can't keep churning taking two steps forward and two steps back.

A thermostat with a built-in webcam shouldn't destroy the project. It's a dumb project that most people won't buy, but it's a finishable project. They couldn't finish anything. That's simply incompetent management. You can't even blame the developers. If the developers kept failing on their tasks, it's management's job to figure out why and fix it or to fire them and hire better developers. They didn't even do that.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[MachineShedFred]

Other competitors have solved most of those problems, specifically Ecobee with their remote sensors that you can put in different rooms. You can then set schedules that ignore some sensors at certain times - for example, I don't really care what the temperature is in my office when I'm in my bedroom sleeping, so pay no attention to that.

The remote sensors also have movement sensing too, so you don't have to walk past the thermostat, but any sensor that you can put wherever you please. They've also integrated with IFTTT to allow smartphone geolocation services.

Nest may have been first, but they've done jack shit with that lead and now they're last.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't most thermostats now programmable by day? The ones that came vanilla (3 years and less) with systems were programmable by day, 4 sections per day. I set them up to do what this sounds like.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[known_coward_69]

here in the north east it has been fairly cool so i simply open the windows for some air circulation. best thing it's free

Re:This is what happens when you have

[The Grim Reefer]

yep, some of us aren't so OCD that coming home to a too hot or cold home is a big deal. we tough it out for 30 minutes instead of turning the AC on remotely of having it run all day. this seems like a millennial product for the younger crowd who are still in their whiny everything must be perfect phase of their lives. us old people in the we're too cheap phase will tough it out and save the cash.

Some of us are old enough to have grown up w/o AC. So waiting a half an hour to cool the house isn't that bad.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[PCM2]

If your house is empty most of the day, or unpredictably empty, it will more than make up for the cost of purchase in at the most, a year

My apartment is almost always empty. By being a genius with the IQ of an Einstein, I came up with an algorithm to achieve the optimal setting on my thermostat.

(Seriously, am I the only one who sees the irony in a company making an expensive thermostat from a place where weather probably matters the least of anywhere in the US?)

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, I had one of those honywell ones. You know the guys who patented basically the Nest, then sat on those patents until someone finally made a good thermostat, then sued Nest.

I programmed it to be only on when I am at home.
I now have a nest, my energy usage was reduced by 1/3.

I was so impressed that I also now got a new central heating system, where the nest can control the water temperature, not just turn it on/off.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

a solution looking for a problem.. that causes other problems.

You're looking at it all wrong. The "problem" was there is a market for spying on people in their homes. The "solution" was always-on cameras and microphones in thermostats and smoke alarms. The issue (for them) was that it didn't catch on because there isn't a whole lot of use to get out of 24/7 streaming cameras in every room of your house outside of spying on people and the government has a limited budget.

Re: This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed one of those in my last apartment. It cost $20, was digital, had a backlight for when I might want to manually override the program at night, and served as a handy wall clock too. No internet connection so no security hole. No privacy issues. Lowered my bill relative to its mercury-filled non-programmable predecessor. Paid for itself in like two months.

Nest was never a solution. The IoT generally is not, much in the way that the F35 is not a viable means of waging a large-scale war.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, I had one of those honywell ones. You know the guys who patented basically the Nest, then sat on those patents until someone finally made a good thermostat, then sued Nest.

I programmed it to be only on when I am at home. I now have a nest, my energy usage was reduced by 1/3.

I was so impressed that I also now got a new central heating system, where the nest can control the water temperature, not just turn it on/off.

Are you by chance a Nest marketer?

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't grow up in Texas.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[swb]

The rate at which your house warms and cools, especially as a function of outside temperature, is a much better algorithm for controlling a heating and cooling system.

Is outside temperature even that important? All houses have varying levels of sun exposure which can pretty meaningfully influence the inside temperature of your house. I've noticed on sunny winter days that the house takes longer to cool off when a setback program is active. It also wouldn't surprise me if windy winter days caused the house to cool down faster as well.

Wouldn't the basic algorithm which programmable thermostats use -- how long did it take to get to the set point the last N times -- mostly good enough? Especially since weather seems to have patterns to it, so if it took a certain number of minutes over the last couple of days to heat back to the set point from the setback temperature the odds are usually pretty good that today will be a lot like yesterday.

Overall I find the Nest really hard to justify vs. a Honeywell 7 day programmable thermostat.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Hognoxious]

A solution is a one-time income. A series of problems is a perpetual revenue stream.

You should of gone to Arvhard like what me and my pop did. Then you'd know shit like that.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Aighearach]

Funny thing about that, a $25 thermostat from the box store is programmable, and works OK for people with predictable schedules...

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Aighearach]

And some live in the basement where it is naturally cool in the summer.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Hognoxious]

By being a genius with the IQ of an Einstein, I came up with an algorithm to achieve the optimal setting on my thermostat.

Depending on whether it gets cold enough to burst pipes, I'm guessing the answer is either "off" or "an RCH above freezing".

Then again, I'm almost as dumb as Feynman, so ou might be working totally over my head.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[macs4all]

In terms of energy efficiency, it is smart. The rate at which your house warms and cools, especially as a function of outside temperature, is a much better algorithm for controlling a heating and cooling system.

That's the "D" (Differential) part of the "PID" (Proportional Integral Differential, or "Proportioner Integrator Differentiator") Algorithm that thermostats and heating/cooling plants have been using for, well, since there were mechanical thermostats with that strange little setting inside that was marked with "0.4, 0.6, 0.8..."

Look up "Heat Anticipator" sometime. Rate-of-Change when heating is NOT a novel concept. Far from it.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[macs4all]

My house is very unpredictably empty. But I've also seen nothing to indicate that Nest can handle that any better than my existing "dumb" thermostat. It can only detect people if they walk near the thermostat (which is in an upstairs hallway that I don't walk by very often), it can guess at schedules, but I can guarantee it can't guess at ours. I could manually program a schedule in to it, but it would always be wrong, and It would be just as easy to manually adjust the thermostat each time.

Now if they implemented something that looked at multiple google calendars, and assumed that if there was nothing scheduled on any of them that there'd be someone home, then it would be useful, but right now it only works if your house is PREDICTABLY empty.

Exactly.

Or if you have pets, do you really want them to suffer, just to save $50 per year?

Programmable thermostats are really only practical in a fairly small envelope of living patterns and situations.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

should of

Come on, man. Your UID indicates you're old enough to know better by now.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Ksevio]

If you live in Massachusetts, you can get a $100 rebate for buying one since it helps improve efficiency.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[b0bby]

I have both a Nest and an ecobee; can't remember which one, but one of the two had a setting where it would switch to resistant heat instead of the heat pump if the internet reported temp outside was below ~32 degrees. I noticed the aux heat was coming on too much and found and changed that setting. I could see how that could add a good amount to your bill for sure.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[JeremyR]

For some heat pumps, this is what a call for "stage 2" heat translates into. I didn't even have a resistant-heat "auxiliary" unit installed into mine.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[R3d M3rcury]

yep, some of us aren't so OCD [...]

And some of us aren't so lazy that we can't get up off the couch and change the channel on the TV.

This is what amuses me most about these kinds of comments--the "I'm not so (Bad character trait) that I can't..."

My roommate is somewhat similar. She sets the thermostat to as low as it will go. When she comes home, she turns on the AC. When the house is a nice temperature, she turns it off. When the house warms up again, she turns it on. When it cools down, she turns it off. She's not so lazy that she can't get up off the couch and turn on/off the AC. What does she need a stupid thermostat for?

I'm an old fart as well. And, no, I'm not so OCD that I can't manage to wait the 30 minutes for the house to cool down. But why should I have to, if the technology exists at a reasonable price to handle this? I have no problem with the idea of being able to remotely tell the AC in my home to turn on and set the temperature in the house to 70 degrees before I start the 30 minute drive home.

There are legitimate concerns with home automation. I don't need to come home to an icebox after being away for a week because some hacker kid in Arkansas thought it would be funny to set the thermostat to 40 degrees and run my AC non-stop all week long. Security is important. I'd rather my house doesn't share that I'm on my way home with Google, which would immediately want to tell me about the 2-for-1 special on peanut butter at the Winn-Dixie along the route. Privacy is important. Is this something I'm willing to devote the time and effort to setting up and maintaining? Can I trust a "service" to have the same concerns that I do? Is it worth the monthly fee to the service?

But the whole, "I have more 'character' than you because I choose not to take advantage of technology," attitude? C'mon. Read up on Transactional analysis.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[R3d M3rcury]

Some of us are old enough to have grown up w/o AC.

But we were happy in those days...

Re: This is what happens when you have

[ender-]

I installed one of those in my last apartment. It cost $20, was digital, had a backlight for when I might want to manually override the program at night, and served as a handy wall clock too. No internet connection so no security hole. No privacy issues. Lowered my bill relative to its mercury-filled non-programmable predecessor. Paid for itself in like two months.

Nest was never a solution. The IoT generally is not, much in the way that the F35 is not a viable means of waging a large-scale war.

Maybe it wasn't a solution for you, but it is a solution for a lot of people. I too have had various programmable thermostats for years, and yes they were a great improvement over manual thermostats. You know what though? I don't have the same home/away schedule all the time. It fluctuates significantly. Sometimes I go into the office, sometimes I work from home all day. Sometimes I'm home in the evening or on the weekend and sometimes I'm not. So a thermostat which can automatically detect when I'm not home and lower the AC if I forget to do it on the way out the door solves one of my problems. And I've found other features of the Nest to be useful and it and has made a noticeable difference in my electricity usage.

So the Nest was a solution, just perhaps not for you.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[rwa2]

In terms of energy efficiency, it is smart. The rate at which your house warms and cools, especially as a function of outside temperature, is a much better algorithm for controlling a heating and cooling system. However, I admit even as a gadget geek with some superfluous income it just isn't $250 cool, to me. Purely a values thing. I'd definitely be in for $150, maybe at $200. Price point is just off for what it does.

So I just bought a Gen2 Nest for $125 ( $200 plus a $75 incentive discount from the regional power company)

I hadn't been reading about all of the turmoil... spent a few days reading about home automation stuff, and just about everything else I have already works with Nest (Lutron Caseta, Chamberlain garage door opener, Wink) so it just seemed like a no-brainer. People seem to like the reliability and simplicity of the Ecobee things more, but only the Honeywell Nest knock-off is the only other thermostat that qualifies for the $75 utility rebate.

But whatever, maybe this news will make the Nest even cheaper.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[TheInternetGuy]

"D" (Derivative) , because letters and stuff

Re:This is what happens when you have

[macs4all]

"D" (Derivative) , because letters and stuff

Yeah, guess it has been too long...

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Jane Q. Public]

Let's not forget that it's also a thermostat which is "smart" enough to call home (its home, that is) and report on your your thermostat settings and other activities that might be deduced from interaction with the device.

Some people think it's stupid to worry about such things. I think it's a "foot in the door". Remember, Nest was going to be part of a complete home "system".

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Batteries aren't a problem, you can power one from a wall socket.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Carewolf]

yep, some of us aren't so OCD that coming home to a too hot or cold home is a big deal. we tough it out for 30 minutes instead of turning the AC on remotely of having it run all day. this seems like a millennial product for the younger crowd who are still in their whiny everything must be perfect phase of their lives. us old people in the we're too cheap phase will tough it out and save the cash.

Or have homes that are not of terrible construction quality or terrible design, and can hold an approximate temperature for more than a few hours.

Re: This is what happens when you have

[TheRaven64]

The problem is diminishing returns. For a couple of years, our flat had no thermostat, just an on-off timer for the heating. That was very wasteful (and resulted in the house being too hot or too cold a lot of the time). Then we got a programmable thermostat and now it's comfortable most of the time. When I work from home on a winter day, I need to flip a switch to tell it not to cool off, but that's about it.

We waste a bit on heating when we're out in an evening, but the energy cost of heating a modern house or flat is a lot more than the cost of keeping it warm, so it turns out not to be very much - telling the thermostat to keep the house warm for an extra hour in the evening added a negligible amount to our gas bill over the course of the year as the boiler only comes on briefly to keep the radiators slightly warmer than room temperature.

At $250, it would be a long time before something like Nest would save me any money (especially if you factor in opportunity cost - for most people spending that money on better insulation would save more a lot faster) and a tiny saving is not worth having my central heating connected to the Internet and dependent on software sufficiently complex that it's absolutely guaranteed to have remotely exploitable security holes.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[toddestan]

It's a very common configuration for baseboard heating. Without forced air circulation a central thermostat can't really control the temperature in rooms far away from it, so most don't even try and use a thermostat in each room to control that room's heaters. It's also handy because baseboard heating is really expensive so it's good to be able to turn it on only in rooms you're using.

I don't know what I'd do for sure, but I might start with only putting smart thermostats in the rooms you actually use often.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas is for the most part fine. The deep south is bad where it's not just the heat, it's also the humidity.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

New paper, that says fires decreasing last decades, much less 100s years rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/16... Love the title: "...perceptions versus realities in a changing world" [Les Johnson, 2016-06-11]

Again, as I pointed out, land clearing fires decreased (among other factors involving direct human intervention). From that new paper:

"... During the first half century, the global average area burned decreased somewhat by about 7% [41]. This was largely attributed to human factors, such as increased fire prevention, detection and fire-fighting efficiency, abandonment of slash-and-burn cultivation in some areas and permanent agricultural practice in others. ..."

That's why I objected when Tom Nelson and Lonny Eachus and "Steven Goddard" accused scientists of fraud and dishonesty based on a graph that compares apples and oranges by grafting old data which includes intentional burns onto newer data that excludes intentional burns. Short 2015 explains why their accusations are wrong:

"... Intentional ('controlled') burning was used extensively for vegetation management on nonfederal lands, especially in the south-eastern US during the early 20th century. Although now used to a lesser extent (but on both federal and non-federal lands) in the US, intentional burning is not classified in the current reporting systems as 'wildfire' unless the controlled burn escapes and requires a suppression response. However, the early USFS wildfire activity summaries do include millions of hectares of intentional burning on 'unprotected' lands, which, until approximately the mid-20th century was viewed by the USFS as akin to wildfire, as something that should be prevented and ultimately eradicated (Pyne 1982). Controlled burning was accepted as a viable landmanagement practice over time and persists to this day (Melvin 2012); however, statistics regarding its use have not been included in summaries of 'wildfire' activity for several decades. ..."

That's exactly what I told you earlier, and it answers your repeated question about intentional burns in the USA. So when you claimed a "massive decline" in fires, what you really meant is that the older USFS data included intentional burns, but more recent statistics don't include intentional burns.

There's really no need to imply that mainstream scientists don't understand that direct human intervention is currently a bigger factor than climate change. That is, in fact, exactly what Pechony and Shindell 2010 Fig. 2A shows. The gray line (fires without direct human intervention) projects an "impending shift to a temperature-driven global fire regime in the 21st century, creating an unprecedentedly fire-prone environment. These results suggest a possibility that in the future climate will play a considerably stronger role in driving global fire trends, outweighing direct human influence on fire (both ignition and suppression), a reversal from the situation during the last two centuries."

In fact, three years ago I quoted the same paper

Re:This is what happens when you have

[khayman80]

Perhaps you would like to rebut the Royal Society paper, that shows a DECREASE in wildfires last decades/centuries [Les Johnson, 2016-06-13]

Wow. One of Lonny Eachus's fellow travellers completely ignores everything I wrote. What a complete surprise!

Again, as I pointed out, land clearing fires decreased (among other factors involving direct human intervention). From that Royal Society paper:

"... During the first half century, the global average area burned decreased somewhat by about 7% [41]. This was largely attributed to human factors, such as increased fire prevention, detection and fire-fighting efficiency, abandonment of slash-and-burn cultivation in some areas and permanent agricultural practice in others. ..."

So that paper explicitly includes "slash-and-burn cultivation" in the decreasing total area burned. Which is exactly what I told you earlier. That paper is examining all fires, both wildfires and intentional burns. Notice that they're examining charcoal records and isotope-ratio records in ice cores? Those records necessarily include intentional burns, like the "staggering amounts" of land clearing fires that occurred just in the USA over the last century. Ice core and charcoal records can't distinguish wildfires from intentional burns, but when Doerr and Santin use statistics that can tell the difference, the results aren't quite what Les Johnson is implying:

"... the widely reported increase in area burned for the USA [42] and particularly the western USA in recent decades [43–46]. ... according to national statistics for the USA, while area burned by prescribed fire has changed little overall since reporting began in 1998 (10 year average: 8853 km2), area burned by wildfires has seen an overall strong trend of increase by over 5%/yr over the period 1991–2015, with 2015 exceeding 40 000 km2 burned for the first time during the past 25 years (figure 3). This increase has been accompanied by an overall decline in the number of fires (figure 3). This suggests a general trend of fewer, but larger wildfires, which is also highlighted for forests in the western USA by Westerling for the period 1983–2012 [46]. ..."

So Doerr and Santin are actually saying that wildfires are burning more area in the western USA in recent decades. That's exactly what I said in 2012. And note that Doerr and Santin say "These statistics need to be viewed with some caution when examining trends as annual reporting methods and biases have undergone changes over time [47]."

Doerr and Santin reference 47 is Short 2015, which says:

"... Intentional ('controlled') burning was used extensively for vegetation management on nonfederal lands, especially in the south-eastern US during the early 20th century. Although now used to a lesser extent (but on both federal and non-federal lands) in the US, intentional burning is not classified in the current reporting systems as 'wildfire' unless the controlled burn escapes and requires a suppression response. However, the early USFS wildfire activity summaries do include millions of hectares of intentional burning on 'unprotected' lands, which, until approximately the mid-20th century was viewed by the USFS as akin to wildfire, as something that should be prevented and ultimately eradicated (Pyne 1982). Controlled burning was accepted as a viable landmanagement practice over time and persists to this day (Melvin 2012); however, statistics regarding its use have not been included in summaries of 'wildfire' activity for several decades. ..."

That's why I objected when Tom Nelson and Lonny Eachus and

Re:This is what happens when you have

[Anonymous Coward]

I am neither homophobic or transphobic, nor do I rant. I do, however, disagree with you about politics. Cease your libel. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-06-13]

Even Claudia Taake recognizes that you rant, Lonny. And of course you can't recognize that your rants are homophobic. You couldn't even recognize that this blatantly homophobic rant was homophobic! And you'll never be able to admit that this is homophobic, along with this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and

Re:This is what happens when you have

[khayman80]

let me help. rate of sea level rise increasing. tinyurl.com/gqx9hgy [Peter Sinclair]

Nerem et al. 2011 [Lonny Eachus, 2016-02-10]

Why did Lonny Eachus link to a graph showing a 3.1 mm/year global sea level trend? Since that's higher than Lonny's claimed "1.1 mm/year", doesn't that simple comparison show the rate of sea level rise is increasing (i.e. accelerating) over the long term? And since Lonny's accused scientists of being "liars" if they acknowledge the global sea level rise of ~3 mm/year, why did Lonny cite a graph containing what he called a lie from a scientist he's previously called a "liar"?

Furthermore, that's not a peer-reviewed paper. It's a slide from a 2011 presentation which hasn't been turned into a peer-reviewed paper. A real skeptic might wonder why it hasn't. Hint: in 2011 Jane/Lonny briefly stopped denying satellite measurements of sea level because they showed a short term drop. Of course, scientists told Jane that this was because the 2011 La Nina caused such massive flooding that global sea level fell temporarily. See Boening et al. 2012 (PDF).

So is it really surprising that calculating sea level acceleration from 1993-2011 gave an unrepresentative answer? Especially because that's a short timespan, and detecting acceleration requires a longer timespan than just detecting a trend. Maybe we could learn why that 2011 presentation hasn't become a peer-reviewed paper by looking at that same data up to 2016.

Let's analyze that raw data (backup) from sealevel.colorado.edu (backup). Here are accelerations and uncertainties for timespans that all end at 2016.1 but start at 1993, 1994, etc. Notice the similarities between the satellite acceleration graph and the older global tide gauge acceleration graph I've shown Jane/Lonny. All the black best-fit accelerations are positive. More recent accelerations tend to be larger. (The most recent accelerations and even their red lower 95% confidence intervals are off the scale even though the upper vertical limit is twice as high as in the older graph.) This tends to suggest that not only is global sea level accelerating, it's even "jerking" up.

(Technical note: those 95% confidence intervals were calculated using a ARMA(1,1) noise model. I also tested AR(1), MA(1), ARMA(1,2), and ARMA(2,1), but ARMA(1,1) minimized both the AIC and BIC.)

let me help. rate of sea level rise increasing.

Stay Frosty San Fransisco

[yuriklastalov]

I, for one, welcome our IoT overlords! If not Nest, then the next naked attempt to cash in on as much personal data as they can get away with extracting!

All hail our benevolent Silicon Valley spy master overlords! HIP HIP HURRAH!

Re:Stay Frosty San Fransisco

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I, for one, welcome our IoT overlords! If not Nest, then the next naked attempt to cash in on as much personal data as they can get away with extracting!

Windows 10 telemetry is the Top of the Pops in that area at the moment. Not even Microsoft employees can tell you what the are collecting, and what they use the data for.

It's really like the former East German Stasi, where the operatives did not know why they were collecting data on their targets. Will we ever really know what is behind Windows 10 telemetry, and who gets what data, and what they do with it . . . ?

I doubt it.

All hail our benevolent Silicon Valley spy master overlords! HIP HIP HURRAH!

Microsoft is not based in Silicon Valley.

Re:Stay Frosty San Fransisco

[fiannaFailMan]

Windows 10 telemetry is the Top of the Pops in that area at the moment.

Meaning it's obsolete?

Re:Stay Frosty San Fransisco

[Hognoxious]

And the old versions are absolutely full of pediofiddlerists.

Re:Stay Frosty San Fransisco

[EndlessNameless]

Microsoft is not based in Silicon Valley.

Technically, no, but in practical terms, they have a presence.

Microsoft has a huge new technology center in Mountain View, and that's where they like to invite their enterprise clients. Only a small part of that complex is used for public conference rooms and demos.

No idea what happens in the rest of the facility, but I imagine they are actively and heavily schmoozing the people and the businesses of Silicon Valley in addition to whatever actual work is being done there.

Re:Stay Frosty San Fransisco

[whoever57]

And the old versions are absolutely full of pediofiddlerists.

And you hope that it is only the old versions were "absolutely full of pediofiddlerists".

Google overpaid...

[__aaclcg7560]

Based on my experience in a company that went on a shopping spree during the run up to the dot com bust, Google overpaid and Nest had unrealistic expectations.

Re:Google overpaid...

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'm not sure their expectations were unrealistic, though I agree with the notion that they went on a blind buying spree. Nest was a good product, and in their position I would have focused on 2 things:
1) more beautiful and intuitive home automation devices. The demand is there, and even without much innovation they could have turned out some good devices, building on solid design and a strong brand name. Dropcam might have been such a device... but not at the price.
2) a strategy for integrated home automation. This is a growing market fully in the hype cycle, with a lot of contenders but few real mature products and tons of room for improvement. Revolv wasn't the right product and would never have been made into the right one. Perhaps they were just looking to buy expertise rather than a product, but in my experience that rarely works.

They overpaid for Dropcam. With Revolv they didn't just back the wrong horse; they bet in the wrong race on something that doesn't even resemble a horse. But that's no surprise. Google doesn't "get" home automation and IoT any more than other companies like Apple do.

Re: Google overpaid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip - 40 bucks is too much for a no-name $5 rebranded webcam

GoPro - same story, their own OEM sell a cheaper designs with Chinese CCDs

Re: Google overpaid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Silicon valley style pro tip for you buddy
PROTIP:
1 Buy random crap off Alibaba
2 Put your logo on them
3 Scream STARTUP, in the middle of Menlo
4 ...
5 PROFIT!

Re:Google overpaid...

[__aaclcg7560]

I'm not sure their expectations were unrealistic, though I agree with the notion that they went on a blind buying spree.

A virtually unlimited budget always results in unrealistic expectations. Reminds me the story of the entrepreneur who got money to build a widget factory. When investors showed up at the place of business, they saw a very fancy office and employees playing foosball. They asked to see the widget factory. The entrepreneur said he needed more money to build the widget factory, as he spent all the money on the office. Needless to say, everyone had unrealistic expectations and the office got shut down. Saw quite a few fancy offices during the dot com bust.

Re: Google overpaid...

[Thud457]

You forgot the Kickstarter & Etsy steps.
Do you even have a MBA, bro?!!

Re:Google overpaid...

[PCM2]

Hilarious to me was "Silicon Alley," ie startups in New York trying to do tech. These companies were crazy about building out their data centers on premises, where there was a tinted glass window behind the receptionist so that when you visited the company's offices you would see the lights blinking on all the pretty servers. "SERIOUS INTERNET WORK BEING DONE HERE!" I visited one company in NYC that intentionally left all the cardboard boxes from Dell leaning against the wall in the hallway so you'd know they were, like, buying hella servers.

Don't get me wrong; back in the Bay Area they were buying pool tables and pinball machines. But it just always seemed like a certain, bizarre brand of hubris to want to show off all the pretty server LEDs as proof that you were doing something important.

Re:Google overpaid...

[__aaclcg7560]

But it just always seemed like a certain, bizarre brand of hubris to want to show off all the pretty server LEDs as proof that you were doing something important.

When I worked at eBay's headquarters in North San Jose, there's a hallway off the lobby where a glass wall showed off the onsite data center. I'm sure it impressed the hell out of the press and VIPs.

Re:Google overpaid...

[drinkypoo]

But it just always seemed like a certain, bizarre brand of hubris to want to show off all the pretty server LEDs as proof that you were doing something important.

In most tech companies the real work happens at desks and it looks boring as hell. The blinkenlichten in the server room are the only visually impressive part of the whole enterprise. Might as well put it on display...

Too lazy to google

[BlackPignouf]

TLDR : WTF is NEST?
PS: Pretty please :)

Re:Too lazy to google

[__aaclcg7560]

Internet of Things - Devices to control your home.*

*As long as company doesn't brick your devices because they're too old.

Re:Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just going to link this video from the article as an explanation of what Nest is.

Although maybe don't watch that if you have your volume up that high.

Or to give you a straight answer they make "smart" home appliances, including "smart" smoke detectors that don't work and a "smart" thermostat that fails to turn on your heat and lets your pipes freeze. That type of thing.

Re:Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so is NEST supposed to make the tenants life easier? or ensure that maintenance guys have enough to do?

Re:Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a thermostat that is constantly connected to the Internet, opening up both security holes(hackers could randomly heat your house up to 100 degree) and of course, Google data mining.

There are literally zero positives to this.

Re:Too lazy to google

[Junta]

Of which *only* the thermostat had any sort of 'oh that could be useful' opinion of anyone. There's really not that much in a house that extracts value of internet connected embedded control/monitoring (climate control and security monitoring/locking).

Re:Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

A company that makes IoT enabled thermostats. They once had a famous bug that caused the thermostat to shut off in the middle of winter this year, leaving their customers with freezing homes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01...

Re: Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope you're talking farenheight and not celsius :)

Re:Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

Device "too old" being 17 months, right? Or some similarly small number.

All this stuff has me even less interested in "IoT", connected appliances, and Google products. I'm not interested in taking devices that last 10-20 years and moving them to a 2 year replacement cycle.

Re:Too lazy to google

[jhecht]

Watch the video -- bricking that thing would be a feature, not a bug.

Re:Too lazy to google

[dgatwood]

Sure there is. You just have to think about it a little harder.

• Curtains and window shades: Open on cold days to let in light and warm the house. Close on hot days to reflect more solar energy back out.
• Refrigerator: Preferentially run the compressor at times when power rates are cheaper.
• Lighting: Reduce interior lighting automatically and open curtains when it is light outside, but only within hours when someone is at home and not asleep.
• Water heater: Compute when hot water is needed and ensure that there's enough hot water when needed, but without wasting power keeping water hot for an empty house all day.
• Smoke alarms and burglar alarms: Contact the homeowner if they go off while the owner isn't home.
• Power management: Turn off power to power vampire devices when nobody is home.

There are probably lots of others. And depending on the home, you could also do things like closing and opening baffles to make heating more efficient or avoid having too much airflow in your bedroom at night, avoid running air conditioning in a home recording studio while actually recording (and turn it back on as soon as you stop), etc.

Re:Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

li> Water heater: Compute when hot water is needed and ensure that there's enough hot water when needed, but without wasting power keeping water hot for an empty house all day.

The water heater issue was solved a long time ago, the insulation is so good on mine that the only time the burner turns on is when someone has been using the hot water. I've shut off the gas before when doing maintenance and several hours later the temperature inside was still over 100 deg F.

That or you go tankless, in which the point is entirely moot.

Re:Too lazy to google

[pnutjam]

I'm almost certain that during the majority of the year it's less efficient to use external light and remove the heat then it is to just use electric lights. I still like to open the windows, but it's a trade off.

Re:Too lazy to google

[Junta]

The problem with most of those scenarios is that they are beyond the point of diminishing returns for the most part.

Lights 'on' having a different amount depending on how much natural light... frankly with LED lighting there isn't much value between on/off (probably not enough to offset the cost associated with the complexity of making that determination.

For a refrigerator, it's far more effective across the board to just have more insulation. It's not as sexy, but it does allow the refrigerator to not have to resort to over-cooling to take advantage of off-peak time. The biggest problem for refrigerators is when the doors open. A closed fridge can sit there and barely run at all over the course of a day.

Same for water-heater, a sufficiently well insulated water heater should rarely need to re-heat (a bigger problem is the pipes between the heater and the faucets)

For smoke and burglar alarms, that's nothing new. That's been possible for decades.

While the power management *could* be useful, it'd be nice to fix high-power idle devices more.

Keep in mind the name of the game is return on investment. A lot of these ideas companies want a lot of money to provide for, and they won't pay for themselves within a decade except for very dramatic ones like whole-house climate control issues.

The key problem above all else: nest *only* had an inkling of name recognition for thermostats. They weren't *particularly* better positioned than anyone else to execute on the whole-house vision, even if that vision resonated with consumers (it doesn't).

Re:Too lazy to google

[thinkwaitfast]

Lighting: LED lighting is so inexpensive as to practically not be worth worrying over at this time.

Re: Too lazy to google

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a couple of skylights we usually keep closed with the blinds closed because it's a bit of a pain to manipulate. Yes I may be able to add a motor and remote but. Magne the cost of running power or the pain of replacing batteries twice a year and it's not worth it. On the other hand if there was a "smart" control that could coordinate the temp, heat, and AC, and also direct sunlight, I'd get that

Re:Too lazy to google

[TheRaven64]

I agree with a lot of those, but few of them need any wide-area connectivity. The smoke and burglar alarms are a good one, but they're also likely better handled by a more reliable back-haul than a consumer broadband connection. Smart electricity meters can get the spot price via a broadcast (some systems broadcast it over the power lines, as the bandwidth required is tiny) and relay it locally without needing an Internet connection. As the other poster said, with LED lighting the power consumption is so low that you're likely to be burning more power in the processor and sensors figuring out whether the lights should be on than you are from having the light on.

Re:Too lazy to google

[dgatwood]

Where are you that the temperature outdoors never goes below room temperature? It is always more efficient to use external light when the heat is turned on (i.e. when it is cold outside), because the heat from the sun means you have to add less heat with your furnace.

Re:Too lazy to google

[pnutjam]

If you open the windows entirely, you get external coolness, but also humidity. Without some sort of awning, you get still get alot of heat from the sunlight. If you just open the shades, what I was referring to, you get only heat from the sun, too much for more then 2/3rd's of the year.

Job security

[The-Ixian]

Has the buying out of a smaller company EVER resulted in a better product for the consumer?

Cheaper, maybe... but almost certainly more diluted as creative control and vision is coopted/usurped.

Re:Job security

[CrashNBrn]

Has the buying of ANY company EVER resulted in any benefit to the consumer whatsoever? Cheaper shittier products maybe. Better bonuses for execs. Restricted markets with less players. Competitors bought and shut down. Business as usual in the grand US of A.

Re:Job security

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been in both startups, and enterprise, the answer is of course, complicated.

The code we acquire from startups, while focused - generally doesn't support anywhere near the breadth of integrations or functionality our enterprise customers expect.

What happens then is a massive rearchitecting towards supporting all the standard environments (and not so standard) - and yes, that ends up diluting the original purpose of the initial application, and makes it heavier and less nimble. But it ends up working in far more places.

Re:Job security

[MachineShedFred]

Yes.

Apple purchased PA Semi, and now they have their own line of system-on-chip computers that have pushed other semiconductor and device manufacturers to constantly increase performance to compete.

Purchasing PA Semi lead directly to the Apple A4 chip and it's successors, which led directly to Qualcomm, TI, and Samsung making better ARM chips to compete.

Re:Job security

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Has the buying out of a smaller company EVER resulted in a better product for the consumer?

Well, I don't know. Was pre-Google Android any good? Were there many devices with it for you to buy?

Re:Job security

[evilRhino]

HP's purchase of Compaq ushered in an era where one could purchase HP stock at a 50% discount, and also indirectly led to the purchase of many political advertisements which subsidized many popular entertainment programs for public benefit.

Re:Job security

[Anonymous Coward]

Pre-Google Android was in development when Google bought it, and thus, had never been released.

Re:Job security

[TheRaven64]

Is post-Google Android any good? Brain-dead security model, user-hostile permissions system, no sane update infrastructure. The only positive thing is that it allows Google, the handset makers, and the carriers to all blame each other so no one actually has to take responsibility for it.

Re:Job security

[K. S. Kyosuke]

No mobile system is good when absolute criteria are considered. Nor is any desktop system.

Re:Job security

[farble1670]

Wow, excellent attempt at a troll. Bravo.

Re:Job security

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when your competition is the iPhone, Windows Phone, and Blackberry then slightly better is plenty good enough. Which is why Android is dominating, for better or for worse.

Google bucks worse than bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, Googles cash comes mostly from spyware advertising, this why billions of googlebucks provide little real world results.

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the Dropcam anything more than a rebranded Chinese webcam?

Re: Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't. Their overzealous hipster-nobody CEO was once a paid review blogger

To be expected...

[Junta]

They released an overhyped thermostat. Google then spent 3.2 billion dollars... on a thermostat company.

Sure they had vague ambitions of a connected home that jived with IoT, but all the company had really gotten into the world was a damn thermostat that could connect to the internet.

No matter how good or bad that concept sounds, it was stupid to justify a 3.2 billion dollar investment on that one concrete thing.

Re:To be expected...

[The-Ixian]

Unless 3.2 billion is just walking around money...

Re:To be expected...

[dj245]

Unless 3.2 billion is just walking around money...

That doesn't matter. Nest was just some existing technology cobbled together and wrapped with a very fancy bow. The only reasons to spend that much money would be-

1. The technology was actually worth that much as-is
2. The technology could provide that much value by increasing other businesses
2b. The data that could be collected would be worth that much
3. It would be worth that much to keep the technology out of the hands of a competitor

I really doubt any of those reasons hold up, and probably didn't hold up from the beginning. Even if they were after data, they could have simply paid 10,000 people $1,000 each to install a device in their homes for 1/320th of the Nest acquisition cost. A dollar overpaid for Nest is a dollar that didn't go to shareholders or to something, anything more worthwhile. The fact that $3.2B is probably couch change for Google is not relevant. It is still gross mismanagement to the tune of $3.2B.

Re:To be expected...

[farble1670]

3.2B is *always* a shit ton of money to anyone, anytime, anywhere. This idea that "well, they can afford it so it doesn't matter" is complete BS.

Re:To be expected...

[farble1670]

4. The name, and the hype around is worth that much.

Not saying it was, but a suite of home automation products with the Nest name would have been pretty appealing. Nest was a company the showed they could execute on an ultra-user friendly, hip, shiny, product ... albeit narrow in scope. The hope of course is that the team and management can scale to an expanding scope.

nest

[Anonymous Coward]

Growth by acquisition has never worked, does not work now, will never work in the future.

Companies that grow only by buying things are doomed. Utterly. If you are working for one, update your resume now.

Re: nest

[Anonymous Coward]

It works... If the purpose of the aqusition is to acquire some tech that you do not currently have... But sure.. It must be done with care..

Re:nest

[PCM2]

So ... Oracle? Doomed?

Re:nest

[lgw]

Yup, "move off Oracle" projects dominate consulting these days, and almost no one chooses Oracle for new projects, though PeopleSoft still has some uptake (and even there almost nothing has improved in the 11 years since Oracle bought them).

Oracle's maybe a bad example, though, given the heroic lengths they go to to annoy their customers.

Advertising company

[fermion]

Giving that Google is primarily ads and not consumer products, I bought a y-cam instead of dropcam. Did not trust google to actually innovate.

Re:Advertising company

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why they re-branded to become Alphabet, because everyone knows that Google is just a advertising platform. Alphabet is supposed to let them innovate in non-ad areas. Doesn't look like it's working though.

Re:Advertising company

[Ksevio]

Google is primarily about search that makes money by selling ad space. If their search wasn't good, people wouldn't visit and they wouldn't make money from their ads so they focus a lot on the consumer side.

Perhaps it was Google's fault

[SuperKendall]

I was all set to buy a couple of Nest devices for me house... right before Google purchased them.

I don't want a bunch of Google data gathering devices in my house.

I wouldn't say that was probably a common reaction, but I'm sure Google owning the company made other potential customers uneasy as well. If for no other reason than a company being bought means a device you buy may well have support yanked (as Google Nest did with one of the copies they acquired!).

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an ex-Google engineer, and I am currently phasing every last bit of Google out of my life, if that tells you anything. Gmail, Chrome, you name it -- it's all gotta go.

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

But go to what?

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

VPS + RoundCube and Firefox for me.

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[thegarbz]

I don't want a bunch of Google data gathering devices in my house.

But you were fine with data gathering for a third party who have no history and thus no foundation of assumed trust?

When has the devil you don't know been a better choice?

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[lgw]

Outlook.com doesn't suck. FF is still usable. DuckDuckGo for search, of course. Not much of an alternative to Android, but I have a faint hope that if I don't use Google services the information harvesting will be minimal.

For me, though, YouTube is sticky. Nothing else really in it's niche, and I find that quite annoying. Network effect I guess.

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Do all of you need Tin Foil hats too?

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you can't get rid of Gmail when most people you correspond with use it, so Google has a copy of all your email anyway.

And Google is increasingly able to throw their weight around and dictate draconian "anti-spam" measures which have the nice side-effect of preventing small independent mail servers from being able to send to Gmail.

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an ex-Apple engineer and I personally witnessed their engineers eating puppies at the cafeteria.

Re:Perhaps it was Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the plural of anecdote isn't data but here's another data point for you: I was in the exact same situation. I intended to buy NEST thermostats for my house and immediately changed my decision once Google acquired them. That's at least two more units they lost as a result of the acquisition.

speaking of bitcoin, the currency go pretty well!

[JcMorin]

25% jumps in the last weeks :) https://bitcoinwisdom.com/mark...

Nest temperature display is backwards

[paulpach]

I have a Nest thermostat. It displays in large the temperature you set it to instead of the current room temperature. What the actual fuck? A mercury thermometer is smarter than this.

There was a feature request for this opened in 2013, it has 1683 votes and its the third most popular feature request. You would think that even an entry level programmer would be able to fix that or add an option, but no, the feature has been completely ignored for years and contacting support about it only gives the reply "keep voting for it", even though that is clearly going to /dev/null. The other popular features request are equally ignored.

I am very frustrated by the complete lack of support these devices have. The entire community web site is nothing more than a pacifier for nest owners.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[CrashNBrn]

So pretty much like all non-Android software then. Zero options.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[TheGratefulNet]

are you serious - they only show the SET value and not the ACTUAL current value? no option to set the default large text for the one you want? not a split display, even?

laughable, if that's really true.

I don't expect much from google, though. they mark serious bugs as 'wontfix' and nothing will change their minds.

they are all a lost cause.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[paulpach]

are you serious - they only show the SET value and not the ACTUAL current value? no option to set the default large text for the one you want? not a split display, even?

They show both, the current and the set temperature, but the set temperature is in large in the center of the screen, and the current temperature is tiny. You have to actually get close to the thermostat to read it as opposed to glance at it from the other side of the room. Its an epic fail.

Here is a pic. In that picture, the current room temperature is 78, and it is set to cool down to 75.

There is no way to change this.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[ljw1004]

Twice a day for the past month I've been telling my Nest to use 68 as my preferred temperature, not 72. It still hasn't figured out that I prefer 68. "learning thermostat" indeed.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Trouble is, that they probably feel that having the 'desired' temperature highly visible makes it feel like it is working well. Displaying actual temperature would draw attention to their failure to achieve.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[operagost]

Meanwhile, instead of making the still minimal effort to program an option to choose whether the setpoint or the current is prominent, they could just swap the two and make 90% of the users happy. That particular change would take, I dunno, 30 seconds if you type wearing oven mitts.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Nest thermostat. It displays in large the temperature you set it to instead of the current room temperature. What the actual fuck?

Hahahaha! That is so Google!

Yeah, in this case they bought the company that made the Nest, but to me Google has a reputation for making amazing and innovative products with the most craptastic user interfaces ever.

No wonder they bought Nest, they thought they fit right in.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[TheGratefulNet]

I think I see what they are trying to indicate. they want you to think there is only 1 number. that the duality of 'set' vs 'actual' is 'too hard' for stupid americans.

"what's the temp set to?" "its set to 75"

"what is it now?"

"its set to 75, and its smart, so it SHOULD be 75"

I bet that's their line of thinking. convince people that the notion of 2 values, one writable and one read-only, is just 'too complex' for consumers.

of course, they are quite wrong. but they seem to be doubling down on their derp.

the nest series won't last long at this rate. there's only so many dumb rich folks and once they buy them, that's the end of the market.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn off all automatic programming. Manually enter a schedule with the temperatures you want. Adjust Auto-Away temperatures if you want. Let Auto-away do the energy savings. I have found that the learning algorithms are a bit dumb. Especially if your house has traffic in and out all day. Yep, kinda defeats the purpose of a "learning" thermostat.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[swillden]

I have a Nest thermostat. It displays in large the temperature you set it to instead of the current room temperature.

It displays both. I suppose I see why some people might like the large one to be the actual temperature, but I've never once been bothered by this in the two years I've had them. Partly that's because my thermostats are both in hallways and if you're close enough to see them at all you can easily read both numbers, but mostly I think it's because when I look at the thermostat what I mostly want to know is what temperature its set to.

What I want to know is the big number. That's perfect.

I have a pretty good sense of the current temperature based on feel, but what really matters with respect to the current temperature isn't the numeric value, it's whether I'm too hot or too cold. Since I know what target temperature will make me comfortable, what I care about when looking at the thermostat isn't the current temperature, it's the target temperature, and whether or not the HVAC is currently actively working to move toward that temperature. How long it will take to get to that temperature is also nice to know, and also displayed by the Nest.

I guess to be very specific, what I usually care about when I look at the thermostat is "What have my kids set that thing to now?".

I don't have any objection to making it configurable to better serve people who have different needs, but I prefer the display as is. If it were to be changed, I'd like it to add more information about what it's going to do in the future, such as when the next temperature setting change is coming, or maybe information about predicted outside temperatures over the next few hours.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a large screen LCD thermometer if you want to know your exact temperature.

Never had a problem looking at the nest's current UI.

If you are across the room, the display is likely *off* anyhow. When you walk by it, it will show you the goal (set) temperature, like an automobile's UI does.

However, if you have AC/Heating enabled on the Nest, it will have a blue background as it is cooling and and red background if it is heating. A black background indicates the system is doing neither so the big temperature number (set) is the same as the measured ambient.

Pretty sure it took longer to explain than to grok.

If you are across the house, you can just pull out your smartphone and open up the Nest app and it will tell you the recorded temperature too.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[presidenteloco]

Terrible idea from a human-factors perspective.

Is there ever more than one person in your residence?

If so, how does one person know which way the other person switched the UI configuration to? And when they changed their mind back again?

So as the second or subsequent person in the room, I can't learn what the big central number means, because some dufus keeps changing the meaning on me.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[presidenteloco]

Oops, I meant making it user-selectable which number means what is a terrible idea.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[Moridineas]

I disabled the learning portion of the Nest after less than a year of using. I now just use it as a dumb thermostat (with away mode) that I can control from my cellphone. Blergh.

The mobile software is unbelievably shitty too.

A, but the data

[phorm]

How about the profit from having cameras, microphones, and other sensor data right in people's houses.

Oh wait, like Facebook's chat, I'm sure that's never misused...

Greg Duffy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf is he doing on Medium. His layoff terms prohibit him from being public about company business

Google's tactics.

[sshir]

I think Google buys all those companies just to acquire talent. Google is famous for rather hardnosed/pragmatic approach to managing it's workforce. Such an approach successfully weeds out bullshit artists (e.g. Marissa Mayer). Unfortunately this approach also fairly harsh on true visionaries.
Apparently Google thinks that because bullshit artists outnumber visionaries as 1000 to 1, it's an acceptable loss.
And to compensate for this they simply wait for other companies to cultivate the talent and then swoop in.

Re: Google's tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indians HRs there? Have Sundar brought all his siblings and nephews to Google's board? What is the minimal Telugu language test score they are hiring from?

Re:Google's tactics.

[Cochonou]

Marissa Mayer worked for 13 years at Google. Could you please elaborate on how their management approach "successfully weeds out bullshit artists" in her case ?

Re:Google's tactics.

[floodo1]

you're not a fan of the PB&J program?

Re: Google's tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sundar doesnt speak Telugu, you ignorant twat. He speaks Tamil and English. I also hear he is content with recruiting people that speak English. Go figure.

Fell for the hype, sold after 1 year

[trout007]

I live in Florida so I liked the idea of a learning thermostat to save some money. Instead what I figured out (and should have known ahead of time) is that it is just better to keep the setpoint constant. Sure I saved $10/mo but the house was always muggy and uncomfortable. Part of the reason is I have a high efficiency A/C so when I keep the setpoint constant it just runs the low speed compressor and fan and keeps the house cool and dry. When the nest shut everything down to save energy when we returned it had to kick on the high speed to get back to temperature. I'd gladly pay $10/mo for a comfortable house and less wear and tear on my $10k A/C unit.

Re:Fell for the hype, sold after 1 year

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one setting to control humidity ("Cool to dry") as well as the option to recirculate air periodically when AC isn't needed

Re:Fell for the hype, sold after 1 year

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly this. But they promised it would be *smart*, so things like kicking in hard wouldn't happen. The reality was that it was no smart then you're programmable thermostat - and during exceptional visits it would kick in late, just like your dumb thermostat. What a disappointment. So down the line, a pretty knob with a proprietary internet-only remote...

Re:Fell for the hype, sold after 1 year

[trout007]

I had that option on. But when you are away it shuts it all down.

Youtube?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better now than pre-Google.

hey at least it kept my house warm

[funkymonkjay]

some of the time.

About the only possibly way to botch Glass more

[Andy Dodd]

Don't forget that after abandoning Glass and the Explorers who paid a significant overcharge with the expectation of above-average service and support, Glass was "transitioned" to Fadell.

Look where that got Glass - even more dead than it was when the Explorers program was canned with a device that was LESS functional than it was when it shipped to most users. (KitKat on Glass was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, it destroyed battery life, stability, and performance, and they never got it to perform anywhere close to what it delivered when running ICS. What's worse, the fixes they DID managed to get in over the summer of 2014 to make it suck less all got reverted out for the final software update in September/October 2014 or so, which rendered units near-useless. When delivered, my Glass unit easily got 24 hours of battery life with my typical usage patterns. After the final software update - my unit would usually run out of battery in 8 hours of sitting on a shelf doing absolutely nothing.)

Re:About the only possibly way to botch Glass more

[Anonymous Coward]

It was mostly the Glassholes who ruined Glass, but it didn't help that Google was marketing it to the wrong people to begin with. It should have been aimed at Mechanics and Surgeons and other people who often have both hands full while on the job.

Re:About the only possibly way to botch Glass more

[Anonymous Coward]

Glass finally failed?

And nothing of value was lost.

Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend less, deliver more.

some people like "owning" "things"

[Thud457]

hey, I liked the way dropcam did their zone alert summary.

I just didn't like having to 1) subscribe to 2) constantly upload to their cloud to use it.

ecobee

[trevc]

ecobee makes a much better thermostat.

Re:ecobee

[Christopher_G_Lewis]

Completely agree - the Ecobee is everything the Nest claims to be and better.

Re:ecobee

[Shados]

Yeah. I had a Nest and eventually had to ditch it. The maintenance band range that isn't configurable is simply unacceptable in a large home. The temperature swings would last for hours at a time. The ecobee fixes that nicely (I wish the maintenance band was more configurable than 2 options, but at least one of the options is acceptable).

Ecobee still has a few glitches and weird algorithms (like the way it transitions from one comfort zone to the other at the same time as the active sensors are changing), but it still works great.

Re: About the only possibly way to botch Glass mor

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much visionary for America, you'd better start learning Telugu now if you want to keep your job in Google :)

you f4il it

[Anonymous Coward]

the longest o8 OpenBSD leader Theo do, or 1ndeed what

whaaat?

[superwiz]

Unlimited operating budged, increased staff and full autonomy. And he is complaining about what exactly? Oh, I get it -- the unlimited acquisition budget. Yep. Money is the root of all evil. And it looks like he's been struck with this pernicious curse and doesn't know what to do about it.

P.S.

[SuperKendall]

That is a typo, I am not a pirate.

Dot bomb all over again

[bangular]

When this bubble comes crashing down, I think people are doing to use the Nest as the archetype company that got a lot of investment for little return. Kinda like the cuecat or something similar from that era. Analysis will say "how could Alphabet pay that much for a thermostat company!?!?"

Re:Dot bomb all over again

[Junta]

Yeah, I'm frightened over *just* how familiar everything is from the late 90s. Lot's of fluff and hype and crazy valuations flying around with substantive stuff being more and more diluted by the noise...

Re:Dot bomb all over again

[thinkwaitfast]

something similar from that era

pets.com and their sock

Apple "gets' home automation very well

[SuperKendall]

Google doesn't "get" home automation and IoT any more than other companies like Apple do.

Apple actually gets the whole space very well...

Which is why they made a really nice framework (HomeKit) for interfacing with all kinds of devices, but don't actually make any themselves. Unlike Google.

Matthew 25:14-30E

[Kerstyun]

https://www.biblegateway.com/p... 14 âoeFor it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent, manishs was his name called, went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, âMaster, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.â(TM) 21 His master said to him, âWell done, good and faithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.â(TM) 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, âMaster, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.â(TM) 23 His master said to him, âWell done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.â(TM) 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, âMaster, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.â(TM) 26 But his master answered him, âYou wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. And cancel his H1B visa. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.â(TM)

Quadrupling staff in two years???

[presidenteloco]

Sounds like a terrible, terrible idea.
Most of Nest's management "brainpower" would necessarily have gone into managing that growth and re-org'ing projects and departments several times.

Completely BADDDDDD strategy.

Google bought a highly focussed successful startup, and the way the acquisition was managed, it looks like the focus and execution ability was lost and the potential for sane expansion of the product offering and feature set at a sane pace was squandered.

Not sure who was responsible for that disastrous headcount growth rate and overly ambitious speed-of-execution plan but it looks like a predictable clusterf@&k.

Say what now?

[SuperKendall]

But you were fine with data gathering for a third party who have no history

Wha?

I am not in fact fine with that either.

I have a thermostat that talks to no-one and is crudely programmable (if you can call setting variables as to what days/times the system activates "programming").

When has the devil you don't know been a better choice?

Well in actual fact Google has a pretty terrible history with all this, second only to Microsoft (who I would rather not share data with either).

Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck ups

[raymorris]

They haven't fucked anything up. No beta, they didn't remove the "use classic" link from that horrid mobile site, haven't caused any problems. What they have done so far is engaged with the community, solicited input, and made small improvements that don't cause any new problems.

If I thought any of the presidential candidates would do as well, I would have volunteered for their campaign. :)

Come to think of it, MANY people consider Bill Clinton the best recent president. Why, what did he do? Mostly he spent his time dealing with sex scandals. He didn't muck up the growing economy that he inherited or do anything else too bad. His wife spent 8 years as a senator and is now likely to become president. Why, what did she do in her 8 years in the senate? She sponsored a total of three bills in her eight years:

S. 3145: Name a road "Timothy J. Russert highway".

S. 3613: Name a post office the "Major George Quamo Post Office Building."

S. 1241: Designate a union building as a National Historic Site.

That's it, in eight years as a senator. Apparently that's a great senator, one who should perhaps be president. By this measure, Whiplash should at least be vice president.

Curious about the future.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if new leadership for this branch is going to actually bring some innovation, and better smart home solutions... Or if we're just going to see the nest keep on slowly progressing (where?).

1200 employees

[Anonymous Coward]

For what is essentially a high school senior design project and $40 off of ebay?

/r/noshitshelock

Even better, before the world went digital

[goombah99]

the thing about programable thermostats are that they are as freindly as a vintage VCR or Clock radio to program. But before the word went digital there were the old Homeywell thermostats with a twist timer. Just like an egg timer in your kitcher, you twist the dial and it counts down the hours. while it's ticking it stays off. so when you leave or it is night time you just give it a twist. No need to be hyper accurate.

Re:Even better, before the world went digital

[Aighearach]

And by "as friendly as a vintage VCR," for the young readers I'll point out that that means any 8 year old could do it easily, but grandpa might refuse to even try because manuals are for wimps and buttons and lights are mysterious.

It is almost exactly the same as setting the time on a digital watch, something even most kids did when they were slightly younger kids. Most families still have a digital clock somewhere in the house that gets set twice a year because of daylight saving time.

I don't doubt it is easier if it was wifi or bt and you can set it from a smart phone, but it is only goes from easy to easier. It isn't worth a 1000% price increase to very many people.

Because you'll still have to set it on a schedule; even if you want your smart house to be nosy and pay attention to if you're home or not, the tech just isn't good enough yet.

But they have a nice potato canon

[goombah99]

Baghead has some great ideas at Hooli.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[mattack2]

Wait, aren't you being a hypocrite for praising Bill for (paraphrase) not doing much, yet attacking Hillary for doing the same?

MAYBE (I'm not saying she did) she successfully FOUGHT AGAINST bills you didn't like, and caused them to not be passed.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

What the FUCK does bill clinton have to do with NEST ? Jessus take your ADHD Medication...

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[raymorris]

A) Where did I criticise Hillary? I said she's considered one of the best senators, enough that she's likely to be elected president. I listed all of the bills that she sponsored as a senator. If you think her three bills aren't impressive, that's your own judgement.

B) A hypocrite is someone who publicly espouses one thing, while privately believing the opposite.

I wish people here wouldn't poop on a product they

[melted]

I wish people here wouldn't poop on a product they haven't even tried. For me Nest thermostat paid for itself in the first year. I have a large house. Nest lets me trivially not heat the (or cool) house when I'm not there, yet also turn on the heating it when I'm heading home from work. It's objectively a great product. The "learning" functionality is a bit of a crapshoot, but you don't really have to use it, and schedule set-up is pretty slick, much more so than in the honeywell thermostate the Nest replaced. For one thing, the schedule can be arbitrarily complex, and its complexity can vary by day. I also optimized the schedule so that the rooms are pretty breezy deep at night in the winter (between 2am and 5am). That to saved quite a bit of money, and you also sleep better in a colder room.

Google's dabbling in consumer hardware

[JesseEnjaian]

The only thing fancy about the Nest was its case. The electronics were from like 2000s and never updated (https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/nest-thermostat-teardown-), it never bothered to research any other types of semiconductors besides thermometers, and the software didn't have that many features. I think Google was considering being a hardware company like Apple or Oracle for awhile but drifted back into the mass advertising/spying business. Google's profit margin on the Nest was probably somewhere around $150 per unit. Highway robbery for that electronic turd.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[Weirsbaski]

(Hillary) spent 8 years as a senator and is now likely to become president. Why, what did she do in her 8 years in the senate? She sponsored a total of three bills in her eight years:

S. 3145: Name a road "Timothy J. Russert highway".

S. 3613: Name a post office the "Major George Quamo Post Office Building."

S. 1241: Designate a union building as a National Historic Site.

That's it, in eight years as a senator.

WTF are you talking about? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... :

"While a member of the U.S. Senate, Clinton sponsored 713 pieces of legislation, including 363 bills, 296 amendments, 33 Senate Resolutions, and 21 concurrent resolutions.[11] Fourteen of her Senate resolutions were passed, expressing the Senate's views on policy or commemorative questions.[11] One of her concurrent resolutionsâ"supporting National Purple Heart Recognition Dayâ"passed both houses. Of the 363 bills, three[12] became law: (list of the 3 bills you named)"

and

"Clinton also co-sponsored 2,675 pieces of legislation, including 1,528 bills, of which 70 became law."

Whether her bill-sponsorship or bill-becomes-law rates are high or low for an 8-year junior senator I don't know, but the numbers are pretty freaking far from "She sponsored a total of three bills in her eight years".

Re:speaking of bitcoin, the currency go pretty wel

[TheRaven64]

If you think that the kind of volatility that causes a 25% fluctuation in value (up or down) is a good thing for a currency, then I can only assume that you've never tried to buy or sell anything.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_career_of_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton
While a member of the U.S. Senate, Clinton sponsored 713 pieces of legislation, including 363 bills, 296 amendments, 33 Senate Resolutions, and 21 concurrent resolutions.[11] Fourteen of her Senate resolutions were passed, expressing the Senate's views on policy or commemorative questions.[11] One of her concurrent resolutions—supporting National Purple Heart Recognition Day—passed both houses. Of the 363 bills, three[12] became law:

Re: Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[discojohnson]

For the record, she can rot in jail. But at least be honest: https://www.congress.gov/membe...

87% lower than average, 99% failure rate

[raymorris]

I may have missed a word in my post, thanks for pointing that out. As you quoted:

Of the 363 bills, three became law: (list of the 3 bills you named)"

She sponsored 3 laws in 8 years, naming a post office, a road, and a historical site. Also as you pointed out, 99% of what she sponsored were dead ends.

If all of our politicians spent 99% of their time on dead ends, maybe they wouldn't be screwing things up so much.

Let's do be honest. Her 3 sponsored laws

[raymorris]

Let's do be honest. Here are the three laws she sponsored, according to congress.gov:

https://www.congress.gov/membe..."bill-status"%3A"law"%2C"sponsorship"%3A"sponsored"%7D

As you pointed out, there were also bills that were sponsored by another senator which she later signed on as co-sponsor.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

You make it seem like that is the only thing she did. She has co-sponsored another 74 that made it to law. I don't think many senators make complicated bills on their own, many collaborate and is the best way to get your bill passed.

Many sponsors start a bill, co-sponsors sign later

[raymorris]

> I don't think many senators make complicated bills on their own, many collaborate and is the best way to get your bill passed.

That's not quite what "sponsor" and "co-sponsor" mean in the Senate. Every Senator who signs the bills at initial introduction is listed as "sponsor". Someone who signs on a week or a month later, often after it's clear that the bill won't pass (or that it will), is listed as a co-sponsor. So sponsor is someone who that it should be introduced, a co-sponsor is someone who decided they agreed with it later. If science were the Senate, I would co-sponsor Einstein's work.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your post was it required multiple skills which is really too much to expect from the average internet user. First, you need reading comprehension. Then you need analytic or logical analysis abilities to understand you actually were drawing a parallel, not contrast between Hillary and Bill. "He did nothing." "She just did 3 bills in 8 years" You have to read between the lines to realize, "Ahhh... yes, that's not much either. AHA! A parallel Or, some might say, a tell of their common character traits!" The replying message then lacks grasp of English words because if you were criticizing Hillary for the same things you praised Bill, that would not be hypocrisy. It would be sexism.

The irony is you could easily build a case for Hillary's hypocrisy though. Evil CEO of company that lost billions, testifying before Congress, "I have given you all I know. I know nothing. And, I don't have emails to show otherwise." Hillary, "I vote for Sarbanes Oxley Act which makes that illegal to withhold emails and mandates data retention for email servers." Fast forward to 2015, Hillary, "I have told you all I know. I know of no classified on my home-brewed server used for State Dept business. I don't have emails to give you that show otherwise." She's ok with Federal Laws mandating senior executives can't withhold emails, and must retain them, or go to jail, but NOT ok keeping her own Senior Executive e-mails and did not retain them, per multiple federal laws (which is why the FBI is investigating).

Ps about the average

[raymorris]

> I don't think many senators make complicated bills on their own

The average senator (including first-year freshmen) sponsors three per year, Clinton took eight years to do what the average senator does in one.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[mattack2]

What did you do to criticize Hillary?

His wife spent 8 years as a senator and is now likely to become president. Why, what did she do in her 8 years in the senate? She sponsored a total of three bills in her eight years: ....That's it, in eight years as a senator. Apparently that's a great senator, one who should perhaps be president. By this measure, Whiplash should at least be vice president.

"That's it" sure sound negative to me, it reads as if she should be sponsoring way more bills.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[raymorris]

I can understand that reading. The context of the statement is that my entire post was about if I had confidence that any candidate wouldn't do much, I'd not only vote for them, but volunteer for their campaign.

Bush Jr and Obama did more "stuff" than Bush Sr and Bill Clinton did. Bush Sr had the highest approval rating, followed by Bill, followed by Bush Jr, with Obama last. The two more "active" presidents have much lower approval ratings than the two who left people alone, who didn't go mucking with things,.

Re:Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck

[mattack2]

The context of the statement is that my entire post was about if I had confidence that any candidate wouldn't do much, I'd not only vote for them, but volunteer for their campaign.

The Ron Swanson character on "Parks and Recreation" said similar things. (I liked that character a lot.)