[Ipg-smz] nest app for Linux?

[Mark Brownstein]

I also have a Nest thermostat. Fortunately, it doesn't rely on Wi-Fi for 
its brains. I'm on Southern California, and we've had Internet outages 
fairly often over the past few days. As long as the power connects (or 
reconnects before the Nest battery dies), it's able to control the 
thermostat.

It's got some pretty easy tasks - we don't usually need heat until it 
gets REAL cold (for us, that's below 55 or so), and have no air 
conditioner. The 'intelligence' isn't always helpful -- if I turn the 
temperature to 75 so I can take a shower, then set it back to 69, it'll 
think that I want it at 75 EVERYday, with a drop to 69 a few minutes 
later -- and it can't always count on having a body move past it to 
indicate whether or not the house is empty. The Nest is midway between 
bedroom (which should always be comfortable because my wife is usually 
back there) and my office - and walking from one room to the other, 
passing the Nest along the way, is not a good indication that nobody's 
home.

Programming it has been a bit of a pain.

The Nest Hello has proven to be a problematic, practically useless hunk 
of technology. When the doorbell DOES ring, we're notified up to a 
minute later. When someone is at the door, it rarely notifies either my 
phone, computer, or Chrome tablet. So far, it's been impossible to 
interact with things at the door. The doorbell is, perhaps, 10 feet from 
a Wi-Fi access point.

The Hello looks good, but it's practically useless, so far.

On 10/11/2019 10:40 AM, Dennisf63 via Ipg-smz wrote:
> On 10/11/2019 01:02 PM, Christine Hall via Ipg-smz wrote:
>> They both have the Linux kernel in common, but beyond that, my 
>> understanding is that they're pretty much completely different -- but 
>> don't take my word for it.
>
> Getting back to the Nest line of geek-dom, the thermostat is really 
> pretty cool. It can learn your patterns so it raises the temp and 
> lowers it in line with your habits, for example. It even senses when 
> no one is home and drops the temp to a pre-set lower level, then 
> "wakes up" when it senses people in the house. I walk by the one in my 
> hall and it lights up -- motion detector.
>
> But, I think it emerged from the mind of uber geek Paul Allan, and 
> when a geek designs an interface to something that will be used by the 
> hoi poloi, well, the results are pretty, but confusing, and then the 
> documentation that's written for it only adds to the confusion, and 
> now Google has taken it all over (cameras, security systems, etc., 
> etc. etc.) and they created an app that is supposed to interface with 
> ALL those Internet of Things gadgets via WiFi.
>
> Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get me.
>