Nest marketing

hot_rod

In the busiest lobby of Chicago O' Hare. Browse while waiting for your Starbucks order to be filled.
Somewhere around 70 million travelers per year through O' Hare

todd_ecr

I spoke to a homeowner today who bought 4 of them. He seemed disappointed to learn he was going to have to have new Tstat wires pulled and add isolation relays due to a lack of a common terminal on one of our older Argo zone panels. He was contemplating returning the Nest's.

nicholas bonham-carter

Some people believe in very simple high-tech solutions to problems which need to be solved with low tech maintenance.
Think of all the Heat-Timer controls installed to compensate for unbalanced systems, and make the symptoms worse!--NBC

A.J.

I agree Nicholas, you would be better off putting that money into system performance .
There also the fact that when Google bought Nest they over paid ALOT for it . Why would they do that, because that little round stat is sending data back to Google on your living patterns . I personally feel a little creepy about that , like someone spying in my window . In today's society information is worth money .

Sal Santamaura

A.J. said:

...In today's society information is worth money .

It has always been worth money. The difference in today's society is that most people give massive amounts of personal information away unknowingly and/or without a second thought.

BigRob

One was installed in our condo building with central heat. I would argue they use more energy and cost the owner 200 clams. I guess it's nice to have remote control- and its fancy.

Jamie Hall

If one is lazy enough to want someone or something else to do everything for one, from heating the house to driving the car, then things like the Nest are very attractive, since the consequences of letting someone or something else do everything for one are rarely appreciated until that something fails or the someone turns out to have a different agenda.

Me, I like to control my life myself, thank you.

hot_rod

I just thought it was an unusual but interesting place to put a kiosk for thermostats.

Imagine how many look at it and wonder how their heat is doing while they are out traveling.

Jamie Hall

Oh I didn't say it wasn't clever -- it's very clever indeed! The whole Nest phenomenon is strikingly clever, and is making the good folks at Google a mint of money.

Sal Santamaura

Jamie Hall said:

If one is lazy enough to want someone or something else to do everything for one, from heating the house to driving the car...Me, I like to control my life myself, thank you.

I'm in general agreement, and have posted my disdain for the Nest in Dan's thread about its battery problems. There should be one exception, in my view, to this dislike of giving up control.

I'm very much looking forward to fully autonomous cars, for two reasons. First, even at today's level of technological maturity, they couldn't help but be safer than the idiot humans currently operating motor vehicles. Second, there will come a time for virtually all of us when our operator licenses are revoked. Age catches up. At 62, I'm counting on self-driving cars to be widely available in the next decade or two so I'll be able to maintain independent mobility even if my vision, reflexes, etc. end a lifetime behind the wheel. With an increasingly larger portion of the US population becoming elderly, cars without steering wheels will be good for them as well as others on the road.

Jamie Hall

Sal, you do have a point about the loose nuts holding the steering wheels of cars. It's amazing what one sees...

Given the complexity of the driving environment, however, I'm not going to hold my breath. These things seem to work OK, at least after a fashion, where there are lane markings and pavements and the like -- but where I live there are dirt roads, and I sort of wonder... Also, having some experience with aircraft autopilots, I wonder if the makers of these things are really making them fail operational or, if they develop a glitch, if the vehicle is programmed to just stop... wherever it is...

SWEI

Jamie Hall said:

having some experience with aircraft autopilots, I wonder if the makers of these things are really making them fail operational or, if they develop a glitch, if the vehicle is programmed to just stop... wherever it is...

It's quite a bit more complex than that.

hot_rod

14% increase in highways deaths in the first 1/2 of 2015, according to one statistic. Lower fuel costs, more folks working are part of the uptick, but distracted driving is no doubt a big problem.

Between texting, drinking and falling asleep at the wheel, I too am for at least more crash avoidance systems. Until autopilot cars are ready for prime time.

rick in Alaska

They should just let me take drivers licenses away from the people who can't drive! Give me a week and I will have the roads safe! Well, at least for me anyway...........
Have a safe day out there!
Rick

Fred

I expect the first couple generations of driverless vehicles to be like "Bumper Cars" at the fair when we were kids. At some point they will be safer than many drivers on the roads today but it feels to me might be leaving to many of the manual skill sets required in the hands of a few engineers who may or may not be fully qualified either. I'm more for "Driver Assisted" vehicles. Brake for me if I get to close to something, help me avoid obsticles in the road, make sure I stay within the lane lines if for some reason I wander, pull over and turn the vehicle off if something doesn't seem right with the driver (maybe vitals) and maybe even offer me the option to operate fully driverless if an on-board breathalizer determines I am incapacitated from alcohol. Lots of possibilities but I still want to drive when I want/can drive myself. Is that unreasonable?

Jamie Hall

Hatterasguy said:

SWEI said:

Jamie Hall said:

having some experience with aircraft autopilots, I wonder if the makers of these things are really making them fail operational or, if they develop a glitch, if the vehicle is programmed to just stop... wherever it is...

It's quite a bit more complex than that.

One day, while you are driving along, an unfortunate set of events causes the car to head toward a crowd of 10 people crossing the road. It cannot stop in time but it can avoid killing 10 people by steering into a wall.

The entire premise is ridiculous.

If 10 people decide to cross the road in front of the vehicle, the vehicle attempts to stop itself, in the identical manner that a driver would attempt to stop (albeit much faster). And, in most instances, the vehicle will stop in time due to its faster reaction time and its capability of 100% braking. A vehicle doing 30 mph can stop in about 40 feet. It's the texting driver that kills those 10 people, not the vehicle.

The vehicle would not steer itself into a wall and has no obligation (nor programming) to accomplish that.

Now you are getting into some pretty heavy philosophy, if not even theology... and, going back to aviation, there have been a number of instances where the pilot has deliberately chosen to maneouvre a disabled aircraft away from a crowd, despite the fact that to do so may result in his own death.

I do, incidentally, completely agree that in the majority of situations (standard road markings, standard traffic, etc.) a fully automated car with fail operational controls will do a significantly better job than the average ditz who is allowed to drive -- even when said ditz is paying attention to the driving, which most of them aren't.

I will continue to argue, though, that -- just as with aircraft -- there must be a competent driver present and able to take control at a moment's notice, and that there must be a fail operational fall back system -- or destruct mechanism. Preferably the former... (drones can have the latter, though).

Jamie Hall

Hatteras -- let me be a little more clear. I'm quite in favour of automated people movers (cars? Well, perhaps) in the majority of situations, provided that they either have a fully competent individual able to take control immediately, or they are truly fail safe. The latter is a preferable option, as -- in my humble opinion -- referring to the average driver as "fully competent" is a joke, and indeed this is the best argument for automated people movers I can think of.

The present examples, which are, admittedly, pretty primitive, are anything but fail safe. Fail operational is a far more demanding criterion, and I doubt very much that that will be available for a very long time, although aircraft (so far, at least, mass transit isn't fail safe never mind operational, in general) are pretty close -- at considerable expense.

Note also that I mention the majority of situations. There are considerable sections of road which the current crop cannot negotiate at all, and it will be some time before they can. Some provision must be made for that.

Sal Santamaura

Jamie Hall said:

...I'm quite in favour of automated people movers (cars? Well, perhaps) in the majority of situations, provided that they either have a fully competent individual able to take control immediately, or they are truly fail safe. The latter is a preferable option, as -- in my humble opinion -- referring to the average driver as "fully competent" is a joke, and indeed this is the best argument for automated people movers I can think of...

I understand your concerns. As a retired Boeing systems engineer, the points you make aren't ones I've never heard before.

Nonetheless, when California's Department of Motor Vehicles issued draft rules for autonomous vehicles within the last few weeks that required exactly what you describe (manual controls and a licensed operator on board with the capability to take over), I sent a letter of objection to the Director. It stated exactly what I posted a bit up this thread, namely that, in my opinion, even current technology cannot be less safe than human operators. It's unlikely my input will make any difference. The draft noted that, as technology matures, the rules will be re-evaluated and might be relaxed.

The most restrictive rules I consider reasonable now would limit fully autonomous vehicles to roads that they're compatible with. Such "cars" ought be prohibited from dirt roads like those where you live. With GPS capability, it would even be possible for vehicle manufacturers to include a database-driven system that, when a passenger asks to be taken somewhere, selects an appropriate route.

MikeSpeed6030

I've been thinking about driverless cars.

When I get stuck in the snow, I can rock the car back and forth to get going again. When I pull into a filling station, I can park over where the compressed air hose is. Likewise, pulling into a drive-up teller at the bank. Driving around town, I may want to go down an alley or stop by my friend's house. If I'm hungry and see an interesting restaurant - or if I see a gas station with cheap fuel - I may want to stop. If I'm caught in a hail storm, I might want to stop under an overpass. If my car starts making a strange noise or smell, I'll want to pull over - also, if an emergency vehicle approaches with flashing lights.

I would like to think that in the future, if I'm too old and decrepit to drive, there might be a driverless car that I can use. I'm not real hopeful, though.

P.S. I wonder how reliably driverless cars will respond to traffic signals - e.g., stop lights, message boards. Airplane autopilots don't, as far as I know, taxi the aircraft around the airport. Isn't driving a car more like taxiing an airplane than flying a plane at cruise - on a fixed heading, at a given altitude, and constant speed?

Jamie Hall

Sal -- I like your approach (and, parenthetically, as you were a Boeing systems engineer, allow me to compliment your previous organisation for doing a superb job at creating automated aircraft which are about as close to fail operational as anything I've ever flown or seen!)(I don't like the Airbus control philosophy).

I could quibble about the GPS database bit -- there's nothing funnier (except Russian traffic on YouTube) than watching the horror on the face of a semi truck driver faced with the GPS turning him onto the road past my barn; there have been several times when I've had to go out and flag traffic on the main road so the poor man could back back out. But that is, in fact, minor (relatively speaking). It would not be all that difficult, for instance, to program the automated vehicle so that it would simply refuse to go on roads where it couldn't figure out what to do, faulty GPS data base or no -- which is an aspect of fail safe, really.

rick in Alaska

If I get too old where I can't drive anymore, and I don't expect to live long enough for that, I will call a cab!
Rick

hot_rod

rick in Alaska said:

If I get too old where I can't drive anymore, and I don't expect to live long enough for that, I will call a cab!
Rick

Got Uber up there? Be the time you are too old, Uber will have driverless cars

Sal Santamaura

hot rod said:

...Got Uber up there?...

Taking this tangential discussion on a tangent of its own, I recently received an auto insurance renewal statement from State Farm. It included a policy amendment notification that eliminates all coverage when the vehicle is used for hire in Uber-like programs.

vvzz

I wish more boiler manufacturers would open up their controls to support a common interface(actually I think in Europe they do to an extent) so an external thing like Nest could intelegently plug into them. Nest has some clever features, but there is so much potential in controlling a boiler(especially mod con) directly. A smarter control could alter the curve based on current wind conditions or maybe even learn patterns over a long period of time.

Fred

vvzz said:

I wish more boiler manufacturers would open up their controls to support a common interface(actually I think in Europe they do to an extent) so an external thing like Nest could intelegently plug into them. Nest has some clever features, but there is so much potential in controlling a boiler(especially mod con) directly. A smarter control could alter the curve based on current wind conditions or maybe even learn patterns over a long period of time.

How dare you take this discussion back to something close to its original subject matter!

ChrisJ

vvzz said:

I wish more boiler manufacturers would open up their controls to support a common interface(actually I think in Europe they do to an extent) so an external thing like Nest could intelegently plug into them. Nest has some clever features, but there is so much potential in controlling a boiler(especially mod con) directly. A smarter control could alter the curve based on current wind conditions or maybe even learn patterns over a long period of time.

Based on my short experience with a Nest, the last thing I'd give it is more control.