Competition: Nest: Let Me Try To Help

Like I was saying earlier, Nine out of ten people trying to change the temperature on the webapp and mobile app after being exposed to the actual hardware are observed making circular motions with their index finger and having a puzzled face. It was more difficult on the webapp than it was on the mobile app, because the latter has visible arrows (which some people managed to miss) whereas the former doesn't.

So I wonder, why didn't Nest designers implement this feature and where their usability expert was looking? I'd call this a major goof for a company that paid so much attention to slick hardware design. Or maybe they just underestimate the number of users (of which just Android user base, according to Nest page at Android Market, is between 1000 and 5000 - and I bet that this is a small fraction of users for it looks like the device is targeted at iOS user base)? Or they just don't care?

Well, let me try to help.

You'd think that tracking a circular gesture on a square screen would be difficult? Not at all.

1. Take the touch coordinate. Convert it to polar coordinate system against the center of your thermostat image and work in it thereafter.
2. Take the drag coordinate. Keep the thermostat pointer directed at the drag point - it is easy because after polar conversion you have the angle, hence, the setpoint. You don't care much about the radius.
3. Take the release coordinate. Send it back to hardware.

Voila.

Now, I wonder, how much time it'll take them to implement it? Or they declare the clickety-click the new standard for UI usability?

Open Letter to SeedStudio

A while ago I purhcased a couple of relay shields from your site and was recommending them to my project's users . Unfortunately, you discontinued the original product and no documentation, nor any forwarding or upgrade information, is available.

Even though a new version of the product now exists, it is not immediately obvious to my users whether the new product is compatible with the old, and whether it can be used as a drop-in replacement.

Other open hardware manufacturers retain documentation for even discontinued products available indefinitely (example here), because even though the product is discontinued, there are many instances of it in possession, and sometimes open source project maintainers need to support products that they don't have in their hands (such is my case).

It would be much appreciated if you could consider making the documentation for the old version available, and providing version compatibility notes on both old and new devices so people without deep technical knowledge could be sure that the new version of the product can be used instead of old. Including a link to a new device on old device's page won't hurt either.

Thank you for consideration,

--vt

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PS: The text above was sent to you a few months ago, but there was no response. Since then, it came to my attention that not only relay shield was upgraded, but also the UartSB V2.2, and possibly others. The pattern is obvious - you're upgrading devices as soon as you run out of stock of components you could get for the cheapest price. That's OK, everyone has to make a living. However, if you respect people that make your bread and butter just a tiny little bit more, you might get more respect, which will definitely make your sales better. On the other hand, if you are an uncertainty, you are a risk. If you are a risk, you are a threat. Threating your customers is a bad business strategy.

For now, I will only recommend your products only if there is no other alternative, and a clear link to this post will be included next to recommendation. Your competitors' products will be recommended instead, even if the price is higher. Good luck.

Early Access: Usable GUI Again

Subversion contains code for still ugly GUI that can do three things right:

• Display the zone name, current temperature and setpoint for the selected zone;
• Flip back and forth through zones (left/right arrows);
• Change setpoint for the currently selected zone (up/down arrows).

There are also subtle visual cues to what the system is currently doing, and there will be more and more as time goes by.

New features would be available via keystrokes. Feel free to try all keys on the keyboard, you're unlikely to break something and you'll see what's happening. There's a good time that by the time you read this, hold, voting, off and Fahrenheit vs. Celsius switches will be already implemented.

No mouse interaction other than gestures (drag left, right, up and down) and possibly a right click menu will be provided. It is planned that all major features will be available via single key press - or there will be advanced interface for the feature that will not be a part of the GUI.