Even the thermostat products are disappointing. Nest is cool-looking, but it doesn't really do much. The IoT talk was in a big industrial-type space near the shipyard in SF. The room had openable windows, ceiling fans, and openable skylights with big endless-chain mechanisms, plus modern HVAC. None of this was interconnected.

An intelligent HVAC system measures inside and outside temperature, humidity, CO, CO2, and people presence, and controls windows, fans, vents, heating, and cooling. Such systems can be bought from Honeywell, Johnson Controls, and others. Some big buildings have them. They're great for places like hotels, where big rooms go from empty to full and back throughout the day, with no particular pattern. Smart HVAC systems note CO2 level going up, which indicates more people present, and crank up airflow, regardless of temperature. The main problem with such systems is not that they're expensive, but that they're hard to set up and configure, especially since they're typically run by someone at the janitor level. Setup involves running around with airflow meters while someone at the control panel makes changes to the settings.

Now this is an application for machine learning. Something like a Nest, with control of heat, air conditioning, attic, bathroom, and kitchen fans, and some vents to the outside world, could bring modern HVAC technology to the home. It would learn over time such things as how fast the house temperature ramps up when the heat turns on, how much heat the house loses to the outside when the outside is cold, and how far different parts of the house are from the various vents and fans. When you have a party and the house is full, all the necessary adjustments would happen automatically.

Now that's home automation.

Sure, it's home automation, but why?

Hotels and businesses have those systems because they have a very high throughput of people and constantly changing conditions in a large number of rooms. To have unnecessary heating or cooling for even a short period of time adds up to a lot of money.

But it's not realistic to assume that home has that kind of changing conditions. External conditions may vary quite a bit, but you can easily smooth those out with insulation. A home wouldn't need nearly the same amount of fine and extensive control of a hotel or business, except in rare circumstances that can just as easily be handled manually.

You want to stabilize the temperature in a home? Add more insulation. Done. And it doesn't require an expensive home automation system.

I would love to have intelligent outlets (tied to an intelligent circuit breaker box) so I could monitor electrical consumption at home. I'm sure knowing how much our appliances pull when "off" so we could intelligently unplug them when leaving for vacation, or at least know what's causing the high electric bill for the month.

But I would want to have something completely under my control, where the information doesn't leave the house.

Your home must not have any windows -- or at least, any windows that receive direct sunlight.

During the summer, we manually maintain the indoor temperature by following a simple -- but very manual -- formulaic process:

- When it gets cooler outside than it is inside (evening, night), open the windows. - If it gets too cold outside, close the windows in rooms we're occupying. - When it gets warmer outside than it is inside (mid-day on), close the windows. - When the sun hits the windows directly, close the blinds. - When the sun stops hitting the windows, open them again.

Rinse, repeat.

If we follow these steps, we can keep the house a very comfortable temperature with zero energy costs.

If we don't, it invariably gets too hot AND/OR too cold over a 24 hour period.

"Add more insulation" doesn't help much, unless you're suggesting we use insulation as a window covering.

As I understand it, the nest does have a humidity sensor and activity sensors (I guess since they are part of the one device there are limits on how capable they are). It also figures out how fast the building changes temperature and accesses the outside temp from the internet (this is weak, the temperature at an airport 50 miles away can be dramatically different).

I still wouldn't buy one as I don't quite see the value proposition (and am not deeply offended by mashing buttons to program a schedule), but it seems like a bigger step in the direction you are talking about than you think (and I guess it helps to have smart thermostats in the wild when you start trying to sell smart dampers into homes).

The nest seems like a poor compromise. It's easy to wire up but pricey and the benefits seem questionable given the price. As the Animats points out one option would be to add a lot of home automation given the amount of processing power the thing has and save a significant amount of energy.

However, a vary dumb thermostat with a humidity sensor could save you a fair amount of energy in humid areas over a simple temperature sensor. After all a humid 80 and a dry 80 are different, not just in feel but also in how fast mold grows. Basically, set a max temperature for the humidity level, and decide if you can just vent outside air, or if you need to dehumidify incoming air, or even if you need to heat/cool the air. The other option of simply running a dehumidifier uses a lot of energy and tends to create an overly dry environment.

The big win is having sensors for outside conditions, with fans and vents the system can operate. Then the system knows when to use outside air.

a refrigerator doesn't need the internet to tell you what you need. I'm not a big fan of 'the internet of things'. I see no use for an overpriced thermostat that I could achieve the same result by just turning down the thermostat when i leave. If I am forgetful, perhaps I could apply some sticky note technology.

not to be mentioned politicians have been saying 'we need to upgrade our electric system to a smart grid...' i was like oh cool, whats a smart grid? i was thinking like super efficient wires that had little resistance and cool switching systems. no, its just meters on your residence that can measure electricity so precise they can tell when someone stays over, or when you turn on the lights.

The electric company is trying to force me to switch, keep calling for an appointment. no thanks.

The main advantage to smart meters is it becomes possible to implement time-of-day pricing. That way you can run your dishwasher/laundry before bed and have it actually be cheaper than if you just turned it on during peak hours.

One of the other things that more finely-grained monitoring can do is to help let you know if/when your appliances might need service before they completely break. Like if the load in your refrigerator suddenly spikes because the compressor's going out, you can call a tech out to take a look at it before you come home to a house full of spoiled milk. Or for your air conditioner, you may want to schedule to get the ducts cleaned because there's a clog somewhere. There are quite a few little things that this sort of monitoring can help you with and save you money.

That's quite common for commercial HVAC gear. There are lots of commercial HVAC units regularly sending pager-type messages to a maintenance service. Again, that's been around for years.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to put that into the appliance itself? Detecting at the endpoint seems more reliable (since it's not mixed with other devices, and can be calibrated to the specific model) and private, and while it requires some redundancy in sensors, it avoids the need for a complex monitoring network.