PompeyVillan Posted October 11, 2015 Share Posted October 11, 2015 I'm getting a new boiler installed soon. Our current boiler and thermostat are nearly 20 years old so I'm considering getting a Nest thermostat. £250 with installation. Anyone have experience any experience with 'smart' thermostats or other such appliances? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted October 11, 2015 Share Posted October 11, 2015 Tested.com has covered smart homes quite a lot, there is quite a bit of coverage on the site but you may have to dig for it. There is a blog about the thermostat here and there are videos about home automation (lights is a big part of it too) but a lot of the most interesting stuff is buried in podcasts which were uploaded anywhere between last month and five years ago. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PompeyVillan Posted October 11, 2015 Author Share Posted October 11, 2015 Thanks Rev. Edit :tried to change title to rectify typo but doesn't seem to have worked. Sorry mods, could this be changed to 'of', not 'off'. My mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted October 11, 2015 Administrator Share Posted October 11, 2015 Edit :tried to change title to rectify typo but doesn't seem to have worked. Sorry mods, could this be changed to 'of', not 'off'. My mistake.Please use the "report" feature to bring things to our attention, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 I'm getting a new boiler installed soon. Our current boiler and thermostat are nearly 20 years old so I'm considering getting a Nest thermostat. £250 with installation. Anyone have experience any experience with 'smart' thermostats or other such appliances? Last February our boiler packed up. We'd only had it since 1984 so I was a bit upset. Anyway, we went the fairly lazy route of British Gas and also went for their Hive thingy. I'd have to say it's been great - and pretty much idiot proof. We've got the controls on our phones, so as well as having a fairly comprehensive programme of times and temps we can also over ride that remotely if things change. We don't change it often, but yeah, if we're away for the weekend we can knock everything down to minimal settings for 3 days from the passenger seat doing 70mph down the M4. Similarly, if one of us is going home early, school has knocked off, or meeting finished early, just tap into the phone and get the heat and water up and running whilst you're still on the way home.Not exactly science fiction. But coming from a beast of a 1980's boiler that basically had the functions 'on' and 'off' it's quite a leap forward for us.As a little extra, it sends us regular e-mails telling us how our energy use compares with similar families in similar houses. It also regularly tells us our house runs 1.2 degrees c warmer than any other house in the area. Which has been a great piece of ammo in persuading people to put on a **** jumper not dial up the heating. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 I have had A Nest Thermostat and have to say I am pretty pleased with it.The one thing is that Nest being a global product and being owned by Google means that it will always have more potential. Nest have just rolled out their version of Google Weave called Nest Weave which is the platforms that allows all these IOT devices to supposedly speak to one another (a competitor for Apples Homekit) which means it will work with the new Yale Linus Lock which was announced last week and with presumably plenty more to follow.My Nest works with my Philips Hue Lights to come on at night at random times while we are out so it looks like there is someone in. Have a look at the "Works with Nest" website and you can see how many companies are colaborating on the platform.I am at sometime this week receiving a Samsung Smartthings Starter Kit to review and part of it I am supposed to spread the word so will put up a little post about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 I have my blog up and running at the moment with my initial impressions of Samsung Smartthings up and running if its of interest to anyone. I wont post a direct link as I am not sure if it breaks any rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted October 16, 2015 Administrator Share Posted October 16, 2015 I have my blog up and running at the moment with my initial impressions of Samsung Smartthings up and running if its of interest to anyone. I wont post a direct link as I am not sure if it breaks any rules.You can advertise it in your sig. Or you can add it as a "link" blog on VT by clicking "Blogs" at the top of the page, create, manage and then add an RSS import. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 (edited) Cheers, got it. Edited October 16, 2015 by mykeyb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingman Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Link not working this end Gents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Link fixed - sorry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted October 19, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted October 19, 2015 I don't understand this thread title.It's been bothering me. Just had to get it off my chest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 (edited) It's a marketing term and you'll almost certainly hear it used again and again as the years go by, but basically it means we now live in a time and place where you can connect appliances and machinery to the internet. It is revolutionising industry and city planning and is probably quite handy on a smaller scale too, amongst other things you can turn your house lights on remotely from your phone and set different rooms in your house to be different temperatures at different times. Want the heating to come on when you are ten minutes from home even if you aren't sure when you will be back? You can do that with the internet of things. With things like RFID you can probably get your smart fridge to send you a text message when the milk is about to go out of date, in theory there is no reason why it couldn't add a new bottle to your online shopping list either. It's interesting stuff but I'm not willing to pay the prices early adopters are being asked to cough up for home appliances just yet and I don't want to trade reliability for functionality I've managed to get this far in life without. I've already got a smart TV so I guess I'm in already in on a small scale but I'm sure in ten years we will all have it at home to a much greater one, and just as our children and grandchildren will probably grow up in a world where they never have to change a lightbulb they will probably boggle at the caveman level of technology we have in our lives today. What do you mean grandad, you couldn't see exactly the pizza delivery guy was on your HUD? Edited October 19, 2015 by The_Rev 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted October 19, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted October 19, 2015 I understand the technology. I just literally don't understand the phrase. It seems grammatically incorrect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 It's a marketing term. What else did you expect? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted October 19, 2015 Administrator Share Posted October 19, 2015 Like "4G" when it's not a new generation of technology, just an incremental change to 3G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Christ, working for a well known American telecommunications provider, all you ever hear are buzz words/marketing gimmicks such as "Internet of things" "workplace 20/20" etc.It's almost like after 2020 happens, no one will have a clue what to do, such is their desire to work up to that point in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eames Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Christ, working for a well known American telecommunications provider, all you ever hear are buzz words/marketing gimmicks such as "Internet of things" "workplace 20/20" etc.It's almost like after 2020 happens, no one will have a clue what to do, such is their desire to work up to that point in time.I had to sit through a meeting with some knob (mid 20s, public school, plays rugger, probable Oxbridge degree) from the "Digital and Enabling" team as he banged on about "synergenic thought space" and the need to "secure our customers golden truth" He then went onto excel himself with this little gem "Consider the impact of the multi agency dive down with reference to the cross phase elements of our change journey." **** if I know what any of it means and I suspect he doesn't know either. Its all presentation and chat - if you feel the need to talk like that there is clearly no substance to a single thing you've got to say. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Christ, working for a well known American telecommunications provider, all you ever hear are buzz words/marketing gimmicks such as "Internet of things" "workplace 20/20" etc.It's almost like after 2020 happens, no one will have a clue what to do, such is their desire to work up to that point in time.I had to sit through a meeting with some knob (mid 20s, public school, plays rugger, probable Oxbridge degree) from the "Digital and Enabling" team as he banged on about "synergenic thought space" and the need to "secure our customers golden truth" He then went onto excel himself with this little gem "Consider the impact of the multi agency dive down with reference to the cross phase elements of our change journey." **** if I know what any of it means and I suspect he doesn't know either. Its all presentation and chat - if you feel the need to talk like that there is clearly no substance to a single thing you've got to say. Fully agree.If anything, you're showing a complete lack of understanding of the elementary you're presenting. Trying to bamboozle the audience with pseudo language to increase your stature of theirs, is not a clever way of endearing yourself to potential clients/customers.Simple, straight, to the point words for a laymen like me I'm afraid. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PongRiddims Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Christ, working for a well known American telecommunications provider, all you ever hear are buzz words/marketing gimmicks such as "Internet of things" "workplace 20/20" etc.It's almost like after 2020 happens, no one will have a clue what to do, such is their desire to work up to that point in time.I had to sit through a meeting with some knob (mid 20s, public school, plays rugger, probable Oxbridge degree) from the "Digital and Enabling" team as he banged on about "synergenic thought space" and the need to "secure our customers golden truth" He then went onto excel himself with this little gem "Consider the impact of the multi agency dive down with reference to the cross phase elements of our change journey." **** if I know what any of it means and I suspect he doesn't know either. Its all presentation and chat - if you feel the need to talk like that there is clearly no substance to a single thing you've got to say. Fully agree.If anything, you're showing a complete lack of understanding of the elementary you're presenting. Trying to bamboozle the audience with pseudo language to increase your stature of theirs, is not a clever way of endearing yourself to potential clients/customers.Simple, straight, to the point words for a laymen like me I'm afraid. Achieve as much as you can with as little as you need. My rule for anything, particularly work communication. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts