It’s actually surprising that we expect so much from a smart thermostat. Wouldn’t it be far smarter to sell a dumb thermostat on a local iot network and put the smarts in your automation hub? People who want the extra functionality would be good with that and people who don’t would appreciate saving the money
I could see that, but you have to remember that the average consumer doesn’t have an automation hub or get deep into the automation sphere, and as such many of these products are designed to be standalone devices that can be controlled from a phone. Often enough they can be the only ‘smart’ device in a home.
That all said, a dumb thermostat like your suggesting would still require a small CPU, ram, embedded OS, and network stack/hardware to operate and communicate, so I don’t know how far the savings would go. I can’t imagine the processing power on something like a nest is that powerful as it is.
I’m sure not much: Amazon is not likely taking a loss on all those $50 Echo Dots, but that’s a lot more than a thermostat needs. It’s also on WiFi and can play streaming audio, so that’s not nothing
It’s actually surprising that we expect so much from a smart thermostat. Wouldn’t it be far smarter to sell a dumb thermostat on a local iot network and put the smarts in your automation hub? People who want the extra functionality would be good with that and people who don’t would appreciate saving the money
I could see that, but you have to remember that the average consumer doesn’t have an automation hub or get deep into the automation sphere, and as such many of these products are designed to be standalone devices that can be controlled from a phone. Often enough they can be the only ‘smart’ device in a home.
That all said, a dumb thermostat like your suggesting would still require a small CPU, ram, embedded OS, and network stack/hardware to operate and communicate, so I don’t know how far the savings would go. I can’t imagine the processing power on something like a nest is that powerful as it is.
My Ecobee not only has some fairly sophisticated software, a touch screen, and remote sensors, but enough CPU to run Alexa
I’d be curious to see what system resources are required for Alexa
I’m sure not much: Amazon is not likely taking a loss on all those $50 Echo Dots, but that’s a lot more than a thermostat needs. It’s also on WiFi and can play streaming audio, so that’s not nothing