WTF is nest? a rant about americentrism in tech and internet in general

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, gabrielcarvfer said:

Just as easy as installing a normal light switch, right? I think the dude is delusional due to the cold. =/

Yeah, they aren't hard to install and switch out if necessary.

[Skipple]

What an odd thread this is.

[Damascus]

6 minutes ago, Erik Sieghart said:

Also, heating/cooling is standard in the US. There may be some places in the southern US which don't have heating, but most places have both. I know this is actually kinda different from a lot of other places in the world. I guess America really values comfort.

I would say no to that comfort bit tbh.  I have a decent background in environmental science, with an emphasis on building/construction and let me tell you - wow are non central solutions atrocious.  They cost more to run, get lower coverage and from have a massive carbon footprint.  Efficient, effective cooling and strong insulation are all key elements in saving money, helping the environment around you and the comfort is simply a cherry on top.

[TempestCatto]

5 minutes ago, Erik Sieghart said:

There may be some places in the southern US which don't have heating, but most places have both.

Lots of places in the south don't have heat and lots of places in the north don't have A/C. I grew up in a home without air conditioning, and an oil powered boiler that heated our water, and also doubled as our source of heat for the winter because of the radiators throughout the house. A/C was a bunch of window units, which worked rather well actually.

 

11 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Wait, what. Are you saying that they have dedicated low power lines for doorbells from the electric company? If that's the case, it really doesn't make any sense, and I doubt that is the case. A simple transformer, usually built into the doorbell enclosure is more than enough.

The doorbell in the house I grew up in was just taped into a nearby outlet. It takes very little power to run them. But the house I live in now, it's an electromagnet, so nothing is wired in to the electricity of the house (which means it works if there's a power outage).

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Damascus said:

I would say no to that comfort bit tbh.  I have a decent background in environmental science, with an emphasis on building/construction and let me tell you - wow are non central solutions atrocious.  They cost more to run, get lower coverage and from have a massive carbon footprint.  Efficient, effective cooling and strong insulation are all key elements in saving money, helping the environment around you and the comfort is simply a cherry on top.

Perhaps dumb question:

Is radiator hot water from a central boiler considered central in this case?  Around where I am “central” usually refers specifically to forced air

[zassou]

13 minutes ago, Erik Sieghart said:

The average home size of a new American home is 2,600 square feet. You could be too far away to hear a knock. Of course it's not a necessary item, though. My apartment doesn't have one.

 

Also, heating/cooling is standard in the US. There may be some places in the southern US which don't have heating, but most places have both. I know this is actually kinda different from a lot of other places in the world. I guess America really values comfort.

...i know they live in big houses, but not that big..

 

my current house is 61 m2 in area, convert to stupid unit is 646 square lower limb. i do think doorbell is necessary, just not to the level of requiring dedicated alternated current circuit, some doorbell button need coin cells, but not ac wiring...

[zassou]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Perhaps dumb question:

Is radiator hot water from a central boiler considered central in this case?  Around where I am “central” usually refers specifically to forced air

centralised heating means a a dedicated network of pipeline deliver heat to homes, most the case is hot water, but steam too, eg new york.

 

in my place there are about 4 networks of pipelines, with large natural gas powered boilers producing hot water.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, zassou said:

centralised heating means a a dedicated network of pipeline deliver heat to homes, most the case is hot water, but steam too, eg new york.

 

in my place there are about 4 networks of pipelines, with large natural gas powered boilers producing hot water.

So not even one boiler per house, but one boiler per several houses.  Yeah,  I fail then.

[zassou]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

So not even one boiler per house, but one boiler per several houses.  Yeah,  I fail then.

you meant those "villa" luxury heating system right? some rich bastards have them too. need massive renevation to install, or to have it when the house is built. anyway they are out of reach for most ppl live in my place.

[Damascus]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So not even one boiler per house, but one boiler per several houses.  Yeah,  I fail then.

Yeah, that's not a common standard lol.  If I had to guess, I would say it's a leftover from a communistic era long past.  Large region forced heat systems can be effective, but tend to be heinously managed and rarely get results with anything but brute force

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, zassou said:

thanks for informative reply, unlike some toxic manbabies.

 

im not live in british isles but the flat i mentioned is quite close to british ones. one thing isnt though is the weather.

 

the place i lived in is dry in spring and autumn but they lacks distinction. summer is long and humid but not terribly hot, sometimes 40 but most of the day is hovering above 30. winter is short but is cold, wet and windy, sometimes rain, very rarely snows, it's on sigle digit for the warmest day, and dips into -10s in the night.

 

installing whole room heating is a luxury to most of us. i heard a bmw owner complaining about how he can't afford renovating his floor for heating wires. so i would guess it's on the level of owning 2 bimmers. most new homes have heating pipelines instealled, the central heating is turned on from 1st of nov to 1st of feb. i heard it's quite those who live lower to the ground, not so much if you live in 26th floor.

 

the local gov substise heating installation, providing a) it's apartment, not a villa (aka single home house, they are considered luxury homes), b) you have been live there for more than 5 years, and c) your annual income is lower than xxxxx. since i failed to met the criteria so i have to cower next to the heater.

 

anyway i think i should get a kerosene heater in my living room, they're quite cheap to run and can heat water too.

Worrisome.  Kerosene means combustion.  Combustion means dangerous gasses unless the combustion is near totally perfect.  Kerosene heaters are actually illegal to bring indoors where I live.  Fuel based heating (natural gas/kerosene, etc..) has legal venting requirements to keep people from dying.  Depends on how airtight the building is of course.  
 

sidenote: I cherish my toxic manbabyhood.  

[Bombastinator]

46 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Just as easy as installing a normal light switch, right? I think the dude is delusional due to the cold. =/

Not really. A hard wired doorbell is a two wire low voltage momentary switch that leads to a transformer that has another set of wires that go to a chimer or buzzer.  Only the transformer is wired into house power. They’re actually kind of a PITA.  major reason wireless doorbells have been around for so long.

[kirashi]

3 hours ago, zassou said:

what i dont get is why is such a thing that company would want to make a such fuss about it.

As long as people will pay for something (regardless of the reason), most companies don't have a problem making it. That's how they make money.

[Zusafek]

Ok. I have a nest thermostat on my house. Reason why?  I can adjust the temperature with ease while I'm away from home. I live in South Florida and it's almost always hot and humid. When I'm away at work, my wife and kids might not be home during the week. So I have it set to not turn on till it hits 77F unless if I override it. Which I do if the humidity is getting high. 

As for Alexa and Google smart hubs, I have those also. I don't use them much myself but my wife does. She can control the lights in the house easily, especially if our 2 year old has a nightmare. She can turn on the lights quickly to help calm her down. 

And for the doorbell, I need it in my house. Every house I have lived in has had wired doorbells. I live in a 2900 square foot house. I can't hear anyone knock on my door if I'm in the living room. So I have a Ring doorbell that is connected to my Google system. If I get a package, even if they don't ring the door, I get notified. 

[Founders]

33 minutes ago, zassou said:

...i know they live in big houses, but not that big..

 

my current house is 61 m2 in area

61 m² = 657 ft², You're complaining about the Imperial system, but you don't seem to have an adequate understanding of your own (metric). I have to assume you're a single individual living in a densely populated city some where. If you'd care to share where, that might be helpful for others.  

 

23 minutes ago, zassou said:

you meant those "villa" luxury heating system right? some rich bastards have them too. need massive renevation to install, or to have it when the house is built. anyway they are out of reach for most ppl live in my place.

By your definition, if someone is in a better place than you financially, are they considered a 'rich bastard'?  Your general outlook on things seem so twisted. 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I’m going to take use of the word “flat” to mean British isles.  This sort of makes sense.

weird random factoid:

Britain in general has been reported to have some of the most remarkably consistent weather on earth.  Particularly humidity, but temperature as well. So much so that there were car parts that actually worked more poorly or not at all outside of Britain.  British engines developed a fearsome reputation for power and then tempormentality in the 1950s because there were designs that could be used in Britain that simply don’t work well anywhere else.  There’s a LOT more temperature and humidity variance in the US. (or just about anywhere else really) Cold cold winters and HOT hot summers.  Long periods of dry and shorter periods of extreme

damp.

Factoid definition is - an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print. So many people have the wrong idea of what it means, some dictionaries will give both the correct and the wrong definition.

[The1Dickens]

1 hour ago, Founders said:

657 ft²,

That's roughly a 24.3x27-foot (656.1) room. Just to kind of throw that out there. Which is roughly the size of a studio apartment in SoCal.

1 hour ago, Founders said:

By your definition, if someone is in a better place than you financially, are they considered a 'rich bastard'?  Your general outlook on things seem so twisted. 

For real. The animosity in their rants, the refusal to say "feet" (instead saying "lower limb"), calling imperial measurements "stupid units", just sounds like their view of America is already colored with hatred, and they are looking for reasons to justify that hatred.

[Bombastinator]

18 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Factoid definition is - an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print. So many people have the wrong idea of what it means, some dictionaries will give both the correct and the wrong definition.

Ok.  I’ve also heard the term nickel knowledge used.  Pointless little bit of knowledge I picked up some place of no direct use other than as a quote.  I’ve heard the term factoid as well make up anew one if you want .

[handymanshandle]

2 hours ago, Erik Sieghart said:

The average home size of a new American home is 2,600 square feet. You could be too far away to hear a knock. Of course it's not a necessary item, though. My apartment doesn't have one.

 

Also, heating/cooling is standard in the US. There may be some places in the southern US which don't have heating, but most places have both. I know this is actually kinda different from a lot of other places in the world. I guess America really values comfort.

God how dare we want our homes to be comfortable!
It's just awful to want an escape from the elements!

To not want to have to wallow in horribly humid or hot days or freeze while we wait for the boiler to heat the house again.

 

I will say, I think American houses have gone super generic for nothing to show for being nearly the same designs copy and pasted and they're way too big.

 

Personally I want a nice 4-5 bedroom bungalow/cottage with a basement, no upstairs. Central Heating and Air since I feel that I have to explain that desire. I currently live in a humid area and the area I wish to live in seems to have that same issue in the summer. But at least I'll lose these cold ass bi-polar ass winters we get here.

[Bombastinator]

Everybody wants more than they got and it doesn’t matter how much they got to start with.  I vaguely recall someone tried to figure out what rich meant by comparing actual values.  They failed.  The definition seemed to be about 20% more than those around you.  Whatever that amount was it needed to be 20% more.  Dude lives in a house he considers too small with no heat in December cuddled up next to an electric heater and is feeling miserable.

Not really blaming him.  He seems angry about nests though which is a bit weird.  Things happen though.  I personally wouldn’t put one in my house.  I dislike being monitored.  I’d rather be cold.
 

 Electric heaters are expensive to run.  it’s probably a heck of a lot warmer outside where he is than where I am at the moment... oh there’s one... ever been outside in -40c?  It hurts.  Used to see one of those at least couple of times a year when I was a kid.  For those who think in farenheight -40f and -40c are the same.  It’s where the two scales cross.

[YellowJersey]

I don't like Nest, but not for the reasons OP stated. First, it's fiddlier than a fiddler crab fiddling with its tax returns. Call me stupid, but I can't figure out how to set the damn thing so that the temperature is what I want it to be. I've set a custom temperature range and it routinely heats up well beyond the max that I've set it to. I'm so glad to be moving shortly into an apartment with a "dumb" thermostat that us three-inch-malformed-skull thickie bobos can understand. Second, I'm not keen on "smart home" stuff in general due to privacy reasons.

 However, if you don't care about the privacy stuff and can get the damn thing to work to your satisfaction, I can see the appeal as it can save energy and money. I tend to do things manually, though, as I've been burned too many times by automatic systems to trust them.

[Riddler356]

2 hours ago, zassou said:

...i know they live in big houses, but not that big..

 

my current house is 61 m2 in area, convert to stupid unit is 646 square lower limb. i do think doorbell is necessary, just not to the level of requiring dedicated alternated current circuit, some doorbell button need coin cells, but not ac wiring...

I live over in the South Eastern Idaho/Northern Utah/South West Wyoming area. Most houses in the area are actually around that 2600sq ft mark. and more recent construction out side of cities is a bit bigger, with city based either apartments or a touch smaller. (my job has me driving and checking power distribution equipment in the area so i see tons of houses)

 

Edit: Heck most rooms houses I've been in have several bedrooms each with 20' x 20' or bigger, not to mention how the other rooms tend to be bigger.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Riddler356
added detail

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, Riddler356 said:

I live over in the South Eastern Idaho/Northern Utah/South West Wyoming area. Most houses in the area are actually around that 2600sq ft mark. and more recent construction out side of cities is a bit bigger, with city based either apartments or a touch smaller. (my job has me driving and checking power distribution equipment in the area so i see tons of houses)

 

Edit: Heck most rooms houses I've been in have several bedrooms each with 20' x 20' or bigger, not to mention how the other rooms tend to be bigger.

To get that You got to live in Wyoming though.  It’s all what people like I guess.  I grew used to cities.  Here 1000sqf is huge.

[Riddler356]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

To get that You got to live in Wyoming though.  It’s all what people like I guess.  I grew used to cities.  Here 1000sqf is huge.

well rural Idaho, but houses are going up like that in even places like Idaho Falls, Salt Lake City, Boise Idaho and yes mostly rural which is why they are going up as more and more people move out here from larger cities to get bigger houses while making the same money commuting or working from home. (Me the company pays for my hotels while i work in any given area that is over 1.5hr drive)

[YellowJersey]

It's a bit unreasonable to compare European dwelling sizes to Canadian and American dwelling sizes. In North America, most cities have plenty of space to spread out. In Europe, I'm going to assume that space is at more of a premium. I think it a lot of it boils down to geography and population density.