This is the age of thinking thermostats and, not to be outdone by a well-known circular model, hardware startup Ecobee has released the Smart Si. It is a smart thermostat with small color screen and a web interface so temperature wonks can update their heating models on the fly.
The Smart Si is not quite as sleek as the Nest but offers more accessible settings – think of this as the Linux to Nest’s OS X. The web interface allows you to see your home’s current status, set a vacation profile, and view reports on your system’s performance including HVAC and heater usage. → Read More
Nest and Lowe’s have teamed up to sell the Nest “learning thermostat” at 500 Lowe’s stores throughout the country, a first for a major bit of high-tech geekery.
This is Nest’s first retail partner and effectively legitimizes the hype around what many called a shiny wall bauble. → Read More
The last time the Honeywell-Nest legal scuffle appeared on our radar, upstart Nest had just lawyered up (with Apple’s former Chief Patent Counsel no less) and offered up their counterclaims to the original patent infringement suit Honeywell filed this past February.
With a new filing today though, it seems as though the legal battle between the David and the Goliath of thoughtful thermostats is heating up. According to a Honeywell representative, the conglomerate has just recently submitted their official reply to Nest’s counterclaims, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect: they’re denying all of Nest’s accusations. → Read More
An update to the Nest thermostat is rolling out to device owners over the next two days, just in time for AC season. The improvements include advanced energy monitoring – essentially more data about your current energy usage – and something called Airwave, a program that will turn down your air conditioner and run the fan for a period of time, thereby saving energy.
→ Read More
Nest is ready to fight. The Palo Alto company just issued a followup statement regarding Honeywell’s recent patent infringement suit.
In short they’re not going to roll over. They’re going to stand tall. The plan is to “vigorously defend itself” from what they call an attempt to stifle “thoughtful competition.” Nice. Go get ‘em, boys. → Read More
The hottest and coolest thermostat on the market this year was clearly the Nest. This intelligent hunk of steel looks great on a wall and, more important, helps save energy in the home. The Nest learns as you use it, ensuring your home is comfortable year-round.
→ Read More
The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.
For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks this year. You’ll also find Best Social App (Google+ is up against Facebook Timeline, the New New Twitter, Instagram, and Path 2.0), the NYC-dominated category of Best Shopping App, Best New Startup and the year’s best VC’s and Angel Investors. Newcomers like Task Rabbit’s Leah Busque and Keith Rabois for his angel investments (Airbnb, LinkedIn, Yammer, Path, YouTube) made the list of finalists, as well as industry favorites such as Marc Andreessen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Pincus and Ron Conway.
In addition to today’s announcement of the Finalists, we are happy to release our next batch of tickets through Eventbrite. The release begins now, so act fast and get them while you can. → Read More
The Nest Thermostat is a gorgeous piece of eco-friendly electronics. But like your mom always said, it’s what’s inside that counts. Well then, she’ll be pleasantly pleased to find out that the inside of the Nest is as equally beautiful as the sleek exterior. The $249 thermostat might be costly, but a teardown posted on SparkFun shows the innards of a device worthy of such a price. Not only is it well-built, but the Nest is rocking serious processing power and connectivity options. Silly hyperbole alert: The Nest is a game changer. → Read More
As open nominations for the 5th annual Crunchies awards enters its final week (nominate here until Dec 13), it’s time to figure out which are the best startups and products of 2011. The Crunchies, which we co-host along with GigaOm and VentureBeat, has 20 categories spanning but the most anticipated awards, the ones we save for last, are Best Overall Startup and Best New Startup of 2011.
Last year, Twitter won Best Overall and Quora won Best New Startup. Who will win this year? There are plenty of amazing startups to choose from. In the Best Overall category strong contenders include Airbnb, Dropbox and Square. Best New Startup is a tougher category. Some names to think about here include Pinterest, Turntable.fm, Nest, Codecademy, Getaround, and Warby Parker. Who do you think deserves to be named the best startup of the year? Nominate them on the Crunchies voting site and make your case in the comments below. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
