Weather comp + low load comp + PID which means your room temperature works at the precision range supported by your temperature sensor. In my case, within 0.02 Celsius. Saves energy and makes your house more comfortable. Operated via home assistant.
I'm very interested in this— I have a fairly new Vitodens 100 boiler + Ecobee and also a heat pump system with its own thermostat, and I'm frustrated by several elements of this setup:
- The Vitodens has like ten stages, but the Ecobee has no way to command them, it's just a binary call to the Taco pump for heat / no heat, with the boiler deciding on its own how hard to push (I guess based on the outside air sensor and maybe time of day?)
- The Vitodens is monitoring the return boiler water temperature, but the Ecobee doesn't know anything about that.
- None of this is interlinked with the heat pump, so the systems can run on top of each other and end up with the wrong parts of the house overheated or left cold. The heat pump's controller is proprietary but it works with the NetHome Plus app so there is a bridge to get the units on homeassistant.
I don't have the spoons right now to try to beat this all into shape, but eventually I'd like to get HA temp monitors in multiple places in the house so that a single central system can make smarter decisions about which system to run and when. For example, in the evening I mostly care about the bedrooms, and the bedrooms are covered by zone 2 of the heat pump, so it would make sense to prioritize the heat pump then and only run the boiler if the heat pump isn't able to keep up; whereas in the daytime if heat is needed, it's probably throughout the house so the boiler should run.
I really would want a more clever solution for our heating: district heating that goes int our "legacy" high-temperature old radiators, and also a secondary system with under floor heating but with a limited temperature. The problem is the "secondary" system is much bigger and heats most of the house, but is more or less unable to change its temperature since its always "capped" at the max since its driven from a high-temperature system, the shunt can not lower the temperature, also its a dumb one. So we have bang-bang thermostats everywhere for the floors which works, but is not at all optimal.
We replaced a boiler in our last house a few years back. We got a Vaillant, at least in part because I found that there was a Vaillant add-on board available which could do OpenTherm, and the nest controller could do that in theory too.
When it came to the install I was told in no uncertain terms that even though they produced the board and it was compatible with my boiler, any attempt at installation by myself or their approved installation engineer would immediately void the warranty.
So that was the end of my OpenTherm journey. Thanks Vaillant!
There's also ems-esp which I use on an older Worcester Bosch boiler to set flow temperatures based on the outside temperature (managed by home assistant).
I'm a little confused, because this looks like you're just swapping one proprietary service (Google) for another (NoLongerEvil).
Despite their name, we have no idea if NoLongerEvil is evil or not. Why should I trust them? I don't know them at all. Why will they be immune to the regular economic pressures surrounding any connected online service? What will stop them from adding tracking or other anti-features? Even if they are a bunch of saints, what will stop them from selling the service to a company that will not respect my privacy?
Google is at least the devil we know, here.
I was expecting a fully open source firmware, with a fully open source backend service that people can host themselves if they so choose.
(I guess they didn't write their own firmware; they hacked Google's firmware so it redirects traffic from Google's servers to their own. So I guess in this model, I'd want to see an open source, self-hostable backend service, and a "build" process for the hacked firmware to set the API URL to the self-hosted backend.)
Edit: looks like they plan to open source the backend and enable self-hosting "soon". Hopefully that comes to pass!
Google has left these devices essentially completely unusable. You're not trading up Google because Google already abandoned these devices by shutting off the lights. Even if you don't agree with how robust their service is, they're offering you the ability to turn what's effectively e-waste into an operable device.
I want a little blade server or SBC stack cabinet, that’s sized to fit comfortably near the broadband router, which is set up to run a bunch of home services from nest controller to Minecraft server as a lightweight kubernetes.
Every so often you swap out the slowest one for a new one and keep adding more stuff to it.
Add the ability to isolate some of the machines as bastion hosts and we could do an awful lot without having to exfiltrate our own data.
The "Open Source" page on the dashboard site[0] links to this firmware but nothing about the server side. Firmware for the thermostat itself is a requirement, but without a dashboard it's still not really Free.
Edit: If I read closely I would have seen:
> The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure.
Right now it's just a blob that you flash to your device to make it talk to a proprietary service. It is not yet "giving me complete control over my device data and settings." I can't change where it comnects to etc.
In fact - I don't even see a privacy policy on nolongerevil.com!
Hey, I can login at nolongerevil.com using my Microsoft-owned github login! And there's yet another company involved: clerk.com - yay?
"We are committed to transparency and the right-to-repair movement. The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure."
I look forward to it.
PS: Sorry for being so negative... perhaps the release should have been delayed until all of this is opened up.
I don't get the hate, it looks like they reverse-engineered the nest thermostat and wrote a firmware for it? That's super cool and the fact that an open source project doesn't have a privacy policy yet doesn't really matter at this point
> ...looks like they reverse-engineered the nest thermostat and wrote a firmware...
Not to diminish what this project has done, but they modified existing firmware to make it communicate with a different server. They've also implemented a server for the thermostat API.
It's pretty neat but, at this point, it's just a hacked firmware that talks to a different proprietary server.
Edit: It's not even a modification to the firmware binaries. They're just injecting /etc/hosts entries into the firmware[0]. If the Nest device just uses DNS to resolve these names then you wouldn't even need to modify the firmware-- just point it at a DNS server that's authoritative for the necessary names.
It’s the “no longer evil” marketing without actually proving that “no longer evil.com” is in fact … from from evil.
I was assuming that I could point the nest data stream & control UI to my own hosted thing on eg my local NAS or docker farm. That’s what I think would warrant the moniker “free from evil” in this kind of strong privacy preserving marketing.
If they really want to show that they're building something that protects user privacy, they'd open source their backend server, and make it possible and easy to self-host it and point the modified firmware[0] at your own instance.
[0] They didn't write their own firmware; they hacked the stock firmware to redirect traffic from Google's servers to their own.
Edit: looks like they plan to open source the backend and enable self-hosting "soon". Hopefully that comes to pass!
Running open-source firmware someone's hacking on (which gets little to no testing) on a gas appliance that can burn your house down is probably not the best idea.
If you are paranoid about Nest being evil maybe stick to one of those Honeywell round hockey-puck things with the mercury inside.
Or use a Z-Wave/Zigbee thermostat from a reputable vendor (there aren't many) and control it from a gateway of your choice.
It doesn’t just not have a privacy policy yet, but it’s not actually open source either. Honestly they probably fully intend on doing it, but it is important to point out that it is not yet open source.
> Open Source Commitment
>We are committed to transparency and the right-to-repair movement. The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure
Hey, this is just normal behavior in the dark forest of proprietary software- if good things happen, they are out to get you, some angler out to get you.
I really hope this project succeeds. In some small ways I was involved with Gen 1 and Gen 2 and the teams that built those products really cared. I doubt they would have said turn them off.
For what it was worth, I really enjoyed helping everyone ramp up on NX. At that time in my career, I was ramping many similar groups up and many came from Apple and were experiencing sticker shock! (They bought the very best and it was not at all cheap!)
We talked about that and those in charge on my end were not at all happy with me showing people how geometry that normally requires a higher tier license to create, can be created with the base tier license, lol. (Mere mortals need that info because having the more expensive tool is not always on the table.)
Anyhow, stay cool. Maybe it will be different one day.
Please tell the others as you may encounter them, "That NX guy from PDX says, "Hi." You all may not know it, but I learned a ton from you guys. It was in the questions you asked and the processes you set up. I am applying some of that to my own projects today. So, thanks! ( way late! )
"We are committed to transparency and the right-to-repair movement. The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure."
It's reliant on a bounty iirc for the server and device side code to be open-sourced. Will be about an hour after that I reckon and I cannot wait to contribute.
It's a boot script called /bin/nolongerevil.sh that supplies its own trust material and redirects traffic intended for frontdoor.nest.com to a hard-coded IP 15.204.110.215.
99.9% of this image is the original copyrighted Nest image.
Maybe it's enough for the bounty though? And I suppose you could change that IP to a local server. If you wanted to publish the server side Nest API discovered through WireShark . Just stand up your own http rest server.
Readit News
Weather comp + low load comp + PID which means your room temperature works at the precision range supported by your temperature sensor. In my case, within 0.02 Celsius. Saves energy and makes your house more comfortable. Operated via home assistant.
See real time data in Grafana
https://gasboiler.grafana.net/public-dashboards/8d44381aafa9...
Or Emoncms
https://emoncms.org/app/view?name=MyBoilerIdealLogicH24Opent...
- The Vitodens has like ten stages, but the Ecobee has no way to command them, it's just a binary call to the Taco pump for heat / no heat, with the boiler deciding on its own how hard to push (I guess based on the outside air sensor and maybe time of day?)
- The Vitodens is monitoring the return boiler water temperature, but the Ecobee doesn't know anything about that.
- None of this is interlinked with the heat pump, so the systems can run on top of each other and end up with the wrong parts of the house overheated or left cold. The heat pump's controller is proprietary but it works with the NetHome Plus app so there is a bridge to get the units on homeassistant.
I don't have the spoons right now to try to beat this all into shape, but eventually I'd like to get HA temp monitors in multiple places in the house so that a single central system can make smarter decisions about which system to run and when. For example, in the evening I mostly care about the bedrooms, and the bedrooms are covered by zone 2 of the heat pump, so it would make sense to prioritize the heat pump then and only run the boiler if the heat pump isn't able to keep up; whereas in the daytime if heat is needed, it's probably throughout the house so the boiler should run.
I really would want a more clever solution for our heating: district heating that goes int our "legacy" high-temperature old radiators, and also a secondary system with under floor heating but with a limited temperature. The problem is the "secondary" system is much bigger and heats most of the house, but is more or less unable to change its temperature since its always "capped" at the max since its driven from a high-temperature system, the shunt can not lower the temperature, also its a dumb one. So we have bang-bang thermostats everywhere for the floors which works, but is not at all optimal.
When it came to the install I was told in no uncertain terms that even though they produced the board and it was compatible with my boiler, any attempt at installation by myself or their approved installation engineer would immediately void the warranty.
So that was the end of my OpenTherm journey. Thanks Vaillant!
Which OpenTherm device would you recommend?
Despite their name, we have no idea if NoLongerEvil is evil or not. Why should I trust them? I don't know them at all. Why will they be immune to the regular economic pressures surrounding any connected online service? What will stop them from adding tracking or other anti-features? Even if they are a bunch of saints, what will stop them from selling the service to a company that will not respect my privacy?
Google is at least the devil we know, here.
I was expecting a fully open source firmware, with a fully open source backend service that people can host themselves if they so choose.
(I guess they didn't write their own firmware; they hacked Google's firmware so it redirects traffic from Google's servers to their own. So I guess in this model, I'd want to see an open source, self-hostable backend service, and a "build" process for the hacked firmware to set the API URL to the self-hosted backend.)
Edit: looks like they plan to open source the backend and enable self-hosting "soon". Hopefully that comes to pass!
Google has left these devices essentially completely unusable. You're not trading up Google because Google already abandoned these devices by shutting off the lights. Even if you don't agree with how robust their service is, they're offering you the ability to turn what's effectively e-waste into an operable device.
I'm not even sure when I would want a network-enabled thermostat. We inherited it from the previous owners.
Every so often you swap out the slowest one for a new one and keep adding more stuff to it.
Add the ability to isolate some of the machines as bastion hosts and we could do an awful lot without having to exfiltrate our own data.
There is even risc-v things with decent ram, nvme connector and costing about 50 bucks
Edit: If I read closely I would have seen:
> The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure.
[0] https://nolongerevil.com/
https://github.com/codykociemba/NoLongerEvil-Thermostat/issu...
Trust me bro.
In fact - I don't even see a privacy policy on nolongerevil.com!
Hey, I can login at nolongerevil.com using my Microsoft-owned github login! And there's yet another company involved: clerk.com - yay?
"We are committed to transparency and the right-to-repair movement. The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure."
I look forward to it.
PS: Sorry for being so negative... perhaps the release should have been delayed until all of this is opened up.
Not to diminish what this project has done, but they modified existing firmware to make it communicate with a different server. They've also implemented a server for the thermostat API.
It's pretty neat but, at this point, it's just a hacked firmware that talks to a different proprietary server.
Edit: It's not even a modification to the firmware binaries. They're just injecting /etc/hosts entries into the firmware[0]. If the Nest device just uses DNS to resolve these names then you wouldn't even need to modify the firmware-- just point it at a DNS server that's authoritative for the necessary names.
[0] https://github.com/codykociemba/NoLongerEvil-Thermostat/issu...
I was assuming that I could point the nest data stream & control UI to my own hosted thing on eg my local NAS or docker farm. That’s what I think would warrant the moniker “free from evil” in this kind of strong privacy preserving marketing.
[0] They didn't write their own firmware; they hacked the stock firmware to redirect traffic from Google's servers to their own.
Edit: looks like they plan to open source the backend and enable self-hosting "soon". Hopefully that comes to pass!
If you are paranoid about Nest being evil maybe stick to one of those Honeywell round hockey-puck things with the mercury inside.
Or use a Z-Wave/Zigbee thermostat from a reputable vendor (there aren't many) and control it from a gateway of your choice.
> Open Source Commitment
>We are committed to transparency and the right-to-repair movement. The firmware images and backend API server code will be open sourced soon, allowing the community to audit, improve, and self-host their own infrastructure
This is one of the major problems with doing anything good online. People like this.
For what it was worth, I really enjoyed helping everyone ramp up on NX. At that time in my career, I was ramping many similar groups up and many came from Apple and were experiencing sticker shock! (They bought the very best and it was not at all cheap!)
We talked about that and those in charge on my end were not at all happy with me showing people how geometry that normally requires a higher tier license to create, can be created with the base tier license, lol. (Mere mortals need that info because having the more expensive tool is not always on the table.)
Anyhow, stay cool. Maybe it will be different one day.
Please tell the others as you may encounter them, "That NX guy from PDX says, "Hi." You all may not know it, but I learned a ton from you guys. It was in the questions you asked and the processes you set up. I am applying some of that to my own projects today. So, thanks! ( way late! )
I am hopeful that Cody's exploit lets us write whole new firmware without the extra step of needing the new PCBs, but they are my next best option
I look forward to it!
It's a boot script called /bin/nolongerevil.sh that supplies its own trust material and redirects traffic intended for frontdoor.nest.com to a hard-coded IP 15.204.110.215. 99.9% of this image is the original copyrighted Nest image. Maybe it's enough for the bounty though? And I suppose you could change that IP to a local server. If you wanted to publish the server side Nest API discovered through WireShark . Just stand up your own http rest server.
(The wheel on ours was broken so we could only control it via app).