Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions Google has given up on smart thermostats in Europe. The advertising giant last Friday slipped its Euro-plans into a post that announced first-and-second-gen Nest smart thermostats will no longer receive software updates as of October 25, 2025. The three models that will exit support are 2011’s first-gen Learning Thermostat, …
Smart this, smart that and then dumb as fuck
I don't have Google stuff myself - have hive and it's nightmares, different smart TVs that are no longer getting updates etc
Surely there needs to be a law that smart devices must remain as useful for the average lifespan of whatever device from the past. So a TV should be maintained for 10yrs+, a thermostats 15yrs+, etc
Matter is also good, Apache-licensed and backed by Amazon, Google, Etc.
It's a bit more high-level and smart home oriented, the Google developer docs are a good read, especially the "Matter primer" part.
I'd say MQTT is more of a communication protocol, and the "smart" part is server logic.
Matter has more smart-home specific things built into the protocol itself, which takes away a lot of complexity from the controller logic.
And Matter also has built-in support for bridges, which allows you to create a broker device between Matter and any other protocol.
It's neat and i hope it really takes off, especially big manufacturers supporting an open source protocol is a good start.
My step-daughter was 'given' a Nest thermostat by her electricity company that steadfastly refused to connect to her, her mum's or my WiFi - after which I discovered it was a known issue with no fix other than to upgrade to a newer model which was basically 'buy a newer model'.
Matter's definitely a step in the right direction but things like ZHA & ESPHome already provide open standards that are more capable.
I dipped my toe into home automation with TP-Link Tapo just using their app. Now anything I buy has to have a local (i.e. no manufacturer's cloud server) integration for Home Assistant and/or Frigate. Thankfully Tapo gear is in that category as is Sonoff, SwitchBot, Govee, lots of BLE gear, most Zigbee (ZHA, Zigbee2MQTT), Matter, Thread, anything that comes with or can be converted to ESPHome and quite a lot of other stuff. You can then integrate the lot, automate it however you like (without giving ITTT the keys to the kingdom) and access it from anywhere using the HA app via your own HA server with no third party peering over your shoulder. You can even connect it to Alexa or Google smart speakers for voice control if you feel like throwing away the privacy you've claimed back but there are local HA smart speakers too with open source firmware. HA will run on an RPi or low end fanless PC or as a VM or Docker image on your existing server so chews bugger all juice.
I do agree with you, but it's kind of a different discussion. Home assistant is great, but it relies on a large amount of custom integrations. They rely on python packages for each specific vendor/device, and all of this has to be maintained. Home assistant goes through changes, Python versions change, so it's simply not a case of if it works it works. The fact that everything is open source eliminates many issues, but it's only a step in the right direction and eventually devices will become unusable, or people are stuck using older versions of python/HA which in turn might lock them out of using newer devices (or require a *lot* of tinkering to make it work).
HA is great, but it takes a huge community effort to make it work. It would be ideal if there was a only a handful of standards to maintain, rather than having literally thousands of integrations that need to be maintained.
" It would be ideal if there was a only a handful of standards to maintain, rather than having literally thousands of integrations that need to be maintained."
Absolutely... but at the moment, it's just not like that - and the ability to pull them together through HA is very nice indeed.
"Apache licenced" is an enormous red flag.
The Apache software licence allows you to release a piece of software in binary format only, without ever releasing a single byte of Source Code; while claiming, truthfully enough for a Court of Law, that it was released under an Open Source licence.
The part of the GPL that obliges the release of Source Code in a form that is actually acceptable to other developers -- the bit that Apache Licence fanboys (and they usually are male) love to insist is "too onerous" -- is the part that actually makes it work.
Rules that you had no intention of breaking anyway are no imposition on your freedom. Those rules exist precisely to protect you from those who would do the very things they do not allow.
hive and it's nightmares
I find Hive works fine provided you don't have a hub and use it simply as a wireless thermostat and local controller. In that configuration it should go on indefinitely.
Connecting it to the cloud is where it starts to go weird, particularly if you have the temerity to move house. But you don't have to do that (connect it to the cloud - you might not be able to avoid moving...).
The Veissmann remote controller I got with my current gas combi boiler works as a remote control system; this is basically the bottom level of usability that I would expect from such a thing.
The next level up would be some form of tie-in to my house internet link, to talk to (or be talked to) by an app on my phone. That way I could set up geo-fencing such that when I'm inside a set radius of the house the heating goes from base level heating to the higher "Master is at home" heating level. However to do this I would expect that this functionality would be maintained for the expected lifetime of the device, say about 20 years minimum.
Similarly for "smart" TVs, it would be best were the TV to be manufactured as a simple dumb TV with an add-on box simply plugged into the back of it via USB-C. That way when the smart bits need updating or fixing they can be simply removed from the dumb TV and a replacement unit swapped in. Sadly a set-up like this is expecting far too much from modern electronics suppliers.
That is exactly what I do with my tv, I use an Apple TV box for streaming (you can choose Roku, fire etc) but the tv doesn’t connect to the internet and is used as a panel with the built in tuner, but no smart apps or other services.
If the Apple TV goes end of life which it may be in a few years, I will replace it with another box whereas the tv is a lot more expensive
TV I just use Roku here - other units are available :)
I tried buying dumb, but the cost is ott.
Got a new one last year, didn't connect it to the internet - it's. It complained
The older ones have se bad Toshiba smart crap and the other two are old Leakey android versions - the Sony jlos so shit that the app vendors pulled their apps ! Screen is still brilliant
Thermostat and hub have gone out of sync a few times since it was installed a couple of years ago by the boiler engineer
One point this year it was close to being pulled out after trying to get it all to sync
Complaints it could. It seems each other - all within. 6 ft of each other (hanging off boiler, in sink, on toilet seat all in line of the under stairs @AP)
Would have gone if my old Honeywell was in easy reach
The Honeywell system is quite good and the boiler controls pretty agnostic.
I run the smart system with radiator controllers and UFH.
Works very well.
Only problem is when is EoL for the system as it depends on cloud control.
The other issue is the blatant insecurity of the comms protocols.
It does assume your - mains connected - nest device runs for more than a couple of years before it fails in many interesting ways because the on-board battery no longer retains enough charge. And whilst it is theoretically possible to replace that battery rather than throw away the whole caboodle, good luck finding the right one even on fleabay.
Nest was a great, innovative company. Google has fracked it up from the first day they took over. I look forward to their eventual demise.
Agreed.
The EU have created right to repair legislation for "common household products" which passed last year and is bring rolled out over 2 years (longer warranties, obligations to provide parts at reasonable prices and diganostic software to third parties, etc etc).
They need to add an IoT clause for this which assumes a 20yr lifetime. Language to the effect "any controller which manages domestic or industrial building management services". Heating, HVAC, security, etc.
I've no moral objection to a thermostat having some smarts and being able to check weather forecasts, etc. But it needs to be locally hosted in-device and any loss of external connectivity just falls back to "standard" functionality. Which it sounds like Nest mostly will - albeit with the ominous "unpredictable behaviour" warning. There should be nothing f-ing unpredicatable about a non-smart thermostat. Timer clicks on, heating comes on. Simples.
But of course selling one device per household every 20 years isn't a shiny growth model that keeps vulture capitalists happy. Never mind that it's a perfectly sustainable business (see manufacturers of boilers. Unsexy, but keep the economy ticking over on new-builds and renovations). No no, the clever business boys insist you must have sustained growth. The idea of a business manufacturing a product and selling it for a profit is simply not realistic. Where's the recurring income?
not yet seen the benefit of “smart heating”, in all the houses my students have lived in, setting the system up to operate in the traditional way (as if it had basic non-smart controls), has resulted in the houses being warmer, using less energy and very importantly become damp and mould free.
I've got Eqiva ones – 4 of which have Bluetooth, the rest are not connectable – but they have ES chips in them and alternative firmwares are available. Had them for around 15 years, I think and only recently changed the batteries in the oldest ones. They're find for most things. The boiler is from 2000 and has the control system from hell, so I don't want any other way of controlling it!
Convenience == obsolesence.
"Surely there needs to be a law that smart devices must remain as useful for the average lifespan of whatever device from the past. So a TV should be maintained for 10yrs+, a thermostats 15yrs+, etc"
In this specific context (or indeed almost any Google device) that sounds simple and reasonable. In practice that means new laws, and new regulations - these are not going to be popular. They would be characterised by industry as an impediment to "innovation" and a barrier to growth, and they would put manufacturer's costs up (and thus end user prices). I can't see that any UK government will pass such laws for those reasons.
There would also be LOTS of complication to any such law as well - are you saying that the physical product needs to LAST that time? And/or that spares must be kept available for that time? Or that the product must be warrantied for that time? Think about the detail here - how will a maker prove the average lifespan of goods in service to any standard of legal proof? Not quite the same thing, but relevant to the debate is the effectiveness of safety recalls. Even where there's a lot of traceability (eg cars) the effectiveness of recalls is poor - around about a third of recalled vehicles get their defect fixed. With white goods subject to a very high profile safety recall and with regulator pressure, it's rare to see more than two thirds of products effective recalled. Lets not get into why that is the case, but just observe that producer knowledge of who has their products is often poor, and degrades quickly over time due to house moves, customer name changes, second hand sale, user replacement etc.
This is not the impediment you imagine. The EU already passed right-to-repair legislation for "common household devices" such as smartphones.
* Warranty guarantees are extended one further year
* Manufacturers must repair devices even after the warranty expires
* Manufacturers must provide spare parts and tools at reasonable cost
* Manufacturers cannot use "contractual clauses, hardware or software" to obstruct repairs (i.e. no parts-pairing)
* Independent repair firms must be allowed to use secondhand or 3D-printed parts
* Manufacturers cannot refuse to repair solely for economic reasons
* Manufacturers cannot refuse to repair a device because it was previously repaired by another company
In Europe, the Sale of Goods Act already offered protection against faulty goods even when the manufacturer's warranty had run out, and lasted 6 years form the date of purchase.
It would be perfectly possible to create a comparable law for embedded/industrial controllers for "building management services" that imposes a minimum 10 year warranty, repairability of parts such as batteries, requires full offline configuration of settings with online services purely augmenting those functions.
Many manufacturers of gas boilers warranty for 10-15 years (on the basis they only supply qualified fitters and assuming you have it serviced annually). Why shouldn't the controller be warrantied for a similar period?
They are already mostly there ... and have been for some time
Under the UK’s Right to Repair regulations, manufacturers are legally required to make spare parts available for up to 7–10 years after a product is discontinued. This regulation ensures that appliances can be repaired and maintained, reducing waste and supporting sustainability.
Large Appliances: Spare parts like motors, pumps, and door seals must be available for at least 10 years.
For most heating equipment it is at least 10 years or longer, although have managed to source new parts for equipment discontinued for nearly 30 years.
All
I do nor buy the innovation at all. Ic you innovate a great new featre6or capability then people will buy it.
My laptops are all a few years old as there is. Irving really new to tempt me - especially for what I use them for. In the old days each new processor means you wanted the latest, now, not so
Phones. I only got this Xperia as my old s9 got the green screen issue and I could not risk it not working on honeymoon. Before the 9 each new phone generation would normally have a new feature or radical.improvent it was something you'd appreciate
Now, beyond ai (don't want), how have phones improved over the last few generations and what is the innovative feature or dramatic.improvement ?)
"I don't have Google stuff myself - have hive and it's nightmares"
The challenge is, I didn't have Google stuff when I bought my Nest either - Google bought them. I assumed they would eventually discontinue them as soon as I saw that acquisition at the time, but didn't think they would effectively remove the whole product from the UK (and European) market. I've since moved to a property that can't use Nest (thermostats per-room) effectively, so have been off it for a while, but have a few friends who are now screwed.
It's a tricky balance. The life of a thermostat is probably 20+ years in the real world. But can you realistically expect a company to support a product for that length of time, keeping security updates rolling and the associated apps up to date and compatible with iOS26 or whatever we'll be up to by then?
As ever, the obvious solution would be to open-source the kit, but they never do that.
Surely there needs to be a law that smart devices must remain as useful for the average lifespan of whatever device from the past.
No, they must be fully documented when the service behind it closes shop so that it doesn't become IoT landfill on a whim. Want to sell devices depending on a service? Comms, protocol and server details must be verified and put in escrow. No escrow, no permission to market and no CE mark. When you close shop, the escrowed contents becomes public.
Heating systems in Europe are unique and have a variety of hardware and software requirements
No, they're standardised. Older systems use 230VAC dry contact closures, newer ones use OpenTherm.
OpenTherm even has an Arduino library (though for the older one, not the 2008 update), and the licence fee (to use to logo and get certified) is far cheaper than HDMI. I see that Nest is a member, so they've already paid that.
I think I see the trouble though. Consumers expect thermostats to work for a couple of decades with no subscription fees. They're not going to buy a new one every couple of years.
I came here to say the same - OpenTherm and "traditional thermostat" are all that's needed, and OpenTherm is very easy to implement - though they would then have to work out how to scale the demand to a percentage (no more than basic school maths).
I can understand the old versions not supporting OpenTherm (no hardware), but it would cost virtually nothing to add it to a new product. I will happily consult to Google for a suitable fee...
Can't speak for European outside UK but the inputs aren't that complex for older equipment
Hot water tank thermostat - open/closed
Boiler - on/off
Three way valve - position 1/2/3
Two way valves on-off
UK has some interesting wiring to manage all these together with strictly mechanical switches but moving from that to individual relays should make it a doddle to implement
I was surprised this wasn't an offered add-on/replacement for the wired bi-metallic strip
If you know the hot water tank temperature at any time then you can decide if
1) hot enough for a shower right now
2) not too hot for using the sink
3) out of legionella zone
4) worth using the electric immersion heater rather than gas/oil/propane
5) being superheated by an out of control boiler
You should be running the boiler in its most efficient mode ( with condensing boilers that’s a flow temperature of circa 45C and have the boiler running for longer; condensing boilers are no more efficient than non-condensing boilers when run in short bursts. Then plan your on/off times around this, The problems arise when the radiator is the other side of the room to the (cold) window and you need to get the window wall temperature above 14C so mildew doesn’t grow.
It's not a flow temperature of 45C that is required, it's a return temperature (and I understand most condensing boilers will start to condense with a return temp a few degrees below 55C, though 45C is an oft-quoted target to ensure full condensing).
The problem with low flow (and return) temps is that while you can make that work with space heating, you really can't with hot water. If you have a cylinder of stored water then you need (at least periodically) to raise that above 60C to kill the bugs, and you can't do that with a boiler flow of 45C.
If you are thinking of a combi boiler directly heating tap water, then to get a flow of water at 45C, the combi will probably be in "full blast" mode and all bets are off, but while 45C is probably ok for handwashing or a shower, it's a bit weedy for the washing up, and 50C or higher would be more normal.
M.
Just wait till you're forced to have some heat pump shenanigans to deal with.
Individual room thermostats for underfloor loops.
Feedback controls on loop actuators
Environmental controls for the pump itself
Thermostats on any remaining readiators.
Still have your zone valves running off some sort of timer
And solar panels/batteries tied into all that.
Then make it all work together off whatever 'smart' tariff is supposed to save you thruppence a day.
I do miss gas :-(
Why would you NOT want zoned control?
It's MUCH easier to live in a house that's got every room at the appropriate temperature.
But NONE of that is inherent to heat pumps, or even related to heat pumps. Zoned gas systems are very much possible, a friend did that recently with his underfloor system, automated valves at the manifold, on demand tankless gas 'boiler' (hot water, never boils anything). Kind of silly if you ask me, i'd have ditched the hot water and put mini-split HVAC units in every room, but that's what he decided to do. He's still using window AC units.
But as far as heat pumps? Nah, utterly unrelated to the fancy controls. Had heat pump HVAC at my parents house in the early '70s. Bimetallic strip and mercury tilt switch thermostat controlling the thing.
TRV's can't bring on the heat circulation to arbitrary rooms at arbitrary times, only the main thermostat can do that.
If you spend the day upstairs in your home office you need to heat your living space downstairs at the same time so that a bit of heat bleeds into your study. And at the weekend your study will be heated to the same temperature as during the week unless you remember to twiddle the TRV when you knock off on Friday. So not a particularly efficient set up for that scenario.
I have a big old drafty Victorian pile and fitted individual room stats and actuators on the radiators instead of TRV's. Any room can be at any temperature any time. And the heat is supplied from a thermal store so boiler cycling is completely independent of what the circulating pumps are doing. Its the right system for this building, it wouldn't be the right system for a modern airtight build.
The stats are Heatmiser's "networked" via RS485. The protocol was reverse engineered donkey's ago. I have enough spares to last a lifetime. But vast majority of people can't get their hands dirty with home brew.
"TRV's can't bring on the heat circulation to arbitrary rooms at arbitrary times, only the main thermostat can do that."
Nope - neither my parents house, nor my house have a main thermostat... the radiators call for heat when needed. And when any of them turn off then they all check if they "could take" any heat and will call for heat if they can to prevent short cycling.
(Basically if any of them are below the target temperature but not by so much that they'd normally call for heat).
Any room can be at any temperature any time. And the heat is supplied from a thermal store so boiler cycling is completely independent of what the circulating pumps are doing. Its the right system for this building, it wouldn't be the right system for a modern airtight build.
Oh, I dunno. It sounds very similar to what I've done in my (not as airtight as it was supposed to be) recently-built house (built of block, not wood, so its "thermal mass" is high). Thermal store taking inputs from solar tubes and boiler with potential to take from a third source if necessary (e.g. the back boiler of a log burner) and immersions (two, at two heights) as backup.
Heating supply from a coil in the cylinder running to manifolds with individual actuators for each zone (each room, essentially). Underfloor in some areas (so heat is mixed down), skirting board radiators elsewhere; this is probably the main difference to yours, most rooms here can get away with 100 - 300W of additional heat, which is easily supplied by these very low-output radiators.
Controls are a bit, erm, "manual" at the moment but that's only because I don't want to buy-in and haven't got around to building my own yet (nice stack of Feathers, relays, sensors, displays etc. in a drawer).
Water for the taps comes via an external plate heat exchanger and variable speed pump, meaning that the store could potentially be set as high as 95C without worrying about scalding at the taps, though it's not set that high (and doesn't need to be) for our use. It's supposed to be able to transfer 70kW at a flow temperature (from the store) of 65C, which comfortably beats any combi boiler, but in practice I think it's topping out at about 55kW, possibly due in part to the way I plumbed it up.
M.
Can't speak for European outside UK but the inputs aren't that complex for older equipment
I have a Hive controlling an oil-fired Rayburn, which gets a bit interesting. My original Rayburn 480K was replaced a couple of months ago with a nice new Heatranger, which is just different enough to require a bit of thought. Unfortunately the installation "engineer" was a plumber with a plumber's grasp of electrics, and although he had a sparky to do the wiring I still ended up with a box of relays which really aren't needed. Well, it was that or an unsigned warranty card, and it works. It's just a bit over-complicated.
The problems are basically that (a) the new Rayburn wants to do CH and DHW timing itself and (b) a dual channel Hive only has switched 240V outputs, unlike the single channel one for Combis which can be configured as a relay or to supply 240V. The solution is to wire the two way valves backwards, but my plumber didn't believe that would work, although it had worked flawlessly for years on the old one.
Sorry, rambling a bit. Basically gas is easy (BTDTGTTS) but oil requires actual understanding.
Older systems use 230VAC dry contact closures, newer ones use OpenTherm.
Am I right in thinking the US have a low-voltage (24V?) control system? If so, it may be that it's easier to sell retrofit devices to consumers there. I suspect the majority of people would not be keen to tinker with 230V wiring and I can't see many professional installers wanting the post-installation support issues of cloud-connected devices.
I personally don't think tinkering with 230V is a big deal. If you're not comfortable with that, you're also not comfortable replacing light fixtures or light switches.
I reckon you're always going to hire someone to do the work for you if that's the case.
And on the second part: over here it's quite common for installers to put down a cloud-enabled device (thermostats, security devices, doorbells, blinds, solar panels, etc.)
Usually they'll either just make the physical part work and leave the cloud setup up to you, or do the basic setup of making an account and coupling the devices.
Many manufacturers have facilities for installers to do this as well, allowing them to setup accounts for customers and adding new devices to existing accounts without needing credentials for example.
Correct, US uses 24VAC control circuit for heating and cooling.
The thermostat has a switch that closes when heat (or cooling, separate control circuit for that) is required and connects 24VAC to a relay coil at the burner, which in turn, connects power to the burner or cooling system
Generally yes, it's typically 24VAC for HVAC systems. Kinda dumb these days, ethernet would make more sense, but at least manufacturers can't do stupid proprietary shit with protocols on 24V. But that means "smart" thermostats don't have the ability to control variable speed compressors and blowers directly. About the most granular it gets is 2 stage cooling and 3 stage heating.
Not that I'd hesitate to play with 240V wiring, I did wire up my heat pump and EVSE, no point in paying an electrician when I can do it myself. But yeah, scares some people.
I've been pretty happy with my ecobee. Can control directly from Apple HomeKit, so less being treated as the product.
HVAC companies are slime. Lots of price gouging by the manufacturers, and the service companies are almost all run by crooks. Throw in the EPA screwing around with refrigerants all the time, and it's a mess. Just go to hydrocarbon refrigerants already, they work well and there's not enough in the system to be a serious fire or explosion risk. (I know a guy who charged his car system with grill gas after R12 got stupid expensive - it's mostly just propane. Worked better than R12.)
I'm in the UK so there's a lot less HVAC.
However a friend does home automation stuff for 'rich people' and he's often moaning about it all.
A recent example, a customer lost all their lights, turns out an £800 piece of equipment had died after 5-6 years. The customer was annoyed and decided to just rip it all out.
They were even more annoyed when my friend politely pointed out that all the lights in the house routed back to this one central location, so if he wanted it ripping out he'd have to have the entire house re-wired.
A few months later the other componenet in the system failed. That was another 600 pounds.
At least with the Hue stuff I use I can just turn the lights off and on and it wll work like a regular bulb.
Now, lets not get on to the popular home automation systems. I will just say that as an IT professional if you could design a H/A system that allowed extensions that couldn't randomly crash the entire system you could probably clean up in the market.
I suspect this exists in the void between people who are rich enough to have a whole house system, but not quite rich enough to pay for the really really good stuff.
I believe it was some piece of Control4 equipment. (I get the impression that this is the low end of the high end home automation stuff, my friend is often not that complementary about it).
They're not standardised at all.
Some homes will have a boiler that maintains a constant high temperature, followed by a shunt that mixes return water with hot water to feed out the appropriate temperature based on outside temp, and sometimes also an indoor sensor. Then, each radiator will have its own thermostatic, and every underfloor heating circuit will have its own valve.
The mixer valves are available in numerous sizes, and the actuators for residential applications are not standardized in the way they work or in their operating voltage. Moving up to commercial or industrial, the actuators are often a more standard 0-10V control, but not for residential.
There are about a dozen thermostat valve standards, and "smart" thermostats for radiators often come with about half a dozen adapters, with the inevitable outcome that the right one is missing.
Whatever primary heat source the boiler uses, there may be additional ones as well, such as solarthermal to complicate matters further. Often times there will also be backup electric cartridges in the boiler, which depending on the country will be 230V fed from s single phase, or 3-phase 400V. Sometimes neutral will be available, sometimes not. And don't get me started on Norway, it's the definition of special case when it comes to electricity.
Moving away from central heating, you might have electric underfloor heating which requires yet another model of thermostat, direct convective wall mount electric heaters, which delightfully have plug and play interface for thermostats straight on the heater these days, although nobody seems to actually make any except the OEM. Easy enough to hide a relay in a box somewhere though, although some of the original thermostats don't take kindly to external power cuts.. There are houses where primary heating is through air/air heat pumps, probably the only sensible way to control those is copy the infrared signals from their remotes.
Moving onward to passive house designs, the control of shades, windows, and ventilation becomes centerpoint, which introduces a whole new drove of interfaces to interact with.
Norway, it's the definition of special case when it comes to electricity.
Curious. What's Norway's particular distinction?
A quick look it seems they have the usual eurodiversity of plugs and sockets (C&F) which always seems odd to Australasians who have a one single phase (10A) type I (note to self: phase and neutral reversed in Argentina.)
Also they don't have low impedance grounding, so things like filter capacitors on PSUs or inverters in heatpumps and other appliances can easily energize every chassis in the house. Which is why industrial kit comes with special instructions for Norway, usually telling the electrician to open up the device and list of components to remove from the circuit boards.
Yep, my fancy combi-boiler coupled up to water-bound underfloor heating with thermostats in each room and only a couple of radiators which themselves have thermostats are a world away from my Mum's few radiators coupled up to a single thermostat in the main room, even if it is a Hive one linked to a new combi-boiler.
I still don't agree with bricking perfectly good devices just because the manuafacturer doesn't feel like it any more, though.
A truly Smart thermostat would learn how this "water-bound underfloor heating with thermostats in each room and only a couple of radiators which themselves have thermostats" responds, for example underfloor heating typically has more thermal inertia, so a truly smart thermostat would loon at weather forecast and preemptively use less underfloor heating and more radiator heat towards the morning if forecast predicts warm sunny spring weather following a cold night.
But that would take some actual algorithm and programming, and Google seems to have given up.
The house already has an outside temperature sensor, enabling the boiler to regulate itself whether it even needs to come on. So no Google or fancy programming required to achieve an acceptable energy-efficient standard. Took a while to configure things at first, but a decade and a half later, I can't remember the last time I had to do anything.
No, they're standardised. Older systems use 230VAC dry contact closures, newer ones use OpenTherm.
The Viessmann combi right next to me as I type this uses 24V switching, whereas the Worcester it replaced used 240V. Luckily that's a fairly easy change to make on a Hive, if the thermostat was original wired sensibly.
You are not alone in this lack of ambition.
Indeed, my German house has no direct thermostats wherever, apart from those integral to the Fernwarme district hot water system; there are individual thermostats on each radiator, mostly set at zero for the rooms we rarely use.
Old-fashioned, I know, but it suits us.
Those radiator thermostat valves come in do many shapes and sizes, but there are "smart" thermostats available, should one be so inclined.
The oldschool radiator thermostats are fascinating technology. Inside they have a wax motor, that is, more or less a piston and cylinder filled with wax. When the air gets warm and the wax heats up, it expands, which makes it press down on a small needle sticking out from the valve, closing the valve progressively the warmer it gets. When it gets colder the wax shrinks and the valve opens more. If the system is otherwise tuned correctly, so that the circulating water has an appropriate temperature relative to outside temperature, the radiator thermostat performs the final fine tuning of room temperature, compensating for minor perturbances such as solar influx, human activity, or giving a boost after the window has been open.
When you twist it from 0 to 4, it adjusts how far away the wax motor is from the needle.
Agree. I've said here before: I change my phone more often than my thermostat settings so no use case for me.
I last changed the 12 year old* thermostat's schedule in 2020 when lockdown made home-working a necessity.
*Probably older: was here when we bought the house, fitted by previous owners.
There must be a good way to portmanteau Google into something that reflects their enthusiasm for randomly deprecating things that work but they can't be bothered with any more.
After a certain point it becomes so transparent that you actively avoid their products.
I really regret getting talked into Nest by our plumbing/heating engineer when we had a new boiler install. Unfortunately we had to do this in anger as our boiler packed up about 3 weeks after moving in a couple of years ago and 2 weeks before Christmas so I really didn't have time to do any research. I looked at OpenTherm devices and found a really nice OpenTherm relay/logger to allow me to (pointlessly) scrape metrics and logs from the thermostat messaging but our heating engineer looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language and Nest was all that they would support.
Unfortunately we probably still have to keep the boiler for at least another 3-5 years before it is worth replacing but I would have loved to have gone with ASHP if the old boiler had broken down at a more convenient moment.
Anyway, all of our other home stuff is integrated and controlled by Home Assistant... presence detection using wifi devices via integration with the Unifi wireless controller, even the Amazon Blink cameras have a stable and feature-complete integration (even though auth/credential management of Blink is a joke). But our Nest thermostat for heating and water? Nope. It has been a couple of years since I checked but there was a time where you needed to dump some API credential and subscribe to the Google Developer API platform and even then the hot water schedule/boost was still hidden in a private API.
Nest offers family-approved and robust hardware when compared to the proprietary wall thermostats over the last 30 years... but in terms of software and integration with other platforms (the smart part) total garbage.
The heating industry is cursed with technicians who think they are engineers. I had to deal with one who told me - the paying customer of his employer - to "fuck off" when I pointed out that the boiler connection which he claimed controlled the circulating pump did nothing of the sort, that being the job of the connection attached to ... the pump.
Looking at age of stuff, thermostat and boiler were new 26 27 years ago when house was built.
TV 15 years old, last pre smart model
Getting worried about replacing, especially if we do not move, may get a heat pump.
As our boiler is a system boiler, and a long lasting model, it would be left in use, so winter would still be warm.
Yes I am considering hybrid heating.
However the one rule I do have is do not get involved with Google only environments such as the Lagia game streamer (if you have played against one you would understand)
I made a mistake last time round and bought a smart TV... I took it offline in 2017, 18 months after purchase as Sony stopped issuing security updates (Google had released monthly Android security updates, Sony released 2 updates 6 months apart, then nothing). Since then I have had 2-3 FireTVs attached to it and currently an Apple TV, it runs as a dumb TV with the "smarts" in "cheap" (comparatively) black boxes that get plugged into it.
When we replaced our washing machine, drier and dishwasher over the last decade, each time it was finding the best non-smart version.
I do have a Hue light, but that still works on a normal switch, so if the worst comes to the worst, I disable the Hue Bridge and just use it as a dumb light.
When we replaced our washing machine, drier and dishwasher over the last decade, each time it was finding the best non-smart version.
To my way of thinking, if your main interaction with a device includes putting stuff in or taking stuff out of it, having it connected to the web is superfluous. Sometimes I wander over to the washing machine to see how long it has to go, albeit in the knowledge that the number on the front panel is a lie anyway, and the last few minutes are somewhat elastic.
I can see some point if you're running a commercial enterprise and have to monitor multiple devices, or for quality assurance/food safety you need to keep a log of your fridge temperature or suchlike, but for home use much of it is just unnecessary bells and whistles.
Looking at age of stuff, thermostat and boiler were new 26 27 years ago when house was built.
The original Honeywell thermostat and Sankey timer in my house were installed with central heating in 1973 and still working perfectly until the original boiler, also working fine, was damaged in a flood in 2015. I was sorry to see that boiler go, but since insurance was paying, out it went. Installers are, it turned out, unhappy to re-use 42 year old control systems, so in went the Hive.
Now imagine that as we hit various gartner hype cycles or as I like to call them...wanks of the day...amazon or Google or microsoft decide to kill a cloud service because it's no longer profitable.
If anything you use is dependent on someone else's infrastructure, then you're massively open to the shit hitting the fan.
Sagemaker or azure ai "whatever they're calling it now" might be the thing they're pushing & the sales guys are convincing you to put everything into, but when that expensive hardware becomes not profitable enough and the next Wank comes along ; they WILL shut it down & both have been known to kill services.
Some bank software has been running since the 80s. Can you GENUINELY guarantee that the software you rolled out into the cloud this year will still be servicable in 5? 10? 20?
Why do people feel the need to keep fiddling with their thermostats?
Thermostats were invented so that you don't need to keep turning your heating up and down in response to changing weather conditions.
The whole point of a thermostat is that you are supposed to set it to a comfortable temperature and then leave it alone.
Our thermostat gets tweaked several times a day, depending on what we are doing and where we anticipate doing it for the next few hours. Maybe we are prime candidates for a complicated smart thermostat but as this article shows, no way!
My usual thermostat tweak is to turn it down when a draft from the front door left open triggers the heating to turn on, or when one of the younger people in the house decides to use the thermostat as an on/off switch. They are old enough to know it controls the heating, but not yet enough to understand how.
The advantage of a Hive (and I presume a Nest) is that it combines the functions of a time switch and thermostat. So, for example, our central heating is set to 17 degrees from 7am till 10pm and then off overnight, because that's when the Hive switches on electric blankets. However, it boosts to 19 degree from 10 - 11am, because that nicely dries out towels from morning showers, even in what laughingly passes for warm weather in Scotland.
A truly "smart" thermostat would be able to look at the weather forecast and preemptively let the floor temperature drop or rise to any expected rapid temperature changes. A truly smart thermostat would be better at keeping the set temperature.
Whether anyone actually makes one I don't know.
USAian, and I have a Honeywell "smart" thermostat. We live in the northeast, so taking a holiday in the winter always has the risk of heat failing and us not being there to catch it.
So I bought one of these $50 Honeywell thermostats, and the only installation challenge was the need for BOTH sides of the 24VAC transformer to be available at the thermostat. Most houses built here have only two wires at the thermostat (one side of the transformer and one end of the relay coil, the second side of the transformer and relay coil connect together at the burner control PCB). So, after much drilling, fishing and cursing, a cable with the third "C" wire was connected, and the thing has been trouble-free for several years.
It is, like Nest, connected through a web server run by "Resideo", who seem to be the actual makers of the thermostat. The difference between this and the Nest thermostat seems to be that this one does not need to be connected to the 'net in order to work. All its schedule and settings are local, the website is just to let you read and control the temperature setting, and see the current ambient temp. So, if Resideo goes out of business tomorrow, I lose my ability to check on the house, but the thermostat will still work.
Reviews seem to be mixed, but I have installed two of these and they're both working just fine.
I also have Honeywell which was chosen purposely a few years ago, because it still works with a traditional 7-day schedule and manual controls on the thermostat, even though you can also control it remotely over the internet either when away from home or just when lazy on the sofa. Definitely an advantage that it does not have inscrutable "Nest will learn your schedule" behaviour, or the need to use an app to manually schedule. As you say, if/when the app stops working it should still be usable manually without internet access.
At the time it seemed clear that people renovating houses tended to install Nest because they thought buyers would want this. But good traditional thermostats are still sold.
If Microsoft is in charge of making largely annoying software, then Google is in charge of making stuff that they give up on after a few years.
Lesson: Don't buy any google hardware.
Actually, buy hardware that's easy to change in/out, easy to change the battery (if any) and has the backing of someone in our own country.
Oh yes... anyone with any knowledge of the IT industry. I am the one of world's greatest sceptics of all things "smart" but the need to improve our home's heating setup was too great to ignore any longer and I "smartened" it at the end of last year.
Obviously all proprietary systems like Nest were out of the question, no components were permitted if they required any kind of proprietary app or 3rd party server to operate.
Our combi boiler is 25 years old and was run off a basic programmer/timer with only two on/off periods and separate controls for hot water and heating - no thermostat other than the basic wax ones on rads.
The old programmer was replaced by a Shelly relay, with two big physical buttons to turn on/off heating and hot water manually if desired (buttons have LEDs in them to indicate state, regardless of how it was triggered.)
The radiator valves were replaced with the inexpensive but decent Sonoff TRVZB valves; room temp/humidity sensing nearly all by the ubiquitous, dirt cheap and reliable LYWSD03MMC devices (flashed with a custom firmware to remove the need for any stupid proprietary stuff.)
All of the above is tied together by Home Assistant running the BetterThermostat addon which means it can be controlled by phone with the app, or any device with a web browser. A simple script turns on the boiler if one or more rooms needs heat and turns it off a few minutes after no room needs heat. The boiler runs far less than it ever did and yet every room in the house is at an appropriate temperature at all times - all of it is accessible from anywhere (through my own VPN) if required, but none of it requires any third party service and even if home assistant became inoperable for some reason we can still manually turn the heating on and off.
Gen 3 Nest is still sold in the UK and PSTI requires a PoS commitment to availability of security updates, which is five years for this model. The latest models are therefore expected to run until at least 2030 and it makes sense for this to apply globally. Since most of these are used with natural gas and that is already being phased-out this is about as good as it gets for those in possession of these later models.
That doesn't alter the fact, though, that there are unacceptable gaps in pretty much all IoT legislation: there should be a full lifecycle commitment, minimum end-of-life periods and requirement to open-source all software and hardware components at the point that the EoL date is announced.
Fair enough if folk want to play with it, but I don't think national infrastructure should connect to the internet and I don't want mine to either.
I have no need or desire to have any 'smart' stuff. Pressing a button with my digit is no big deal. I don't want a smart meter either. If they force one on me, I'll go the full John Noakes on it, and encase it in a repurposed cereal box, so I never have to see it.
There is some value in this tech to assist disabled people, but even then, making your stuff reliant on a third party server or a vendor who embraces built-in obsolescence just doesn't sound like a plan.
“Heating systems in Europe are unique and have a variety of hardware and software requirements that make it challenging to build for the diverse set of homes,” Google’s post states.
Next year....Trump starts whinging that "The EU don't buy our thermostats".
I wonder why European heating systems are so "unique" that an American company can't figure how to operate them? All they have to do is turn on and off to maintain a temperature and possibly "learn" how fast or slowly a room/zone/building warms up and cools down based on the heat output of the system. Or has the USA standardised on a single heating system that everyone has, no variations allowed to make it easier for Google to manage and those pesky Europeans are refusing to enforce the same standardisation and allowing their citizens freedom of choice?
I have a personal policy of avoiding reliance on Google for anything, given their toddler-like propensity to get bored of something and wander off. I had a Nest system before it was absorbed into the chocolate factory and was very happy with it, but when I last moved house there was no way post-buyout that I was going to go the same route - and lo, I was vindicated…
My Siemens Central heating controller (MiGenie) had its internet connection and hence remote control removed last year. Only nine years after installation. Annoying but I did take up their offer of a decent discount on the replacement. I guess that is a win for them but I did value the remote control more than I thought I would when I originally chose that system.
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