Good.
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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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.
Anyone in Europe looking for an alternative might want to check out Tado
Or Drayton Wiser
Netatmo as well if I recall
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.
So Google is telling us, they cant make a product if there are standards or requirements for what they are doing?
That means whatever US customers are buying, theres something in it, that does something illegal in EU.
I would have been surprised if this weren't the case
They call the product line 'Nest', because it's where their data servers is getting nutrition from.
"Sorry, we can't adjust the thermostat until we have audio evidence of whether the family is going through a divorce"
This is why companies want US citizens to believe that EU is a bureaucratic hellscape (I mean there's also the forces that want to tell them it's communist for the same reason I guess)
Aah, the US.
The only place in the world where everyone knows the word 'communism' and nobody knows what it is.
Russia and China are not communism btw. :shocked Pikachu:
Russia and China are not communism btw. :shocked Pikachu:
Still ruled by descendants of communists who took power in those countries, though.
I think most of the “requirements” they’re referring to are the technical ones, not governmental.
North America’s residential HVAC landscape is pretty simply and dumb compared to a lot of what is happening in Europe. Dumb forced central air systems dominate residential HVAC.
It sounds like they don’t like developing for all the weird hardware configurations that appear in Europe.
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
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.
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
Aren't there a lot of split units in Europe? Here I just needed an IR blaster to make my AC(s) "smart".
AC is not common in Europe. There's a variety of heating systems: gas boilers, direct electric heating, district heating, etc. Heat pumps are a growing market though.
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.
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