Way back when Nest produced their first thermostats I bought one. Our contractor installed thermostat was the cheapest piece of shit they could install, and honestly it didn’t fucking work.
We’d set the temp, the Thermostat was say it heated the house but a normal thermometer told us that the house was colder than when we’d started.
In the winter this presented a problem for the instruments (Harps, Guitars,) anything with strings. The people weren’t exactly happy either!
So at some point I got pissed and plunked down $300 for a Nest learning thermostat. In the beginning it was great and I highly recommended a unit to anyone and everyone. Then fucking Google bought Nest.
At first there didn’t seem to be too much of a problem. My programming of the thermostat held true and the unit adjusted to our changing schedules. It did what it was supposed to do and for a good 10 years the house was warm when we got home. I know the system was working the way I’d intended because if I was home sick with a cold or whatever, I’d have to override the thermostat during the day. I also saw the difference in the Gas bill in Winter and the A/C bill in summer.
Google got ever more invasive. Google wants to deprecate the Nest application login and force you to make a Google account. I’ve moved as far away from Google as possible and don’t even have gmail accounts anymore. That means I’m resisting.
Every time I log into the Nest Application or the Nest Website. Google has a shit fit! “Don’t you want to create a Google log in? Don’t you want to enable 90 factor log in security? “ On and on and on…
NO! I don’t want any of your shit Google! Just let me get to the actual control part of the damn application!
Lately, my thermostat is being reprogrammed without my consent.
62°F at night is too damn cold! Even with blankets and flannel sheets, I’m not sleeping well. I do sleep soundly if I’m in my sleeping bag that’s rated to 0°F. I shouldn’t have to sleep in a sleeping bag… IN MY OWN FUCKING HOUSE!
During the day if I’m home the temp is set to 66°F in the winter. That’s still a bit too cold but I’m willing to put up with it because I live in terror of the damn natural gas bill. Southern California Gas royally fucked everyone last year. Of course their executives still got their bonuses for incompetence. That’s another story!
I have specifically told the Nest Thermostat that I don’t want it learning. I don’t want it making adjustments, I want it to maintain my set temps within the schedule I’ve created and I want it to go to the lower temps when it figures out I’m not home.
Dirt Fucking Simple!
But… Somewhere, deep in the bowels of Google, some little Indian programmer fuck is deciding via programming that I don’t know what I’m doing and they know better what I need.
Every time they send a software update my schedule gets “Fine Tuned”. It used to be that having your temps set to 68° F or lower was considered worthy of a little environment leaf. Now the leaf doesn’t show up until you dial the temp down to 65°F. Nighttime temps of 63°F used to be “efficient” and worthy of the leaf. Now it’s 62°F. The Nest “Fine Tuning” routine “adjusts” whatever your schedule is, to having the leaf indicator on.
If you scheduled 68°F during the evening… “Well you’re a moron! Let Google set your temp for you. There 65°F aren’t you happy? Gee sorry about that asthmatic child developing pneumonia. We’re about saving the environment, a little collateral damage is acceptable.“
I don’t care about the leafs, I care about not having my hands turn blue, or shivering in my bed all night.
Were I not thinking about selling this house and moving, I’d be shopping for a new thermostat. I have reprogrammed my schedule according to my needs 4 times in the past 3 months. If you see a little yellow/gold gear with a leaf at the bottom of your Nest thermostat display, guess what? You’ve been fine tuned!
“We hope you like being cold living above the snowline. You’re welcome! Sincerely Google.“
My problem is this. I bought the fucking machine, I installed the fucking machine, I expect the fucking machine to obey my wishes, not the wishes of some asshole I’ve never met who doesn’t live my life, who has decided that they’re my better!
I may start shopping for a new thermostat anyway. I’d go for one of the really old units with a mercury switch and piece of coiled metal that reacted to temperature. Unfortunately, you can’t get mercury switches anymore.
Mercury is bad dontchaknow even if it’s sealed in a glass ampule that never, or only rarely sees the light of day.
There are some old school thermostats like that in houses in this little town. Those scary dangerous mercury ampules have been in service for 70 years firing up heaters and haven’t hurt anyone yet.
This bullshit with the thermostat has made me seriously start rethinking the smart house concept entirely.
So long as the devices in my home are controlled only by me we got no problem and I like the convenience. But when they start disobeying, or someone remotely overrides my settings we got a serious problem.
That’s why after the house burned, we didn’t sign up for Edisons Power Savings thing again. The A/C Compressor of the old house, Edison could kill remotely. We were going to drop out of that program. The house burning down simply spared us the annoyance.
That previous summer, Edison shut down the A/C while we were at work several days in a row. The interior temps of the house exceeded 100° F and caused $50-$60 worth of harp strings to snap each day. It also caused a meltdown on a RAID array that contained all our data. The RAID array did a thermal shutdown but the damage was already done. (It was a shitty manufacturer and while it was supposed to shut down prior to damage, it didn’t.)
At the time I remember wondering how it could be better for the grid, to have all the home A/C compressors in Southern California running at the same time for 2 or 3 hours. That’s what it took to bring the temps in everyone’s homes down to something livable again after work. It wasn’t good for the grid. But it was great for the Electric company executives who were making more money than ever, and bitching about the strain on the electrical grid to justify rate increases to the PUC.
When / If I move. I’m going to be considering very carefully how smart I make things.
While I like having the lights come on when I get home, I could do that with a motion detector. I like having lights come on at a particular time, but I could do that with a timer. I like being able to turn the lights off at night with a word, but I could do that with The Clapper .
Do I really need the maintenance headache of smart lightbulbs, ceiling fans, thermostats, and security cameras?
Thinking about it, I had most of this back in the ‘80s.
It was done with the BSR X-10 system. And I had one!
Nobody could screw with the BSR unit via the internet. (The internet existed but wasn’t offered to the Public yet.) If someone was messing around with your lights and things it was an accident. They’d set their box to the same base code as yours and it was easily handled.
I suppose it’s another case of the old way is the best way.
Just how smart does my house need to be to make me happy?
The answer to that question may be, “My house needs a lobotomy.”