Making a Learning Thermostat 192
OzPeter writes "As reported in WA Today, Tony Fadell of iPod fame has been using Nest Labs to design and build a thermostat that learns how you live in your house by following how you manually change the temperature. Once you have taught it how to behave, it then can schedule temperature changes that suit your lifestyle, and help you cut down on energy costs."
Re:Learned Stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
Cold person irrationally turns thermostat up to 80. Angry frugal person retaliates by turning down to 50. Repeat 20x/day.
Ah, but the thermostat also has the information of what the temperature actually is when they turn the dial.
Cold person turns it up at temp X, frugal person turns it down at temp Y.
X is too cold, Y is too warm. Good compromise temperature is between X and Y.
80 & 50 are irrelevant.
The whole point of this rethink is to look at heuristics like that. Not just to learn, but to be intelligent about it.
Re:Overly complicated (Score:4, Insightful)
Or does it learn how long it takes me to get dressed and walk from the bedroom to the thermostat?
If it's occurred to you in the few minutes between learning about the device and posting here, why would you imagine that it hasn't occurred to them? There's no reason why it can't work out which is the morning increase, and assume that in future you want that temperature 10 minutes earlier in the day, or 5, or 20, depending on what their research in the field has found to be satisfactory for most people.
And if it uses motion sensors to decide whether or not I'm home, it's either going to think I'm never home since I don't go past the thermostat much in my day-to-day activities, or it's going to think I'm always home when it senses the dog going to her food dish.
They say the best place for thermostat is in a hallway. People should be passing that from time to time. But they do say to turn it down yourself hen leaving and up when you return, at least for the first week, to give it a good start on working out your patterns.
And placed at the normal thermostat height, the detector isn't set off by dogs. That's a FAQ.
I'd much rather have a thermostat with an easy to use UI than something that tries to be smart.
I've never seen an easier UI than this one. There's only one control and that's a temperature dial. Personally I'd far prefer one that's smart.
I don't see how a thermostat on a wall can do a good job.
Ah well, if you can't see it, then obviously it doesn't work.
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."