and even then the Reminders app doesn't seem to work very well for me anyway. Sometimes it will correctly remind me when I enter/leave a geofence, but more often it fails.

The issue I've seen with the reminders geofencing tends to be a difference in where the phone is told an address is (usually via Google Maps) vs where the actual address is. I need a way to override where "home" and "work" is, without having to change each individual reminder.

It's not terrible for where I'm at currently, but could see this as a real issue for some other properties. An apartment complex in Austin for example that has their front gate marked as the address, when all the apartments at the location are .5 miles up a private driveway.

Overall though, I've been quite happy with geofencing, (a feature a friend had on an old Symbian phone cira ~2003), and am glad to see it more widely adopted.

Just ordered mine, looks like they are sending out invites for the second batch today. Looking forward to it, since my current residence lacks a programmable thermostat.

http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/334

Tear down of the Nest device.

My Nest is now installed. Pretty painless, and the included wall plate helped to cover up the holes and unpainted spot from the old unit. Should be pretty easy to put the old one back in place when I move out.

So far so good. Will post a more proper initial thoughts and review after a few days.

So far so good. The unit set up a basic schedule based on when I was adjusting it over the first two days. It sets the heat up a little in the morning when I wake up, and turns it back down when I leave for work. Shortly before I arrive at home, it turns the heat up again, and down for bed time. It figured out the right time for this based on me physically adjusting the unit, or making adjustments from my phone.

Checking in on it today from work revealed it is now in auto away mode. This means it's unlocked the second tier of features and probably has a message waiting for me when I get home today.

Still a little bummed that when range support is on, it drops a lot of the learning features. Hopefully an update improves this. Much like Dan, there will be parts of the year where both the heater and AC are active over a 24 hour period in my place.

Either this is new, or I just wasn't paying attention. In the beginning, I thought that ranges were incompatible with schedules.

http://support.nest.com/customer/portal/articles/178899

Edit: in order to enable this, you have to go through a series of "are you really sure about this?" dialogs on the thermostat -- no way to do it from the web UI. Once ranges are finally set, the UI to program them is exceptionally klunky, but it does work, and now I've got everything set up with ranges rather than just purely heating or purely cooling. You'd perhaps think that the range view might merge the pre-existing heating view and the cooling view, right? Nope. When you enable the range mode, it's a completely separate program; you have to enter everything from scratch.

Sigh.

sigh.

I don't know how this is going to end, but one would have to imagine that Nest had a strategy for dealing with this issue on the way in, since they certainly could/should have surveyed the space of thermostat patents and been aware of the minefield that they were walking into.

One might speculate that what we're seeing now is the result of a patent licensing negotiation gone wrong.

This could be bad for existing owners, since part of the Nest magic is tied to the internet. Honeywell would have a hard time forcing a product recall, but could force the servers to go down. Would impact the ability to control it remotely, and also impact the thermostats ability to know the weather outside and forecast.

Really enjoying my unit so far. It's self learning has worked out well, and it should help to save a decent bit this summer when the AC is in use.

Knowingly infringing is liable for significantly more damages than negligent. It's usually better not to do the search first.

After replying I noticed Roger had already beat me to it. That's willful infringement if so and I think the penalties automatically triple. To start.

Hopefully some of those patents will go away thanks to prior art. The prior art may not be in the realm of HVAC, but it's hardly novel to apply the ideas to these products.

But even keeping to HVAC, the rotating control around a central display for instance goes back a few decades in thermostat design.

I'm not the biggest fan of the patent system in this country, yet some of those are hard to argue with. I will, however, argue a couple for fun:

• covers displaying grammatically complete sentences while programming a thermostat - This is one of those examples where I'd like for someone to explain why you can patent this.
• covers a method of controlling an environmental control system from a remote to adjust the settings of the system - I'm not 100% certain, but I really wouldn't be surprised if there were products that did this before that patent was filed. I don't know when Honeywell actually first released a product with such a feature, but if they weren't the first I assume this could be argued.

Ah well, I'm no patent attorney. I don't know the ins and outs of this stuff but it sure seems like Nest will have some problems.

I wondered about that too. I guess the key to the argument over that one is in the second half of that patent: "The display shows a change in a setting as the face is moved." We know what they mean for the Nest, but on those old dial thermostats did the "display" change or would they count the needle that pointed at the temperature as part of the outside dial portion?

I certainly understand the treble damages issue, and you can be guaranteed that the lawsuit discovery process will dig for any evidence of that. Nonetheless, you can imagine that they might have quietly taken a look and plotted a strategy in advance.

Once documents start hitting the courts, we'll know more about the case's back-story. This will be fun to watch. At the end of the day, the worst thing that's going to happen is that Nest ends up paying a royalty of some undetermined amount to Honeywell. I'd be quite surprised if Honeywell manages to get an injunction to force them to stop selling their product.

I really could not suppress the giggle that slipped out when I read the phrase "Grammatically correct sentences".

Presumably, grammatically incorrect sentences, would be OK.

I don't know when that patent was filed, but one of our buildings at school (in Prescott, AZ) (early 90s) had it's temperature controlled from Phoenix. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a Honeywell system, though.

The fact that you saw it a different way makes it even more questionable. You're reading that as "remote location," and I read it as "handheld remote."

My parents have bought a new apartment by the sea, which they frequent every weekend. During the week they leave the apartment uninhabited when they return to their other residence and so, especially during this time of year, they turn the thermostat way down.

My father was complaining the other day how he hates entering the apartment every week when it's so cold, and it takes about an hour or two to re-heat to a comfortable temperature. My parents don't arrive every week on the same hour, otherwise this could be fixed with a schedule.

I was thinking: what they need is a thermostat that can be controlled remotely. Either by sending a text message, or maybe there are units out there which can be controlled over the internet? I was wondering if the Nest thermostat was be able to do this? They have WiFi in the apartment, so if the unit is capable of connecting to this, then maybe this is possible? In essence, I'm not asking for much: simply a thermostat which can be turned on or off remotely so they can switch it on when they start their drive and then it would be warm by the time they arrive. Optionally, it would be nice if the temperature could be controlled remotely as well, but this would not be an indispensable feature.

Yes, the Nest can do this. They offer an iOS and Android app to control it via a phone/tablet, and it can also be controlled by logging in at nest.com. When setting up the thermostat, it will ask to join a WiFi network, and then help you bind it to a Nest.com account.

If the thermostat is mounted in a spot in the apartment where it's motion sensors can detect people there, it will also enable auto away mode. If they forget to turn it down one visit, it will do so on it's own if they want.

Very nice! Thank you! I only fear my father will believe it's too expensive only for this particular option...

It is a little expensive, but it's easily the least expensive option I've seen with the technology it has. I'm sure that's why Honeywell is so nervous. Everything they have that does the same stuff is at least $100 more and looks uglier.

How's this then? Price is about $100...

Edit: even though it seems to be a nice product which does what I need it to do, at an acceptable price, I'm out of luck since it seems to be a US-only product... (otoh, the same could be said for the Nest...)

A design that Honeywell did actually create first, as told here: http://observersroom.designobserver.com/alexandralange/post/reinventing-the-thermostat/31838/

Though the patents Honeywell is trying to sue over appear to be more modern then the initial round one given to Henry Dreyfuss for drawing a circle on a napkin.

Ooo, interesting. Not a bad price, and as far as thermostats go, doesn't look worse than the rest (they all pretty much look the same these days). Good find!

Very interesting indeed. This Filtrete thing connects to WiFi, supports fancier multi-stage systems and humidifiers, and seems to have some way of talking to your smart-meter (must be Zigbee) to tell you your power consumption.

Usability looks like a pale shadow of the Nest, but it's got a lot more functionality.

I installed one of the Filtrete thermostats in our warehouse. In this application, it's only regulating heat. I think it's a good product, but even I thought the wifi setup process was outrageously complex.

But, once it's online, you can adjust and program the thing from your web browser or iDevice. The website is simple to use and being able to program the thermostat online is fantastic.

Your web browser doesn't access the thermostat directly, so you don't have to open any ports on your router or anything like that. It seems that the thermostat polls the Filtrete service every few minutes. If you change the temperature online, it's not going to happen instantly on the thermostat. I would say it has a 5-10 minute response time.

http://www.marco.org/2011/12/17/nest-incompatibility-without-c-wire

I don't recall seeing this posted here.

Latest: I've now got my Nest programmed in "range mode", so it's got an upper and lower bound on the desired temperature at any time.

On Monday: the heat was running downstairs and up, which was fine, but the upstairs heat kept running well past the low end of the range I set. It ran the heat up to 81 degrees (I had it set to a range of 70-77F). "Gosh, it's hot", I thought, and went to poke at it to see what was going on, and it then switched to A/C to cool the house back down into the range I'd set.

At least the Nest got daylight savings day right...

I emailed Nest support and so far all they've done is ask "gee, has it happened like this before?" to which my answer is "go check all the historical data from my thermostat that you won't let me get by myself."

Sigh.

Well, no. It doesn't need to turn the circuit on to get power (in fact, it's the opposite: when the circuit is turned on, it *can't* draw any power). It seems that Marco's hvac relays are very low current, which means drawing the small amount of current which doesn't trip the relay on the majority of systems *does* trip his relay.

Still, the solution is the same - add a C wire...