I have a Nest learning thermostat and a house with two infants. We're on the east coast and the outside temperature is 26 degrees with seven inches of snow on the ground. Several hours ago, this evening, our Nest began cycling "software updates" that turned off our heatpump. Nest support is overwhelmed-- apparently this is a system-wide problem related to an OS update that failed. We're freezing and are getting ready to go to a hotel.<p>The "Internet of Things" needs different standards than some Internet app-- this software failure is disrupting lives.
Update: Just got through to tech, they are working late. Apparently our issue is an edge case but there are a bunch of problems with their OS update and automatic rollback. Here's the temporary fix: to reboot a Nest, press it for 10 or 15 seconds. Then, when the Nest is booting up, go into Settings and disconnect the Nest from the Internet so it doesn't try to software update endlessly. That has worked and we thankfully have heat again. I generally like my Nest and have found their support to be excellent, so I'm pretty patient, but it is definitely exasperating to hold a crying baby while calling tech support in the middle of the night because of a failed software update on my thermostat!
This makes me wonder if any startups have been responsible yet for the death or injury of people who use their software.<p>Personally I think it's only a matter of time.
How come there is no way to manually override Nest and turn on the heatpump? Seems like a fairly obviously dumb design decisions from Nest. I wonder if this is way for them to "lock" in customers for to speak.
Having had this happen with at least two plain ol' thermostats, my fix for those was to go down to Lowes, pick up a $10 thermostat until I'd gotten my more expensive models repaired.<p>I'm not personally familiar with the Nest, but is there some change to the architecture that precludes you from doing that as a stopgap?