Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Cloudless network thermostats, are now as rare as a dodo bird

Wellness
Wellness Member Posts: 138
I was a huge fan of the Proliphix thermostat, a network thermostat, which I used in my home and commercial properties for the last 15 years to monitor and control AC and heating. But, after being acquired by the property management software company Yardi in 2016, Proliphix has phased out direct sales and is, instead, being bundled by Yardi as an "energy management system" service for commercial and multi-family property owners. This likely signals the end of cloudless thermostats, since manufacturers of competing devices like the Nest and Honeywell thermostats have encountered very little consumer resistance to privacy and cost concerns. Going forward, it appears that these companies will focus on monetizing the data they can now easily gather on business's and consumer's energy use and occupancy patterns. Of course, the danger of such data collection is not that companies will use it to try to sell more stuff. The danger is that that the information they collect can so easily fall into the hands of parties--like hackers and the government--whose motives are much less innocuous.

Comments

  • Solid_Fuel_Man
    Solid_Fuel_Man Member Posts: 2,646
    Nothing like a wired stand alone t-stat for security. Simple temperature monitoring for cheap piece of mind for rentals etc. 

    The minute the internet is connected to anything it's a data collection point as far as I'm concerned. 
    Serving Northern Maine HVAC & Controls. I burn wood, it smells good!
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    @Wellness , I'd have to agree with both your main points -- that there is a huge security risk in internet connected, cloud based thermostats -- or any other internet connected, cloud-based "app", for that matter. And that by and large the consumer public simply doesn't care.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    CLamb
  • STEVEusaPA
    STEVEusaPA Member Posts: 6,506
    Even highly publicized data breeches don't seem to bother anyone anymore.
    Did you ever talk around your smart phone, then when you get on it's browser you see ads for what you were just talking about?
    I'm surprised no one's hacked into the t'stats with geo fencing to know when it's a good time to rob the house.
    steve
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 9,572
    That is probably a little bit of overthinking for robbery.

    Doesn't Tekmar make some network controllable thermostats? If course the issue with them not being connected to some central service is that you need a way to locate them to connect to them. Solutions for that exist, but not in most people's homes.
  • Wellness
    Wellness Member Posts: 138
    @mattmia2 Among other cases, both Kim Kardashian and Target Corp became victimis of crime by Internet hackers and criminals. So I agree with @STEVEusaPA, it's only a matter of time before crooks will steal thermostat data to find out who's a good target.
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    I personally don't think it's overthinking a bit, @mattmia2 . If it hasn't happened, it will. Likewise people tracking everywhere you go through either your smartphone -- or your car. That does happen; not in the US (yet)(perhaps), but in China it certainly does, and some other countries are looking at it quite seriously. Covid contact tracing and all that, you know.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    Solid_Fuel_Man
  • ratio
    ratio Member Posts: 3,615
    Yeah. Last century, when the conspiracy theorists started talking about The Government listening in, I laguhed—they simply didn't have the resources to do it wholesale. Now, we do it for them, with GPS, Alexis, OnStar etc. <sigh>
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    edited September 2020
    First off, I'm not a conspiracy theorist in any way. However... in a former life I did work in and for the intelligence community, and allow me to assure you that there are very very bright people in that who are busily engaged in figuring out new and better ways to collect information (spy on you, bluntly). And they are very very good at their trade.

    Some of them don't work for governments, either...

    The internet of things is a positive gold mine for these people.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • Steamhead
    Steamhead Member Posts: 16,796
    1984 came forty years later than predicted.
    All Steamed Up, Inc.
    Towson, MD, USA
    Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
    Oil & Gas Burner Service
    Consulting
  • STEVEusaPA
    STEVEusaPA Member Posts: 6,506
    Listening, collecting, mining...I have an Echo Dot (Google product) at my shop to play music (free with SiriusXM renewal).
    Last fall talking with my guy, he asked about the Eagles injury report from previous weeks game.
    On my computer's Google Chrome browser, i typed “Eag” and it auto finished “les injury report”. We were shocked.
    Then he said out loud, “ I think Alexa is spying on...” and before he said “you”, she immediately said, “I am not spying on you. I am not collecting personal information”.
    The machines are taking over...
    steve
    SuperTech
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    Uh huh. And if you think Google et al. are not "sharing" that info with anyone who will pay for it (never mind leaking it...), I've got a bridge in New York which I'll sell you cheap...
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    STEVEusaPA
  • ratio
    ratio Member Posts: 3,615
    @Jamie Hall, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I though you were a conspiracy theorist of any flavor. What I meant is that the wholesale monitoring they were worried about wasn't really all that possible back then, & now it's something that we basically do to ourselves.
  • SlamDunk
    SlamDunk Member Posts: 1,570
    edited September 2020
    A few years ago, my brother gave me access to his nest thermostat to show me its capabilities. When ever I have a wild hair, I crank up his heat in the middle of the night, then turn it back to where it was ( or vise versa). I love messing with my little brother!

    I don't like the algorithms websites and apps use to feed me news they think I want to read or music I want to hear.

    In fact, I don't like cars that use algorithms to learn peoples' driving habits- adaptive tuning is what they call it. On the occasion I drive my wife's car, my head gets slammed against the head rest and I'm laying rubber on the road!
  • Steam_Jon
    Steam_Jon Member Posts: 19
    Hi all. I wanted to revive this discussion, as I did find a LAN based option, but it's pretty expensive (for me as a homeowner at least). Here is my new post to try and uncover more cloudless solutions. Feel free to weigh in!