I guess that if you got something substantial for it, that might be something. But for $10 a month (actually it’s probably less than this due to the time value of money and opportunity cost)?

But hey, it’s pretty and looks like an iPhone!

It is a little surreal reading about wifi home heating controllers when the house is heated by wood.

The 1st point – the way it looks. It seems the designers have only one style in mind – the style of IChotchkes. But what works in small appliances like phones (that you put away in pocket or handbag) for a wide variety of people will not work for something a person puts on his wall. In reality people’s tastes differ tremendously when it comes to their personal residence’s interior. What if the homeowner prefers traditional furnishings (of which there is also infinite variety of styles)? That round space saucer will look alien on a wall with damask wallpaper and drapes with tassels – and not everyone appreciate eclectic mixing as I do.

Interior designers for a long time developed strategy of dealing with situation: make a discordant element as inconspicuous as possible. Neutral casing, neutral screen, no orange flashes. Mirror frame that reflects the wall color is actually a good idea, it makes camouflage better – except it makes the object shine, and so – compete for attention.

The Pitch Point #4 mentions that AutoAway (which it sells as a radical advantage) work only on one room and doesn’t work where it can’t sense the presence of people (I assume it has a motion or temperature sensor). So how much it saves the homeowner in a house with 10 rooms? To make an economical sense for this feature there should be 10 Nests in the house!

And another thing…I don’t know how to say that – I will be labeled a pitekantrop…Not all people have Androids or IPhones. There is a big group who are so stubborn they want to use their phones only as phones, for calling and living messages – and not to pay exorbitant sums of money every month for a privilege of playing Angry Birds or checking if there a Starbucks in the vicinity. For these hopeless retrogrades an ability to send a signal to a home thermostat to warm up the house sounds like another headache and a line on a checklist, not as an advantage. Besides, does a human became such a delicate flower that he can’t stand 15 minutes of slightly cooler temp when he waits for a normal thermostat to go up 2 degrees?

I actually don’t know if this is a problem of the thermostat or the heat pump, but leaving the heat at the same temperature day and night, all through the week, keeps the electric bill lower.

It is amazing how many people think this. The behavior of a simple feedback-control system is apparently pretty unintuitive.