This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Heating systems in Europe are unique and have a variety of hardware and software requirements that make it challenging to build for the diverse set of homes
AKA. Europe probably has hardware and software requirements that make it so Google can't
A) Harvest your data; and/or B) Must be able to function without an internet connection (aka. they can't kill it)
European heating system:
TBF, I have those AND a programmable thermostat.
This is a thermostat (although an analog one). You set a temperature with it. "3" corresponds with about 20°C.
Of course. You'd just never see this and go "oh, that's so unique and has a variety of hardware and software requirements". That's what I was getting at.
I can’t think of many companies I would be less willing to buy home automation tech from than Google.
i am surprised that they haven't canceled the program already
There is more home shot for them to create new teams. Once they get through everything is when you have to worry about your Google water heater program being cancelled.
Good.
Anyone in Europe looking for an alternative might want to check out Tado
Netatmo as well if I recall
Or Drayton Wiser
Do they integrate with Home Assistant?
Yes
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tado
You can also control locally (i.e. without internet connection) using homekit integration.
Been working fine for me for a couple of years.
TBF, over 15* in Germany I've only seen a couple of actual thermostats. The vast, vast majority use a valve on each radiator. There are electronic solutions for the radiators, but sticking a Nest on the wall is going to do nothing for someone unless the customer installs specific hardware that the Nest would have to support
*edit : years
Those "valves" are, in fact, thermostats. They use thermal expansion of wax to open/close the valve to get to their set temperature. Settings 1-5 are 12, 16, 20, 24, 28 Celsius.
Yes, but they are not electronic and they don't reflect the temperature of the room like a wall thermostat does.
They don't (usually) display the temperature but they definitely sense it, and react to it. When the sensed temperature is at or higher than the set temperature, the valve will be closed, if it's lower it will be opened. Mere valves can't do that.
That's what a thermostat is: A negative feedback control system regulating sensed temperature towards a setpoint, and keeping it there. They're simple, inexpensive, reliable. Yes having the temperature sensor right next to the radiator isn't ideal but unless the room is quite large that's not an issue. Also with large rooms you probably have more than one heater and thus thermostat. And you could, in principle, put the thermostat far from the heater but I've never seen that done.
That's what I meant, the device is directly next to the heat source. It's never going to be accurate. And you can tell in the way people use the two systems. In Germany, people don't think about our check the temperature of the room or what the dial is set at, just, I'm cold, turn it up. In the US, the room is set to a specific temperature and just left alone except for day/night, home/away.
But, anyway, the comment was about how they wouldn't work for Nest, and that's true. You'd need a third party solution. It would be hard to sell these and then say, hey, by the way, you can't use it until you go out and buy something from someone else and install it
In the Netherlands, almost all houses have a thermostat. I don't know anyone that doesn't have one
I haven't been in many private houses in the Netherlands. I could only speak to Germany
I built a thermostat with a Wemos D1 mini and a relay module about 10 years ago.
Still use it today integrated with home assistant and can turn the heat on and off while away from home. It's been reused across three boilers, no parts replaced.
It was a really fun project and I had virtually no experience with Arduino when starting out. Would recommend it to anyone.
Oh noo. Anyway…
