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The ONE THING Ecobee did better was holding. Y'know, the feature every programmable thermostat has had forever.

Well, in November I went on a trip with them and needed to figure out how to get the thermostat to be dumb for their house/dogsitter.

Where did the hold feature go? It appeared to be gone.

Oh? Now you have to go into the settings and tell it *how long* you want it to hold a temporary change, and one of the options is "indefinitely"

WHO THOUGHT THAT MADE ANY SENSE

Meanwhile, Nest no longer (at least with the basic ones) lets you set different schedules for heating and cooling modes.

Call me crazy, but I actually like my HVAC system to run different schedules in the heating vs. cooling season (and I NEVER let it run on "auto" mode).

You used to be able to do this! The old Nest app supported it and it made perfect sense. The Google Home app doesn't, and the new cheap Nests don't talk to the old app and IT'S ALL SO STUPID

Literally all anybody is asking for is a thermostat which can do scheduling, can be remotely controlled/monitored, and change setpoints based on occupancy.

It needs to be an easier-to-program thermostat with a few smarts on top and THAT'S IT.

Right now, they're all sliding backwards in the name of "comfort presets" or some BS and the experience of using them is much worse than a simple programmable unit.

I cannot fathom who is making these design decisions and why. It's just awful.

@TechConnectify Wait until you find out about the power company deciding what your thermostat setting should be for you. For "the greater good".
https://news.yahoo.com/power-companies-taking-over-smart-185552524.html

@Triply Wait until you find out that I actually think this is a really good idea so long as we can audit how it works and it is done reasonably.

In a future where energy available on the grid may not be so steady, the ability to reduce energy demand (or indeed preemptively *increase* demand when there is abundant energy in preparation for a predicted shortfall) is a tool we will make our lives a lot harder through rejecting.

@TechConnectify @Triply

...so long as we can audit how it works and it is done reasonably.

Now that's the part I'm not betting on. The trial system we have here of financial incentives to reduce demand at peak times isn't perfect, but doesn't have the same potential for abuse.

@mark @Triply and amazingly, I hold both that "I think this is a good idea" and "it's gonna be tricky to implement without running into problems" in my head at the same time.

But the simplest and easiest thing for me to imagine is that any preemptive decisions that are done remotely can be overridden by the person in the house. Override too much and you lose whatever incentive you were given by joining the program.

@TechConnectify@mas.to @mark@social.cool110.xyz @Triply@yiff.life you have to always assume the company has your worst interest when they're taking your control away.

@Jessica @mark @Triply Yes, but what I just said is not implying that your control is being taking away.

That is what I think is missing and all these conversations. People presume the worst and can't imagine the middle ground where you are given an incentive to let the thermostat (or whatever) make adjustments on its own but which you can always override with the consequence of losing out on the incentives.

I would sign up for something like that right now.

@Jessica @mark @Triply and what's really fascinating to me is that the people here, who I know all have a very hacker mindset, aren't thinking through what they could do in this dystopian future they are imagining where your thermostat is entirely controlled by daddy bezos.

Because even if that were going to happen? I know you all are smart enough to figure out how to take a thermostat off the wall and short wires together. And you can teach other people, too.

@TechConnectify @Jessica @mark @Triply i think there's a level of tech savvyness where you start to appreciate not just what you can do with tech, but how tech can go wrong. That's the point where the IoT stuff that relies on cloud services to run stops being fun, and becomes scary.

Not being able to turn you heating on cos US-East1 has fallen over again is not a good feature...

@quixoticgeek @Jessica @mark @Triply Right, and the gap I'm trying to bridge is between "I have found a scary thing!" and "what do we need to do about the scary thing?"

Because right now, there's a lot of people finding scary stuff and then deciding we better not move forward. And like, I get the reasoning for that. I really do. There are many reasons to be cynical these days.

But to me, that's just avoiding problem solving and throwing your hands up.

@TechConnectify @quixoticgeek @Jessica @mark Smart devices are getting dumber and there's a reason for that.

Until we have a company designing real smart devices, ones that don't rely on a cloud, and operates with transparency, ideally with the option to run our own software akin to DD-WRT, we're not going to get the future we want.

One of the reasons I love your channel, @TechConnectify , is that you cover devices which are simple and clever. But a lot of modern devices are opaque and obtuse because they're doing stuff behind the scenes. I am suspicious of them because we don't have that kind of transparency and the occasional evidence of extremely opaque consequences like the amazon case.

@Triply @quixoticgeek @Jessica @mark Don't get me wrong, I think it's healthy to have some level of suspicion. But it's easy to go too far to the point that it becomes unhealthy.

I also have a whole bunch of issues with stuff getting connected to the internet that shouldn't be connected to the internet. But a thermostat? Actually tied in correctly to a power grid that can dynamically move load around?

That is really powerful and we need to make it work. Not run away from it.

@Triply @quixoticgeek @Jessica @mark because, frankly, I think it's antisocial to not do that.

Yeah, if you absolutely want to you can decide to completely go off grid and throw a bunch of solar panels on your roof and tell the rest of us to shove off.

But the rest of us have to make do with the power grid, and there are a lot of tools to get more out of it that will genuinely rely on internet connectivity and cooperation.

We need to be leery of who controls those tools, yes. But we need them

@TechConnectify @Triply @Jessica @mark total agreement. Can't fault any of that.