This Reddit post is by someone claiming to be a Nest engineer:
As a Nest engineer, I won’t say any numbers that aren’t public, but this company is already on deathwatch. Once that happens, most people will quickly have shiny paperweights because it’s a constant firefight keeping these systems up. We have $340M in revenue, not profit, against a ~$500M budget. No new products since the purchase, and sales/growth numbers are dire. Our budget deal expires soon, and all the good engineers on my teams have discreetly indicated they are going to flee once their golden handcuffs unlock (many have already left despite sacrificing a lot of money to do so).
Tony and his goons demand crazy timelines so much that “crunch time” has basically lost meaning. Just when your labor bears fruit, they swoop in, 180 the specs you just delivered on, then have the gall to call your team “incompetent” for not reading their mind and delivering on these brand-new specs. I waste most of my time in pointless meetings, or defending my teams so they don’t flip their desks and walk out. People fall asleep in corners and cry in the bathrooms, health and marriages are suffering. Already the churn is insane, close to half the company if not more. Skilled engineers can tell the environment is toxic, so we’re filling vacancies with mostly sub-par talent.
Wow. If true, that’s bad news, especially for people who have invested in the company and the company’s products. And if it’s not true, this is certainly a damaging post, as it’s flying around the internet.
This doesn’t surprise me! Other thermostat device manufacturers have similar devices at much lower prices!
Don’t
know if this is is true. I do know that $250 is too much to pay for a thermostat that does what a $50 thermostat does.
The Internet of Things might not be what everyone keeps telling us it is. This is an example. What benefit does a nest Bring that a a simple timer does not?
It’s more interesting to see how Alphabet, Inc. Keeps spinning off children and seeing which one of them is anything more than Blue Sky dreaming.
Money quote: “Skilled engineers can tell the environment is toxic, so we’re filling vacancies with mostly sub-par talent.” THAT is the true sign of a death watch.
The up-side is that new people get some exposure to better people and a good example of “what not to do!”
Time for another “Downfall” video, I should think.
And management starts making excuses for the churn. “High turnover is a good thing!!”
This article is brutal.
Well, for one, a timer doesn’t know when you’re home or not. It can’t adjust room temperatures individually. It can’t tell who is home. And it can’t be modified from Tahiti.
Just a few examples for what might be possible that’s not possible with a timer.
The Ecobee 3 (version 2) thermostat is the best out there. I looked at it and Nest, and with HomeKit integration, Echoee 3 is by far the best available.
so if Nest proper crashes and burns – do they brick all their products before they turn off the building lights and shut the door?
I’m glad to see The Loop passing on unsubstantiated posts on the internet.
Didn’t Google buy Nest? And don’t they gave a great track record of supporting, nurturing and building up the companies they purchase?
Oh wait.
This is why I don’t deal with the very highly overrated Google, I mean “Alphabet”. (Which by the way, is a STUPID name for a company. Whoever pitched that name should have been punched in the mouth).
Have they fixed the 3 degree too warm reading yet? The Wi-Fi hardward keeps the unit too warm making the reading off.
I started getting this feeling when I noticed a lack of new products from Nest and competitors (such as Lowe’s Iris) had much more and better integration with other products. Works with Nest has only recently started to accelerate, but almost all of the products that integrate with Nest also integrate with competing products.
I use Lowes IRIS and LOVE IT! It is cheaper too.
… as long as they open-source the software, so we can mod it not to require the Google Mothership, just as well
Pointless meetings…reasons why I bring this with me to every meeting I attend…https://startup.market/products/mug-i-tried-to-be-innovative-once-but-i-got-stuck-in-meetings-1