[HN Gopher] Hidden tech of the Nest Thermostat
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Hidden tech of the Nest Thermostat
Author : picture
Score : 121 points
Date : 2022-12-14 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scanofthemonth.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scanofthemonth.com)
| Jzush wrote:
| It's literally a color coded plate you mount to the wall and
| click the unit in to. Took me less time to install then my
| doorbell.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I'm surprised the 3rd gen still has so much discrete circuity.
| Miniaturization and consolidation of components into a few larger
| chips seems to have worked elsewhere.
| vitruvius wrote:
| The wiring base is the coolest part of this IMO. In the video
| Tony talks about how the leaf spring connectors physically
| reconfigure the circuitry when a wire is plugged in.
| jmole wrote:
| They don't really reconfigure the circuitry, they are
| themselves reconfigured when a wire is plugged in. What he's
| talking about is similar to technology that's been in 1/8"
| jacks for years and years: plug detection.
|
| If you look at this datasheet for example, pins 10 and 11 in
| the schematic can be used to detect insertion of the jack:
| https://www.switchcraft.com/assets/1/6/35RASMT8CHNTRX_CD.pdf
| jacquesm wrote:
| And in almost every headphone connector since the 60's or
| so... That's how it used to switch the sound from the
| speakers to the headphones when you just plugged them in.
| gertlex wrote:
| Cool, had wondered how old that feature was.
|
| Side note; Not sure I've heard 3.5mm connectors called 1/8"
| connectors before, though I _have_ heard of the larger 1
| /4" connectors.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They're not actually 1/8th of an Inch either.
| brk wrote:
| But it is in fact commonly called a 1/8" (headphone)
| jack.
| sublinear wrote:
| Ammunition caliber is similarly interesting
| OJFord wrote:
| As 'scrolljacking' goes, this is excellent, I actually really
| like the design - showing multiple angles/layers without taking
| up so much vertical space with multiple images, since it changes
| (instead of moving) as you scroll.
| Spare_account wrote:
| I'm about to switch to desktop to see this, because I was just
| browsing on Firefox (on Android) and it was a complete mess
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| That is because it does not actually take control away from you
| with any sticky/magnetic spots. A lot of scrolljack
| presentations have a really laggy pagination that is somehow
| about as precise as fast rewinding your DVR was back in 2011.
| mFixman wrote:
| I just wish it didn't have the giant useless light/dark mode
| button covering a chunk of the screen.
| adolph wrote:
| The video of Tony Fadell talking about the design and history and
| thought that went into the interior parts was very entertaining.
| mfer wrote:
| An interesting element to this is knowledge and ability to do
| work on ones own house. In the US it used to be required that men
| take shop class. It shifted into being offered for both boys and
| girls for many years. Then it was phased out by in large.
|
| Those who took hands on classes like these could read the simple
| instructions with a traditional thermostat or even a Nest and
| easily install it. They were comfortable with a handful of low
| voltage wires, some screws, and a simple diagram.
|
| I wonder how the lack of hands on practical teaching in schools
| has impacted folks comfort with handling these fairly simple
| tasks.
| greesil wrote:
| We watch YouTube videos now for this. /shrug
| mfer wrote:
| I've talked to a lot of people who aren't comfortable trying
| even simple things. Even with YouTube videos.
| last_responder wrote:
| "Up to this point, installation was so complicated that it
| required a professional. "
|
| Not even remotely true. The Nest wires the same as any other
| thermostat. Prior to the Nest there were plenty of inexpensive to
| high end devices with simple instructions included .
| mmastrac wrote:
| And funny enough, it probably caused more issues because
| installations without a common wire would trigger short-cycling
| of the HVAC as it tried to draw power from the furnace wires.
| crmd wrote:
| Can you elaborate? I installed my nest years ago without a
| common wire and it...seems to work but I have horrendous gas
| bills and the system cycles often, but I attributed both of
| these to the poor insulation of my 120 year old building.
| roperj wrote:
| If you have no common wire you have no return path for
| current so that you can power a consuming device. Original
| thermostats were entirely electromechanical switches with
| no power requirements.
|
| The Nest gets around the common requirement by cheating -
| it charges a rechargeable battery by leeching current into
| the signal wires. If the endpoint is a coil on a relay or
| solenoid, this usually causes no problem, it often causes
| no problem if the relay is solid state, but on some
| equipment that return current will switch on the equipment
| when it tries to charge its own battery. In other cases it
| won't charge at all. Usually it's quite clear if this
| happening as the equipment will be cycling even with no
| call for heat.
| jandrese wrote:
| It wasn't hard, but it did ask a lot of questions that your
| average homeowner may or may not know. Do you have a humidifier
| on your furnace? A dehumidifier? How is the emergency heat
| configured? Is the fan DC or AC coupled? Questions like that. I
| self installed mine no problem, but I can see how people could
| be intimidated.
|
| For what it is worth, I think the Nest has been generally worse
| than a dumber programmable thermostat, especially after Google
| took it over. The App only allows a single phone to be
| connected now which is a problem when both me and my wife want
| access. There is also no way to run the fans without switching
| it on heat or cool. The fans can also only run for a maximum of
| 12 hours before it needs manual intervention to restart. All of
| which are a problem if you have say a pellet stove providing
| heat in one part of the house and want to circulate the air to
| the rest of the house using the furnace fan. On my old
| thermostat I could even switch the fan to low speed mode when
| the heat pump wasn't running, which is something the Nest seems
| to have no concept of. There is an API, but it's all Googlefied
| and requires a subscription and kind of assumes you're already
| a full stack Google developer.
| jdeibele wrote:
| I had actually bought a Nest but never installed it. I sold
| it on eBay when it was announced that Google was requiring
| people to use Google accounts with Nest products.
|
| What I installed instead (myself) was an Ecobee 3+. I've been
| very happy with it. I have it set to run the fans 10 minutes
| of every hour to move air around a little bit. With a
| previous dumb thermostat, using the fan more often caused a
| noticeable spike in the electric bill. We live in a 1914
| house with multiple levels and minimal air returns so there
| tends to be variations in temperature (top hot in summer,
| cool in winter; basement coldest in summer even with vents
| closed but exposed pipes are full of cold air, etc.) that
| aren't easily fixable.
|
| Ecobee has started selling security cameras, which I haven't
| looked into. I really do like the idea of having a best-of-
| breed thermostat and I hope that Amazon doesn't buy them. I'm
| a little surprised that they haven't.
| mfer wrote:
| Sounds like this piece was written by someone who doesn't
| really know the space and follows along with Nest marketing.
|
| > These leaf springs allowed for the self-configuration of the
| unit, saving the time and troubleshooting that would have
| prevented a regular person from tackling installation. And it
| worked! It was so simple that grandparents were making YouTube
| videos of themselves installing it.
|
| Did Nest sponsor this article? It's a Google property and they
| managed to reference another Google property.
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