Multiple houses were sent into a chill in the very middle of winter. Woke up at night, users found out that their Nest Learning Thermostat had been out of order. The company’s online forums and social media were filled with customers’ requests and discussions. “Woke up to a dead nest and a very cold house,” said one comment. “Not good when you have a baby sleeping!” Another one replied: “Mine is offline. Not enough battery (?) I’m traveling. Called nest. Known problem. No resolution. #nest #fail.” Afterwards Google-owned Nest explained the problem – a software bug is affecting some of the smart thermostats causing the high-profile internet of things device to stop working. The bug actually drained the battery of the thermostat despite the fact that the device was plugged in. As a result it got disconnected from boilers and air conditioning systems, turning them off before it shuts down.
If the pipes froze and the place got flodded we'll see the first of many IOT-instituted lawsuits happen very soon. Welcome to 2016...
Nest FAQs pointed to my "wiring" as the culprit. $135 to my HVAC guy later, my wires were fine. It's Nest that wasn't.
I'll be first in line for a class-action suit.
The IOT has a ways to go. The self driving cars have had a LOT of failures, and who wants to fail pulling a 3,500 lb vehicle with no brakes, or worse, an engine failure. Still have a way to go here.