[kuschku]

> […] creating a walled garden around the user’s own data is a shady move. All of my private data should be easibly accessible to me though open API without any gimmicks. In its press release Nest promised introducing a public API[,] however [it] seems limited in many ways compared to the internal API used by Nest mobile app - and to add insult to injury - many of its features require an active Nest subscription.

This is exactly one reason why using "Cloud" services for long-living things, like Hardware, is a great risk.

When Google shuts down Google Reader, we can all migrate to an alternative easily.

When Google shuts down Nest, people are left with non-working thermostats, and have to spend money and rebuild their systems to continue on.

Even worse, if just the internet goes down – not that rare in areas in the US only served by one ISP which doesn’t have to fear competition – one is even left without heating.

The reaction of the people on the recent case where Nest went down itself, and people were left without heating, fits well as context for the following excerpt from "The Sorcerers Apprentice" (1797, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe):

    Herr, die Not ist groß!      Sir, my need is sore.
    Die ich rief, die Geister    Spirits that I've called
    werd ich nun nicht los.      My commands ignore.

[jedberg]

> When Google shuts down Nest, people are left with non-working thermostats, and have to spend money and rebuild their systems to continue on.

No, they are left with a normal programmable thermostat with a nicer interface than most.

> Even worse, if just the internet goes down – not that rare in areas in the US only served by one ISP which doesn’t have to fear competition – one is even left without heating.

This is not true. The Nest operates perfectly fine without internet.

> The reaction of the people on the recent case where Nest went down itself, and people were left without heating

That's not exactly what happened. What happened was there was a bug in the software that had an issue when their server became unavailable. But this could happen with any device that is controlled by software. And even if they had a totally open and accessible API right on the device, this problem still would have happened.

I don't like the fact that they lock up the data, but we should probably try to stomp out the myth that the device is totally useless without their servers.

[supergeek133]

Yeah I'm not sure where/how that started. A firmware update broke the battery charging, device died, and cut off the heat. That's a software problem, not a thermostat problem.

If you bought a Nest, and never connected it, that problem would have never impacted you.

[pdkl95]

> But this could happen with any device that is controlled by software.

Absolutely not. This kind of lazy, defeatist attitude towards failure is a huge problem in the software world.

There should have been checks that handled when the server (or anything else) became available with a contingency already in place to fail safely. Ideally, some of those checks should have been outside the area affected by software updates, such as in hardware.

As software moves into more and more areas that are traditionally thought of as hardware developers need to realize that in some areas bugs are not acceptable. Ever.

// sigh - do we need to get the terac-25 report out again?

[nitrogen]

But this could happen with any device that is controlled by software.

Not devices that are designed to be independent and tested for proper function when disconnected.

[toomuchtodo]

I'm sure all of your code is bug free, right?

[nitrogen]

My code certainly doesn't rely on being able to contact an outside service to continue operating.

[rsync]

"This is not true. The Nest operates perfectly fine without internet."

I'll bet that's not true.

All of the QA and QC of the product goes into its fully functional, online mode and the ability to function offline is ignored at best and at worst, intentionally allowed to decay and malfunction.

I have a good example of this:

Sonos music systems, on paper, can run without an Internet connection. This makes good sense - why wouldn't they play local music shares connected over LAN, even when Internet access is missing, right ?

But go ahead and try it sometime ... it doesn't work at all. No doubt some infinite retry connecting to the license server or the auto-update system ... some wait state or blocking that nobody ever notices since they always have Internet.

The point is, it doesn't work. You should be very suspicious of the ability for any of these things to work without Internet.

[pfarnsworth]

It's true. I have a Nest and it works without the Internet.

Also, the Sonos can work without an internet connection. It requires a Wifi router, but not an internet connection once it has been registered.

[cptskippy]

> No, they are left with a normal programmable thermostat with a nicer interface than most.

Ehh... I don't think the Nest Thermostat is completely programmable from the hardware itself. You can definitely set temperatures and toggle between heat/cool, heat, and cool; but I don't think you can edit the schedule. Even if you could, I don't think I'd want to. The hardware's UI is beautiful but UX leaves much to be desired.

[mikestew]

but I don't think you can edit the schedule.

Second time I've seen this in this thread, so I walked over and checked our V1 Nest: yup, you can edit it on the device. And I rescind my earlier comment on usability: it's actually not that bad. Certainly easier than the programmable thermostat it replaced.

[cptskippy]

I just checked my v1 and I was able to edit the schedule but I have no way of knowing if I was editing my weekly schedule or making a 1-off correction. I'm guess it's the later and not the former because the change isn't reflected in the App.

From my perspective it is pretty bad. While I could edit an entry in the schedule (e.g. move it, change temp range), I had no way to add or remove an entry in the schedule, had no idea what the original values were, how to cancel/undo, or know what I was editing without making a change. It was frustrating at best.

[supergeek133]

You can edit the schedule from the thermostat (at least v3 I think).

But scheduling interfaces are hard.

[outside1234]

The Nest thermostat actually works without an internet connection. You just can't control it remotely without one (or get updates). If Nest vanished, we'd just have what many people currently have, a disconnected thermostat that is never updated.

[ljk]

Precisely - https://twitter.com/internetofshit