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Possible to get excited over thermostats?


gogoblender

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It's pretty cool if your schedule isn't normal. The one I got is programmable...just set the times I want for certain temps....I.e.. the heat is turned down when I'm at work and kid's in school but weekends are regular temp all day

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heh, I actually think it's pretty amazing looking. I saw that they had done a good bit of research... 50 percent of power bills controlled by this thermostat... if they get government or contractors involved in this, someone's gonna make a lot of money

 

:)

 

gogo

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I guess it is all a question where you live, what type of house. which heating system,....

 

I see a use in city appartments, but take for example our centuries old wooden patchwork house, where you don#t want the inner wooden parts to 'work'. means the wood isn't really dead, it can bend and chance shape at too quick heat or moisture changes. This was one reason we did this nice oven integrated into the central staircase. It heats up slowly and store heat for a long time and then slowly cooling down at night. Add that wood in my case is more or less a cost free energy.

 

When I bought my first second hand computer (now you can have this in a single microcontroller chip) I was proud of the 16kilo byte RAM it had. However after programming tiny games like mastermind. my mother said if a computer could be used for anything meaningful. So my first real computer program was a programmable on off switch for the heating system of our house. In autumn brakes it did the small programm, and because I was at skiing in winter brakes at relatives and not playing with the computer, it was tested for 3 weeks by my father. It saved 20% oil by just programming when warm water was needed for heating and when for shower or dish cleaning. No programmable heat sensors then. But if you think my father would by a programmble controller for the heating system now, no he said a new computer for me would be cheaper and he kept the old AIM65 for the heating system. Keyboard, tape recorder as mass storage, one line with 20 characters text display, a small thermo printer for programm listing, but most important some input/output controllers.

170px-Aim65.JPG

 

I kept programming my own controllers for heating systems, mainly battery backupped because we had a lot of power offs, and the controller had to know when it was a short power off, when it was a long and when the diesel engine for emergency power had to be started. 2 years back the heating system was changed to one which uses wood gasing and uses the wood gas to drive an engine for electrical power and uses the cooler heat for heating the house.

 

So what is new at this NEST? Just the I-pod like display?

 

Slimme%20Thermostaat.jpg

 

http://www.icy.nl/en/consumer

 

The mid european market (1-2 family houses, build just after world war 2) is a lot of different to america. Not much electrical clima control, wet air is removed by a 5 minute opening of a window each day, ... So open window sensors would be needed. What will it do at power offs, what if I am a travelling salesman who is one week at home and then 2 weeks on travel, isn't a week of learning less useful than manual programming, ...

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