So Simple

I'd been hearing a lot about an emerging web based banking service called Simple - and figured (in the interest of testing out modern UI) that I'd try them out.

Plus, if they're solid - I could use them to replace my current external savings bank, who were recently acquired by a bank I detest.

You have to request an invitation - which takes awhile. I suspect they're doing the same thing Mailbox did - trying to keep a lid on growth so they don't overcommit.

I submitted my request on July 15.

On July 23, I received my invitation.

Not bad.

You sign up online. And while I didn't get screenshots of the form, let me just say - it's one of the smoothest signup apps I've ever used.

I especially loved the realtime verification of my bank's routing number. As soon as I typed in the last digit - I saw the name of my bank appear, so I knew the number was correct. (Yes, you can do that on a form submit, but much smoother to do it realtime. Plus it shows that people are going the extra mile. They didn't have to do that.)

They made a great fuss about setting up a username and passphrase and then routing you to the mobile app.

The suggestion was that once you got set up, your primary interaction would be through your phone app. As in, you won't be logging into their website much.

Awesome. I hate logging in.

And they send you a credit card, which you will use for most of your withdrawals.

---

A shortcoming of this was that there were a series of steps you needed to wait for.

After requesting an invite, you needed to wait a week for it to arrive.

After signing in, you needed to wait to be approved.

After getting approved, you needed to wait until they sent you your credit card.

And after they send you the credit card, you needed to wait for some challenge transactions to appear in the external account you used to set up your simple account.

---

None of these steps are a hassle, but the common denominator in all of these is time.

At some point, I got my spiffy new Simple credit card in the mail (in a spiffy custom envelope).

Except that my spiffy custom envelope was already open when I got it.

This, I did not like.

Lest I go all DEFCON-1 on this situation, I emailed the folks at simple and asked what I should do. If this was a security risk - I would like a new card sent to me. If it's not a security risk - I would just activate the card.

Simple replied that I should contact their help line and formally request a new card.

So I did.

In the meantime, I had seen the challenge transactions show up in my external bank, so I figured I could at least verify Simple's connection with my bank.

So I fire up the iPhone app. Annnnd Nothing. The app works, but I don't see anything about connecting or confirming transactions with an external bank.

Then I re-read my email from Simple (RTFM, dude) and I see:

Sign into your Initial Funding account to see the two deposit amounts, and then sign in to Simple.com on your computer to confirm them.

Okay, I should go to the website. So I do:

Very elegant, simple even.

Except it's been awhile since I set up my account on the website. I'd thought I'd be using the app most of the time, and it works with a 4 digit PIN.

Username....?  Ahhh... I enter the email address they sent all my stuff to.

See that red border? That appeared right after I typed the "@" sign.

That's an omen. (for tech types, I'm using Chrome on OS 10.8.2)

Password.....?  Double Ahhhhh.... I remember picking a stupidly complicated one, since they assured me I wouldn't have to type it again.

So, this is what I'm looking at right before I hit "Sign in..."

And this is what it looks like right after I hit "Sign in..."

Yes, you are not imagining things, those two images are identical.

This is a problem. Not a crippling one, but one where the user doesn't see any response to their action.

I hit the button...annnd....nothing changed. Now what?

See that red border? That's the feedback I'm supposed to be keying off of.

Red = Bad.

Thus: My Username = Red = Bad.

What's wrong with my username?

It says 'username' and not 'email' so perhaps I'd set up a username separate from my email.  I honestly cannot remember.

I prune the '@domain.com' off the end and try again. This time, I get:

That's what I'd expected. I doubted I'd get the password right on the first go, but I expected to get some feedback on what happened.

I'm still not sure what my username actually is, but at least the system is responding now.
I try with my email sans domain a few more times before giving up and hitting the 'Reset your password?' link.

 Okay, there's the confirmation: 'username or email' On their site, your username IS distinct from your email address. I haven't the slightest idea what my username is, but I know the email address I gave them. And I know the phone number I gave them, it's my iPhone number - 'cos I downloaded their app.

Send.

Shortly thereafter, I get this email from Simple:

From: Simple Support <support@simple.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 12:50 PM
Subject: Request to reset passphrase
To: "me@domain.com" <me@domain.com> 

[Simple Logo] 

We received a request to reset the passphrase for the Simple login associated with this email address. If you made this request, please follow this link and enter the verification code we sent to your mobile device:  

https://www.simple.com/new-password/[long string of numbers] 

This reset link is only good for 30 minutes. If you have any problems, please call us at 888-248-0632. Replies to this email are not monitored.

Super! I click the link and it opens to a standard password reset form.

I'm asked to enter a new password AND enter a code that they will text to my phone.

*Bzzzt!*

My phone buzzes to announce the arrival of the security code from Simple.

Yea!

I type in a diabolically complex passphrase (which they confirm is diabolically clever) and then I key in my security code.

And like that, my password is reset.

---

We're back here, again:

Do you see the problem, yet?

I still don't know my username. And nothing in the communications I've received tell me what it is.

I try my email address without the domain suffix - and it fails.

I re-read everything they've sent me up to this point. None of them spell out what my username is.

I take a guess and try a username I've used on other sites along with the password I just reset.

Success!

Pro tip: It should not be possible for a password reset sequence to end in a user not having both pieces of log in information. One or the other by itself is not going to get it done.

Understandably, there are security reasons you shouldn't do this in a single communication  - but this is undeniably critical information. You must provide it as part of this process.

---

So I'm in.

The transaction log shows they've issued me a replacement card AND zeroed out the cost to me. Smart, because now I know that replacement cards cost money and that they've done me a favor by not charging me.

Pro tip: If you do a favor for your customers, make sure they know about it.

---

But now that I'm in, I'm supposed to be confirming some challenge transactions with my external bank.

I have no idea where this is. To me, if this is a critical set up task (which it is - as future transactions between these banks cannot happen without this step) I would assume this (one time, setup) task would be writ large all over the screen when I come in.

Honestly, a splash intro screen would not be out of order.

"Before you begin: Setting up a connection between Simple and your External Bank requires verifying some challenge transactions.  

If you've already seen these transactions appear in your external bank account, you're ready to verify them.  

Would you like to verify these transactions now, or wait until later?"

This is the display weight I'm expecting when I log in, but instead I get this:

Also, there might be value in having this setup task presented as a message, like they're doing in the top right of the screen. Like a To-Do list. Being user friendly, they could present it with me in the middle, since I've already ticked off a few items.

But all those 4 items are invites I can send to friends. No help.

So where do I go?

I try 'External Accounts' which makes sense:

Okay this looks right, but other than 'Add an Account' I'm not sure what to do here. I already see my account and its routing number - I mouse over it to click it...

And new controls appear!

Okay, Simple guys... If this is the step you NEED me to take, it should not be hidden behind a rollover effect.

You don't need a blink tag, but for crying out loud, make this overt.

The saving grace here is that the page is pretty bare bones. There's not a lot of distractions or other complications on the page. There's a big box over there, I'm probably going to mess with it, but it's not like having those buttons displayed from the outset would break your page.

Make them visible - give them a shiny rollover effect if you want to get fancy - but make them visible on load, 'kay?

Once I found the control, confirming the challenge transactions was dead simple.

Overall, I love the idea of the Simple.com bank - and should the trial run play out - I'll be ditching my other bank to store savings here. I've dealt with a faceless, distant bank for a long time - it's nice to try a bank that's put some effort and thought into dealing with customers via smartphone and web.

I'm giving them grief here, because these are setup tasks that should be bulletproof - but the overall of what I've seen has impressed.

More to follow.

Assessing the Nest

So it’s been eight months with the new Nest thermostat (version 1.0) and the obvious question is – was it worth the $250 price tag?

The answer – at least for hard dollar savings – is very hard to get.

For the aspects that don’t convert easily to dollars – ease of use, aesthetics, ability to access remotely – it is easy to claim value for the money.

I love accessing the thermostat from my phone. If I wake up early on a cold morning – I lean over to my phone and tell the thermostat to dial up the heat. If we’re headed out of the house on a weekend, I log in to tell it we’ve left. Frequently I find it’s already detected our absence, which is another feature I like.

I love the energy usage reports. I have two stage heating and it’s nice to see that the report differentiates between the two stages. It’s also great to see the patterns in how my house heats up. On a cold day, I can see that we’re hitting stage 1 heat about every half hour or so.

And the milestones have a little detail, as well – mostly enough to identify themselves – but enough to differentiate between a programmed temperature change and an ad hoc adjustment.

I like the leaf symbol and time to temperature – great user feedback to encourage responsible use. If I crank up the Nest because I’m cold and see “72 IN 2+ HR” I’m more likely to dial that back – particularly if I’m leaving/sleeping before the furnace will hit that temperature. My old thermostat would just impassively spool up and generate a bill for heat I wouldn't use or notice.

A 5-degree heat increase in 25 minutes? Lucky you.

I like that the device turns on when I walk by – makes me feel like I’m living in the future. "Oooh, watch me activate the screen by waving my hand!"

Those are the UI wins.

Like all devices, there are UI shortcomings.

A minor issue is that the energy report should store external temperature data for the day. While it’s useful to know that my furnace ran for six hours – knowing that it ran for 6 hours on a day when the temperature was 4 degrees Fahrenheit is a bit more useful. As the energy report only goes back 10 days, Nest probably figures you'll just remember this, but...

-I would like to have long-term access to my energy use and weather data – using the web app. I want more charts and graphs! Data is a drug - you get some, you want more.

The biggest UI failure of the Nest to me almost certainly stems from the best intentions of the Nest folks. Much is made of the accuracy of the Nest’s temperature sensors.

Nest uses multiple temperature sensors to determine the ambient temperature with a high degree of accuracy. Nest's sensors are tuned to be most useful for keeping your home consistently comfortable. We found that responding rapidly to temperature changes gives Nest the most accurate data to work from.

“A high degree of accuracy…” So when the user sees their Nest display something like this, they start to wonder if something is wrong:

Literally, what my Nest was displaying as I typed this.
A temp of 67 degrees while the Nest is set to 68 - and the Nest is not heating.

It is not uncommon to see the Nest display a current temperature that is below the temperature it is supposed to be at.

This does not fit the user’s mental model. “I asked for 68 degrees, and if you are below 68 degrees – I expect the heat to be on.”

Nest's support pages point out the many good reasons why this is so, but to your average homeowner - these are excuses. Our mental model is stuck in reptile brain mode: “Make heat. Now.”

The Nest is doing what most thermostats do, it has a "maintenance band" of about a degree or so that allows for minor variation and keeps the furnace from flicking on every few minutes and wearing it out.

"My old thermostat didn't do this!" Well, my old thermostat didn't light up when I walked by and show me what it was or wasn't up to, either. More interactions = more data = more questions. My previous thermostat offered the same data, but reading its small dark-grey LED text (on a light grey screen) required my eyeballs to be less than a foot away.  Hidden data might as well not exist, so while I might think my old thermostat didn't have this issue – it probably did. I just didn't notice because I almost never read the damn thing.

With a display this accessible, I would think the Nest would add an indicator that showed that it was aware that the temp is below the set temp. Something like "Preparing heat in 10 MIN" or something that lets the user know that their $250 thermostat hasn't forgotten that 67 is less than 68.

Screw the UI. What about the money? Is it worth it?

That's harder to know than you might think. All that nifty data I'm getting from the Nest? It's just telling me how long my Nest was running - not how much natural gas I burned for heat, or how many kWH I used to cool the house.

Did you pay less money this year? Well...

• In all of 2011, I paid $2,238 for electric and gas.
• In all of 2012, I paid $1,945 for electric and gas.

Huzzah! $292 in savings!

Well... sorta.

I mean, that's my total utility bill, including things like my gas stove and electric dryer - stuff my Nest is no help at all on.

If I want to carve off the portion of my bill that went to feed my A/C and Furnace, I need more data. Now, if I go with the assumption that my energy bill is like the typical American home energy bill,  then heat will account for 29% of my bill and A/C another 17%.

So, if I assume that I'm typical and 46% of my utility bill was my heating and cooling (29% + 17%), then A/C and heat ran me $1029 in 2011 and $894 in 2012.

Huzzah! $135 in savings!

But... I installed the Nest in May, so really that should be $135  * [8/12], or $90.

Huzzah! $90 in savings!

But that's just the total expense of heating and cooling. Is the difference between those bills accounted for by  2011 having a hotter summer, or a cooler winter?

Well, thankfully, my utility company provides most of the missing pieces. In winter months, my utility tracks how cold the winter months are using something called a heating degree day. The colder the month, the more heating degree days it will have.

My utility only tracks heating degree days during the winter months, so I can only compare 2011 to 2012 using the last three months of each.

They even give you pretty graphs:

Lines are good, but if I need to turn this into dollars, I need the data points.

Here's the data for 2011

Read Date	# Days	Therms	Heating Degree Days	Therms/Degree Day	$ Amount	Cost per Therm
12/16/2011	30	96	900	0.107	$91.61	$0.95
11/16/2011	29	62	601	0.103	$58.55	$0.94
10/18/2011	29	20	231	0.087	$25.79	$1.29

and here's 2012:

Read Date	# Days	Therms	Heating Degree Days	Therms/Degree Day	$ Amount	Cost per Therm
12/17/2012	31	78	847	0.092	$73.79	$0.95
11/16/2012	30	54	646	0.084	$51.31	$0.95
10/17/2012	29	25	399	0.063	$28.99	$1.16

In addition to pointing out that the cost per thermal unit is yet another variable to track, this allows me to factor the weather into my natural gas usage. Here's what I came up with

The average Therms per Degree Day for 2011 was .099.
The average Therms per Degree Day for 2012 was .079.

Which means I used 19% less Therms per day in 2012. While some of that could be due to other causes, I haven't changed my gas water heater and we use our gas stove at a pretty constant rate. 19% is a pretty healthy shift in my bill. If my natural gas costs truly went down that much due to the Nest, I would have saved about $30 over three months of heating.

The data for my electrical bill wasn't quite comparable, but my average kWh/Day usage went down as well. The graph makes it look pretty dramatic, too:

Between May to September of 2011, I used an average of 28.64 kWh/Day.
Over those same months in 2012, I used an average of 24.18 kWh/Day - a drop of a little over 15%.

Again, if I tack the credit for all of that to the Nest, I can claim it saved me up to $97 over those five months. That's probably high though - I don't have equivalent degree days for warmer weather, although the 2012 summer was a drought and 2011's was not rated as unusually warm.

I tend to think I used my dehumidifier less in 2012 than in 2011, so that could be a good chunk of that savings.

But take a reasonably good heating savings estimate of 19% - (averaging about $10 a month), and throw in half of my looser estimate of electrical savings - call it 8% (instead of the 15.57% I came up with) and you end up with an average of about $10 a month.

Roughly eighty bucks saved across eight months. Buy back in about two years - plus more features and control.

Not too shabby.

Nesting, Nesting, 1, 2, 3...

Update Jan 2, 2013: I've added user observations and energy savings after eight months.

A few days before Black Wednesday, my former mentor and I were talking smack about good user interface. Always fun to slag on the stuff that sucks - and let's face it, there's plenty of crap UI out there.

They'd just attended a presentation about the design of the Nest thermostat and were decidedly in the I-need-to-get-me-one-of-THOSE camp.

With the spectre of professional death imminent, I said "If I don't get canned this week, I'm totally getting one."

Well, I didn't get canned. Thus:



Okay, I know what you're thinking: $250 bucks is a lot to spend on a thermostat.

Which it is. I see that now.

At the time I justified this by saying-

1. It's cool. Might as well be up front about that.
2. It's not a toy, it's a household device that should save us money on heat.
3. I might as well get some experience using good user interface for a change. I might learn something.

E's reaction was basically "So, you're saying you need this for work? Ha!"

I suppose I deserved that.

But having done the install and the wireless connection - I can at least give some initial impressions of the Nest as a thermostat, its interface, and my expectations for the long term.

First off, it's hard to ignore the eye-candy of the design. A LOT of work has obviously gone into this product. There are unboxing sites for the Nest. C|net has gone out of their way to review the Nest based on the coolness of its visuals and features.

Installing a thermostat is not something anyone thinks of doing, since your house almost certainly comes with one. Most of us take what we get. Even if we hate what we get enough to replace it - the assumption is that this will require an expert. Nest aims to convince you otherwise.

Physical Installation

A thermostat is pretty much a glorified on/off switch that straddles the bundle of low voltage wires controlling your furnace and air conditioner. Replacing a thermostat is requires separating a bunch of wires from a central switch and re-attaching them to the Nest in the correct places.

That alone ups the cost of entry considerably. So the folks at Nest have instructional video paired with a manual (complete with adhesive labels to keep track of which wire is which). Watch the video, (g'wan) and tell me that didn't look easy.

Now, like any how-to, you're only getting an idealized version in the video. In their video, removing the old thermostat reveals a wall blemish or two that magically vanish around 2:15.

When I remove my old thermostat, I'm treated to a horror show of unpainted and shattered wallboard. Moving the wires causes an avalanche of bits to pour out of the wall. There are - impressively - EIGHT holes beneath my thermostat, each complete with a wall molly that needs to be ripped out - causing more damage.

None of this is Nest's fault - but I'm composing a real world list of things a prospective Nest owner should keep in mind before they buy and attempt the idealized install.

The first two items would be:
1) Make sure your house is compatible with Nest. (I did, and it was)
and
2) Take a picture of your current thermostat's wiring. Make sure you can read any terminal labels. Move wires and take multiple pictures if necessary. Save these pictures on a device that is backed up.

-but the third one would be
3) Expect to spend some time preparing the wall where you will install the Nest.
You will probably need to spackle and paint. If you are buying the Nest for its aesthetic qualities, you might do this before your nest arrives. Once it arrives, you might be too jazzed up to patiently apply two coats of paint and wait for them to dry.

If you boil down the installation process, the Nest folks are bringing a few innovations

• the Install Video. Seeing is believing, and sometimes even comprehending. Every vendor should do this.
   
• the built-in level. Another great idea. When you attach the base to the wall, you can drill the hole with one hand and hold the base level with the other hand. On a regular base install, you'd have had to   make a mark on the wall with a pencil on a separate step. Not really a game changer, but a smart move that shows somebody was thinking. You have to make the built in level actually be perpendicular to the vertical  axis of the base, so I'm sure that was a fun argument in the design discussions.
   Why do we have to do this? People have levels already!
  "Because this makes it easier to do."
   But they only do it once... blah, blah, blah..
  Yeah, I could have done without, but I'm glad they put it in there.
   
• the Wire Labels. Yeah, you could write down that "Yellow wire goes to W1 terminal," but it's so much easier to put a W1 sticker on the wire that goes to W1 on your old thermostat. Later, this allows you to take the wire labelled W1 and plug it into the Nest's W1 terminal. Less opportunity to screw up.

Oh, when I put in the wires? I screwed up.

One of the X factors in the install is that every thermostat is going to have different wires. Different colors, different combinations, and different labels. Or no labels at all. Unless you know which wire is which, you won't know what nifty labels to apply and - more to the point - you won't know where to install them.

My mistake was caused by a brown wire labeled "24V(c)"  This label appears nowhere in the compatibility wizard or on the sheet of wire labels. When I spoke with Nest's compatibility guy he told me this wire was the counterpart to the red wire attached to the "R" terminal - it was the other half of the power loop. Power come in on R. Power go out on 24V(c). Okay, I said. And I wrote that down.

When it came to actually installing the Nest, I had two labels with the letter R on them. One said "Rh" and the other said "Rc" So, I put the Rh label on the red R wire (in my mind, R for red, h for "hot") and the Rc wire on the brown 24V(c) wire (R for "counterpart to R" and c for "(c)").

So when I put all my wires in place, I put the brown Rc wire into the terminal labeled Rc. And when I switched on the power, it no workee.

I called Nest, but their service line is closed when I called (around 11pm), so I googled 24V(c) and found a few mentions of this being a common wire.

This I know, from nothing.

But common begins with the letter C, and I figured, I'd move the Rh/24V(c) wire over to the C slot and see if that did it.

It did.

Power!

Thus we learn:

4) Find out what each of your thermostat wires is and what it does. Write it down. The Nest folks have a great service line for compatibility (they want you to buy, so it's a high priority line.) There's a lot of variation in thermostat wiring, so call them with questions on what each of your wires is and what it does. They recommend emailing their support address with a photo of your wires - something I did and heartily recommend both for the install and for reason #8, below). Ask them what each wire is. Even if they only know a few of them for certain, write those down. Knowing what my other wires were saved me from un-doing correct wires and allowed me to focus on the unknown. If I'd bothered to ask (or had been told) what label my brown 24V(c) wire should have gotten, I would have gotten the physical install in one try.

Initial setup: Orienting the unit.

Once you see Nest's screen fire up, you are immediately proud of yourself. It is very pretty and the interface is iPod cool. Turn the unit left or right, press the unit to click.

My unit wanted to connect to wireless immediately, so I started dialing in my network name (I don't broadcast my SSID). For the thousandth time, I wished I picked a shorter SSID, but dialing letters and numbers into the Nest makes you feel like a safecracker.

Click-click-click-click-click...A
Click-click-click-click-click...R
Click-click-click-click-click...1
and so on.

I was asked my wireless security protocol (None, WEP, WPA or WPA2).

Now this is honestly something I didn't remember. I know, I should. But once you set this up, you don't think of it much. And I seemed to remember mine was none of these.

The Nest failed to connect using any of them, each time requiring me to dial in my lengthy SSID and password. *sigh*

Ultimately, I logged into my router and found out I was using WPA + WPA2. This confused me for a bit, but I went back and dialed in my SSID and password and chose WPA2. And it still failed to connect.

It was about 1 in the morning by this time, so I went to bed.

In the morning, I tried again and it connected immediately. (I was probably tired and fumbling my password before). Anyway, the Nest tried to perform a software upgrade and failed for some reason. It said it would try later, so I pressed on with the setup tasks.

These are mostly "Where am I?" settings. You enter your ZIP code, tell it what type of devices it's connected to (Gas or Oil Furnace, Forced Air A/C) and what mode it should start in (Heat).

And the date and time. That seemed odd, since I was connected to the interwebs - but it's easy enough to enter.

What have we learned?

5) What is your wireless security protocol? If you don't know offhand, visit your router and find out. Write it down.

6) Check to see that your router's firmware is updated. If you have connection issues, this is one of the items on the Troubleshooting Nest's WiFi connection checklist. Updating router firmware is no fun, but you should be doing it. My router last had a firmware upgrade years ago, but I'm ashamed to admit I was out of date. Don't be like me.

6a) Send your router manufacturer hate mail. Only do this if they (like NetGear) have firmware upgrade instructions that say "Write down all of your router settings. Then upgrade and erase them all. Then manually re-enter all of your router settings."

I'm kidding. Upgrade instructions that bad don't merit hate mail. They deserve getting a burning bag of poop.  I digress...

Pairing Nest with your account and Wireless Debugging

In order for Nest to be truly special, it needs to talk to the mothership at Nest.com AND (more importantly) an application on your smartphone/ipad. To do this, you'll need to create an account on Nest.com.

Username/email
Password
Password confirm 

Done.

(And kudos to the design crew for resisting the urge to spam us with marketing fields and defaulted checkboxes with 6-point fonts that say "Please send me crap." I truly appreciate it.)

This gets you halfway. The mothership at Nest.com is ready, now you need your Nest thermostat to generate an Entry Key that you type into your Nest.com account after you've logged in.

When I asked my Nest to generate an Entry Key - it gave me an error message.

Entry key error: Initializing please try again

So I did. And it gave me the same error and told me to try again.
So I did. And it gave me the same error and told me to try again.
So I did. And it gave me the same error and told me to try again.
etc.

This was really starting to annoy me. So I checked in the Network Settings and found my Nest wasn't connected to WiFi. So I re-entered my looong SSID and password *sigh* and tried to generate a key.

Same result.

So I went searching through the Nest's menus and found a Restart option.
Settings>Reset>Restart

Thus have we learned:
7) You can reboot! Perhaps all Windows users believe rebooting has magical powers, but we only think that because it does.

I restarted the Nest and asked it for an entry key. It gave me one.

Ta-dah!


Once I got the unit paired up with the web account - I could download the mobile app and set it up.

I do that, log into the app with email and password and - presto!

Five minutes later, though.... Sadness. It's telling me that my thermostat is disconnected from the web.

I go back to the thermostat and *sigh* re-enter my long SSID. This time it appears to have memorized my password (nice).

I check my mobile app and I'm back online.

Five minutes later, though... Sadness.

At this point - I clearly have an issue that goes beyond basic setup. I call their support line and get the first genuinely poor customer experience so far.

The guy on the phone sounds like he's reading from a script and most of it is aimed at a person with problems upstream of where I am in the process.

I know I've connected to WiFi with the unit. I've seen its MAC address on my router. But the connection doesn't last.

I've checked their list of routers that have connection issues. My router isn't on it.

I get seamless wireless connections in every room in my house. This could be interference, but I am getting connected. Then I'm getting dropped.

Nest support offers me vague advice like setting the wireless "channel" (whatever that is) to 20MHz and buying another router.

Yeah, okay. Thanks. Click.

I scour my router settings for any terms resembling ones the support guy recommended trying. I find none of them.

Eventually I blunder across a setting whose bullet summary suggests can help with devices getting interference. I try it and it seems to work.

I'll post it if continues to work, but as of this writing - it's too early to be sure.

The connection has stayed up all night and all day, but until I've gotten a week at least with no hiccups, I wouldn't call this solved.

I have a good deal of sympathy for Nest support folks trying to diagnose wireless connection issues on an ever-expanding list of routers for people who (in all likelihood) know next to nothing about wireless routers.

Still, as it is an essential part of setting up the advanced features of Nest, they should do better. The online help they have should be turned into a diagnostic wizard or flowchart so users can be routed through the likeliest fixes before getting routed to support reps.

The unit should have diagnostic codes that it can display so the techs ask the user to read error codes or signal strength measurements to them. There's a lot of room for making that user experience better.

---

While I was initially griping about the irony of installing a new thermostat at a time when the weather is damn near perfect outside (all geeked up and nothing to heat or cool) - it occurs to me that there is a definite upside. I don't think I'd want to install a new thermostat during a cold spell - when I absolutely had to have heat. Debugging the install is frustrating enough when I don't care if the fan runs or the heat is on.

Just because the Nest folks have made thermostat installation a lot easier and comprehensible doesn't mean they've made it a change that should be made casually.

Which leads me to the last thing on the list of things I like to think I've learned:

Changing a thermostat involves disabling a critical home system temporarily - potentially for longer than you expect.

And thus, I add to the list:

8) If the thermostat you're replacing was functional, save it. Put your old thermostat in a ziploc bag with all its parts and store it somewhere safe and accessible. New technology is awesome and all, but one thing lost in the promo materials and the rush to install awesomeness is this: A thermostat is a critical piece of your home systems. If it doesn't work, you will not be able to heat or cool your home. In the summer, you can open windows and use fans, but if there is a serious problem with the the Nest when it's below freezing - having a backup thermostat will allow you time to wait for tech support without risking damage to your pipes.

---

Which is not to say I'm disappointed in my Nest. Quite the contrary.

• I am thoroughly in love with the idea of a programmable thermostat that has modern user interface.
• I love that the Nest and its helper application can be updated and enhanced after they are installed.
• I love that I will be able to monitor and track my energy usage over time.
• I love being able to monitor and control my heating and cooling from anywhere (even if it's just from my bed)

Nest's marketing material points out over and over again that around 90% of programmable thermostats aren't programmed correctly. A good chunk of the energy savings they're bragging on relies on the difference between a constant temperature and their easily programmed alternative.

Well, I'm not going to realize a lot of that savings because I did program my old thermostat.

I absolutely hated my old thermostat - despite its virtues:

• already installed/paid for
• 7 day programming
• reliable
• a battery to retain data 

Why? because it was absolutely murder to interact with. 

I'd programmed a varied schedule to save energy based on the four days of our schedule that were regular. But for the other three days I picked a temp and held it. Partly because on those days, our needs would vary - but also because adjusting and readjusting to find a better setting was too much of a pain.

I did four days and then gave up and said "good enough." The fact that the hassle would probably be worth it did nothing to nullify the fact it was a hassle.

Adjusting the program with the Nest is not a hassle. It is the opposite of hassle. It's fun to play with.

Good user interface leads to more interaction. With the Nest, I expect to refine my settings for the remaining three days AND take advantage of a system smart enough to switch off when I'm gone.

Plus, I get data so I can improve and refine over time.

Plus, it really does look cool.

Update Jan 2, 2013: I've added user observations and energy savings after eight months.

Find a Problem, then Crush It

These days, its very common to have a programmable thermostat.

I have a fairly advanced one. It stores separate programs for heat and cold, with each program storing four points in time to set temperatures for. It will do this separately for each day of the week.

I hate it.

And not just a little bit, either.

Consider the typical use scenario:  

I'm cold

1. Walk to thermostat
2. open lid
3. locate 2nd button from the top (from a series of four identical buttons)
4. Press 2nd button from top
5. Read dark grey text (on light grey background) to see what mode you're in
6. When the mode is "Heat," read the dark grey numbers to see what temperature you're at
7. Then hit the "^" button to change the current temperature to the desired temperature
8. The display will replace the temperature you asked for, with the temperature it actually is (making you wonder if you've changed anything)
9. After a few minutes, the fan will kick in to let you know the furnace is increasing the temperature (It worked!)

This blows. Here's what I want: I'm cold

1. Walk to thermostat
2. Read the current temperature
3. Turn the dial to the temperature I want
4. See the display showing my change ("I got it.")
5. Go back to whatever the hell I was doing before

I'd looked into wireless thermostats and programmable thermostats. I figured there had to be a thermostat that logged its settings and temperature to give the homeowner the full picture of what goes on in their house.

I mean, how many people know what the ideal settings for their house should be? TheHellIfIKnow!

(I mean, I set my thermostat to stay at 55 when I'm not home in the winter, before I realized that my house won't drop anywhere near that temp over the course of a normal work day.)

So there's a big gap in user interface. People used to build a small box and all the controls had to be buttons on that box. Wireless access removes that issue. I figured someone would make another box and then some solid web app to tweak it out. Obviously, I suffer from a lack of imagination.

Enter these guys:



This is just full-on awesome UI design. Simple up/down controls that feed software that learns what you want over time. *Standing Ovation* Wireless? Check. Controllable by your smartphone? Check. Remote internet control? Check. Plot usage and temperature over time? Check.

But I don't feel like paying somebody to swap out my thermostat. 

Oh really? Here's the how-to installation video on YouTube:



Talk about the modern customer experience in action. That's a home run illustration of how to remove the fear factor and let the customer's want take over.

Want! Want! Want!

Um...Yes?

I would like this.

(Via re-nest) and avail via ThinkGeek, go figure.

Death To Wallets

Rewind to a couple of weeks ago.

I'm in a hardware store and the cashier is asking me if I'm a member of their rewards program.

I lie. "No"

Why do I do this? Because my hands are full. I've got my stuff under one arm and have my wallet out. The plastic rewards card is on my keychain.
If I say yes, I have to do something with my wallet and debit card, and then dig in my pocket. Then sift through my keychain and isolate the appropriate plastic card so it can be scanned.

Sure, not a huge hassle, but when we're talking about a $7 purchase of wood screws and glazing compound - it's hard to find motivation to bother.
Plus, the rewards plan isn't money off - it's points that accumulate over time to earn like $5 off. I think. All these plans are different in details.

But all of them have a similar process.

You trade hassle for a small reward that may or not be relevant or available to your purchase.

---

Now I'm at Borders, being asked the same question. I have their card as well. Mine's beat up as all hell, and sometimes doesn't scan. The backup plan at Borders is to give your email address to be credited with the purchase. A good backup, but also hassle. And Borders basic rewards plan gives you "Borders Bucks" that expire. How the hell do I know how many bucks I have? or when they'll expire? Oh, I know- I'll log into their website and do it because that's what I enjoy doing with my copious spare time. Logging into vendor's websites.

Gah.

Trading hassle for a small reward that may or not be relevant or available to your purchase - a reward that will go away if you don't use it.

---

Now I'm in a local hobby store. They also have a rewards program. You get points or something. And games at hobby stores cost respectable amounts of money, so I'm motivated to find my card. And it is an actual card, not on my keychain. As I use it practically never it's not in the limited number of ready access slots in my wallet.

It's buried, or at home. There are people behind me, so after a minute or two of looking for it I give up and just say "forget it." The merchant writes a note on the receipt so that if I find it later, I can get credit for the purchase.

Now I have to keep the receipt. Keeping is easy - it will instantly become buried in the sheaf of tattered paper bits I keep in my wallet. Ostensibly this is "organizing" but really it's just merging with garbage I carry around until I lose my patience and pitch it en masse. And I'll be out the loyalty reward.

---

So what's the point of all this? Rewards programs are great, but require the user to carry around a stack of cards AND dig them out at the right time AND keep track of what benefits are available to them at a given time AND when they expire.

Also, and I say this all the time - Paper receipts are stupid.

Much as the Apple store stuff annoys me - they have one thing right - they email you the receipt.

I've said over and over that a million dollar idea would be for somebody to consolidate the rewards interface - get the merchants to standardize on a common fob so the user only had one thing to carry around and manage.

I was thinking small - and clearly brighter minds have been working on this, but here's a great leap forward for individual commercial transactions.

Buying things with your cell phone.

Yes, well *duh* - but the mere transfer of money isn't what I getting at. This video shows Google Wallet looking like it’s about to kick Apple's transactional butt unless they get it in gear.

Google Wallet's using Near Field Communication to exchange payment and authentication data with a merchant's receiver. Which is plenty awesome right out of the gate.
Google Wallet stores your credit card info so your phone becomes your credit cards. Less crap in wallet. Hell, less reason to even have a wallet.



But this is the tip of the iceberg as far as I'm concerned. Because think of the plug in app potential here. Every damn vendor with a reward program can now offer an app that coattails on any transaction your phone kicks off.

As in:

Smart Phone: Hi anybody out there?
Cash Register: Why, yes. I'm a Borders cash register. Are you the party wanting to buy this copy of The Looming Tower?
Smart Phone: That's me! Here's my payment information.
Cash Register: Excellent, are you a Borders Rewards member?
Smart Phone: Yes, I am. Here's my member number. XXXXXXXXXX
Cash Register: Thank You. Your payment is confirmed. I've emailed you a receipt. And here's your updated reward status.

Smart Phone (to me, on the phone's display): Payment (Less 10% discount) Confirmed. Receipt sent via email.
Smart Phone (to the Borders Rewards App installed on it): Here's a Borders Reward status code. Any news?
Borders Reward App:: Thanks. Checking. Yes. This account now has 10 Borders Bucks, expiring on July 5, 2011.
Smart Phone (to me, on the phone's display): You now have 10 Borders Bucks, expiring on July 5, 2011.

From my perspective, this goes down in a self checkout lane.

I put the book on a scanner, wait for the book price to display on the terminal.
I launch the payment app, hold my phone up to the reader, and press "Accept"
There's a blip and I see:

Smart Phone (to me, on the phone's display):Payment (Less 10% discount) Confirmed. Receipt sent via email.
You now have 10 Borders Bucks, expiring on July 5, 2011.
Me: Sweet!

I no longer have to manage the rewards program. It becomes an integral part of the transaction. I pay, and all the reward crap happens automatically.

And I no longer have a keychain festooned with plasti-sh!t.
And I don't have to pretend to care about my receipt. If I need it, I'll search Gmail.

The App can even (assuming I let it) alert me to the fact that I have Borders Bucks as I begin the transaction.

Smart Phone (to me, on the phone's display): You have unused Borders Bucks, do you wish to apply them to this purchase?
Me: Sweet!

Frequent Flyer miles, Rental car rewards, Frequent Burrito rewards at Qdoba - all pushed to the background so all's I do is pay and the software tells me what I've won.

This must happen. I am directing my mental powers into the universe and WILLING this to happen.

I will pitch my vendor plastic into a fire and dance a jig when it does.

So, When Does Your Home Purchase Pay Off?

The NYT has an outstanding calculator for determining if renting is better than buying.

Kinda makes me wish I'd seen it before I'd bought.

Creepy and Cool at the Same Time

Felix Salmon posts a bit that didn't make it into his article in Wired. It's about a company named Skymeter.

The idea behind Skymeter is that they use what they call financial-grade GPS: devices in your car which are much more accurate than the GPS devices found in navigation devices or cellphones. They can tell where you are to within a few centimeters, and once you can do that, all manner of possibilities open up in terms of charging not just to get into a city center, but rather to charge by the mile or by the minute on specific streets. Raise prices where congestion is worst, keep them low where it isn’t a problem, and solve lots of other problems at the same time — like easy charging for parking (you just park your car on the side of the road and pay for however long it’s parked there) and for pay-by-the-mile insurance. Or transform the economics of something like Zipcar, which currently just charges by the hour even when charging by a combination of hours and miles would make more economic sense.

Presumably tow trucks would be given these coordinates to identify people who've left their car at a given coordinate too long.

The possibilities are pretty startling - and I certainly like the idea of a world without parking meters - but I have to wonder about a system that essentially turns your parking fees into a monthly bill.

Insurance companies are using a similar technology now - pay as you go kind of insurance, with the idea that you pay for a more accurate representation of your driving habits (that hopefully works in your favor). Some company in Israel has built software that grades your driving based on how you accelerate, corner and brake. As an opt in kind of product, this allows lower risk drivers to self identify and receive lower rates. It also allows a company to screen out high risk drivers a lot easier - with higher premiums.

Makes you wonder.

Cisco Wants To Dress You Up

Cameras + Motion Sensors + Impossible digital video interpolation = a pretty cool effect.


Something tells me computer renderings of unseen body parts would not be quite so seamless, but still... a fine idea.

(H/t MS)

Checking Your Bag? Here's $25...

(Via Felix Salmon)

[Freightdawg's] Eric [Joiner] has some very smart and well-informed analysis of the economics of checking bags: essentially, if, like Southwest, you only have one kind of aircraft, then checking bags saves you money because it speeds up the rate at which passengers get on and off the plane. And he knows that the economics of reducing the bag-check fee from $25 to $0 are essentially the same as the economics of reducing it from $0 to -$25. And so:

What if an air carrier said…rather than charge you a fee to check a bag, They would PAY you to do so?

I believe I'd say Check my bag...please. Particularly if they also followed Felix's suggestion of adding an RFID tag to each bag for tracking.

I Know It When I See It

The headslapper: An idea so good, so obviously better that any analysis is reserved for how you can put it to use, rather than IF you should put it to use.

Here's one - the infinite USB, by Gonglue Jiang, a Chinese design student:

Don'cha wish your machine's USB's all ended like this?


(H/t Endgadget)

iPads for $499

Like I needed to see that...

Cripes.

(My inner UI-guy wonders how the touchpad typing compares to the real thing. People are used to schlock with those tiny pads - but give them a full size keyboard and they'll make the obvious comparison.)

Still - the price point is impressive. The $1000 estimates going around in the press miss the obvious goal of getting more than one device in a single household.

Add to that: month to month pricing from AT&T for data transfer. Anything close to consumer freedom when your dealing with a Telco is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

(H/t endgadget)

My New Favorite Travel Mug

For Christmas, thorn gave us a Contigo travel mug.

Can I just say... Yum?

It's pretty, but the real home run is the interface. Like every other travel mug, it has a cover with a sealable opening. Unlike most travel mugs - this is a mug you can fill with hot coffee, cover and then fling into your car like you don't give a damn. Not only does it seal perfectly, it does so easily in a quarter turn - with a satisfying amount of friction.

The button to open it is stylish, ambidextrous - and ergonomic as hell. Great heft, feels natural in your hand - solid. Dishwasher safe body and lid (although they recommend hand washing).

Finally, a travel mug I'll remember to bring. Thorn? You so rock.

E? I bought another one - because the uncertainty of who would use the one we had was killing me.

Death in perspective

Information is Beautiful has a new graphic depicting the causes of all recorded deaths in a 300 day period.

The graphic's creator, Michæl.Paukner, sources the data to a web app called the world clock, which is in turn sourced to the WHO data - which appears to be estimated.

However, the perspective is still useful.

Pandemic in perspective

Information is Beautiful has a pair of graphics that put swine flu in its place:

 

Nice.

Projected UI: a sixth sense?

Pattie Maes speaking at TED about some emerging UI tech that looks freaky cool.

Here's the image that made the audience burst into applause:

Yeah, way cool.

Full integration with the products shown in the demo is a pretty big question mark. You wonder if the tech could display its information from scanning existing bar codes, or if they would need some other standard to hook into - but still.

Wild.

I hate my earbuds

I've bought three sets of earbuds for my iPod and I hate all of them.

The ones that came with the iPod were crap, so I went to C|net and bought a mid-range pair from Shure.

They suck. Small rubber ends that clog with earwax and (unbelievably) require the regular replacement of stickers less than half centimeter in diameter to prevent this problem. They provide about eight stickers, so a few months after I bought these - I was out of stickers. Then they went through the wash - now they're about as good a a pair of rabbit ear antennas. In precisely the correct alignment, they function. Exhale, and one or both buds cut out.

99 bucks wasted.

I went with the upscale earbuds from Apple. They came with rubber sleeves, too - only these come off without too much effort. Meaning a few months later, I'm missing one and now I don't have a matched pair.

Thankfully, my son removed the other and lost it. So now I have some bare metal $50 buds that I can use, provided I hold them in place with my hands.

I'm back to the ones that came with the iPod.

And they have no separate pieces, but they tangle like there's no tomorrow. I dread putting the iPod in my pocket, because I know the next time I take it out I'll have a bird's nest.

Enter this idea:

That'd be a pair of earbuds on a zipper. So you can zip the damn things together.

You take that an no easy-to-remove bits, and they may have something there.

I want.

(H/t design milk)

Bending YouTube to your will

Dynagirl showed me a great YouTube hack awhile back (linking directly to the portion of a YouTube clip you want). It's way cool - and now Google's recommendations goes the rest of the way with a list of other awesome ways to customize how your YouTube clips display, including:

2. Embed Higher Quality Videos

4. Hide the search box

5. Embed only a part of Video

8. Disable Related Videos

Rockin'

Google Mars

Looks like I need to update my copy of Google Earth again...

Google Earth updates maps of Mars

Oh how I love Google Earth...

Jakob Nielsen vs. Kindle 2

Usability guru and world-class quibbler goes after the Kindle2 with his latest newsletter.

His take:

11 years ago, I wrote that electronic books were a bad idea. Has Kindle 2 changed my mind?

Yes.

The two factors that convinced me were (a) equal-to-print readability and (b) multi-device integration.

It's no rave review, to be sure - but he points out some definite advances as well as avenues for print killing functionality.

Books aren't going to die, but its becoming increasingly likely our grandkids will think of books as another way to read.