I can’t think of many companies I would be less willing to buy home automation tech from than Google.
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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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
In the Netherlands, almost all houses have a thermostat. I don't know anyone that doesn't have one
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.
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.
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.
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:
"Sorry, we can't adjust the thermostat until we have audio evidence of whether the family is going through a divorce"
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.
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.
Imagine a thermostat needing an internet connection.
It's not a hard requirement, but it's sure nice to leave the house at a low but non-freezing temp in winter while you're away for a few days, then use a web app to bring the temperature back up right before you come back in.
Being on the home LAN, though, is a requirement for me. That is extremely convenient.
I do NOT want my thermostats to phone home. I don't see any value of that.
But they are connected to MY smart home system (Hone Assistant), and THAT is accessible from the internet.
I get the remote monitoring and control that I want, and they don't get any of my data. Perfect!
Yeah, I got some z wave thermostats for home.
I got an Emersonl "homekit" thermostat for my in-law and managed to get it on wifi without "cloud". Unfortunately you have to be careful because the follow on model requires their cloud service for online control.
It's a real shame that most every house is well equipped to do standalone hosting for remote access, but most of the investment has gone toward cloud connected to force the recurring revenue opportunity.
Yep, all my smart thermostats are zugbee. No phoning home by design, so I don't have to worry about missing functionality by not giving them internet connection.
And that goes for almost all my smart home. I only have wifi things when I couldn't find a realistic zigbee option.
This is the way.
I for sure also want to access it on my Home Assistant, and it really can save alot of power to automate it. Even going down to 20C in the night, and make it going to 22C before anyone wakes up saves alot in a year.
But stay the fuck out of my data.
Actually...
Good.
Anyone in Europe looking for an alternative might want to check out Tado
Netatmo as well if I recall
Or Drayton Wiser
We have a Tado system, not the current generation but the one before. It was easy to self-install and configure and has never given us any trouble. There are a couple UX quirks, such as not having a confirm dialog after you touch the Shut Down All or Max Out the Heat buttons, but overall it's one of the rare electronic gadgets that has led to no buyer's remorse.
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.
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.