Controlling room temperature with Netatmo "occupancy detection" and IFTTT

Thanks to the addition of Heatmiser range to the online automation service IF (formerly IFTTT - "if this then that") it's now possible to control room temperature using inputs from your other IFTTT-friendly IOT devices. In my case, Netatmo weather station. 

In my house, heating for every room is individually controlled by a Heatmiser Neo thermostat, each running an individualised programme of temperature gradients throughout the day, tailored to each room. During the summer most of these are just on standby, meaning in practice unless the room drops below 12 degrees C, the heating will never come on.  

My child's room is the exception, because we don't want him to ever get too cold, and some days he naps in the afternoon; so his thermostat is always active. So far so good. Except when you open the windows, perhaps for fresh air during the day, and it turns cloudy, the temperature drops and the heating comes on and heats the great outdoors. 

Finally, I have a solution which does not involve adding sensors to the Windows.  

The first step is to use Netatmo indoor station as an occupancy detector. Over the last year I've charted the correlation between occupancy and CO2 levels and in general found that an occupied room tends to read >500ppm CO2 and unoccupied room is below that. Of course if you open the window the CO2 level drops to almost zero very rapidly. So, this basic threshold measure can be used as a simple detection of empty room and/or wIndows open.  

IFTTT recipes to control Heatmiser thermostats based on occupancy (CO2) 

Of course, you might ask what happens if the windows are open while the room is occupied. Good question - but in our case it never happens; our child is young, so for safety when he is using the room we always have the widows locked shut. 

This simple trigger forms the basis of the input to an IFTTT recipe which controls the Heatmiser thermostat in the same room. If the CO2 levels drop (room empty or Windows open) then the thermostat is set to 'standby' (this stops it following its daily program) and if CO2 rises again ( = occupied) the standby mode is deactivated and the normal program continues to run. 

This way we hope to avoid those costly mistakes where we have opened the windows and forgotten to adjust the thermostat; or unnecessarily heated an unoccupied room.  

For the future we can explore whether outdoor temperature, wind speed and rainfall can be used to optimise performance of the indoor heating.   

Why Apple integrated iOS5 with Twitter, not Facebook

If you look around the blogs there's lots of speculation about complexity of integration, history of sour  negotiations over things like Ping.

I don't think it's anything like that - here's my really simple list of reasons:

Raison D'Etre

Facebook is essentially an "Application" - it collects content, stores it, aggregates it, distributes it. It allows users to have "space" on the web - a virtual home, so to speak, albeit connected with their circle of interests. 

This is nothing like what Apple/iOS needs. As a device and operating system, iPhone/iOS needs connectivity; it needs conduits for information - channels if you like. That's what email is, that's what SMS is, that's what instant messaging is.

That's also what twitter is - twitter is not an application as in the sense above; it is a transport hub, a conduit for realtime data to flow between relevant users. It might be described generically as "social media", but its modus operandi and purpose are entirely different to facebook. Twitter is a way for information, of almost any type, to flow between users. Facebook on the other hand is designed as a place to land to consume content.

That's not to say that Twitter doesn't intend to move up the "value chain" to become a place of higher value consumption - indeed, its acquisitions of the likes of tweetdeck and the long overdue enhancements to its online experience, such as the tie in with photobucket, clearly signal this intent. 

But quite simply, the DNA of twitter is more akin to the phone line as Facebook's is to the phone. 

Culture Clash

There is a complete cultural mismatch between Facebook and Apple. Apple lead the way on user experience and strive for total customer satisfaction. Apple's mantra is to put users first. Apple is slick and consistently good. (Yes, they've had their hiccups, but they deal with them sensibly.)

Little could seem to be further from the truth for facebook. Facebook acts first in its own interests, then retracts if the backlash is sufficient. Their mantra is clearly "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission". Facebook is clumsy and self-centred. 

Shoddy user experience and scant regard for user privacy have been demonstrated by Facebook time and time again. These two brands do not make good bedfellows. 

And that's it - these two reasons alone, in my opinion, have killed for the forseeable future any likelihood of Apple and Facebook joining forces. Personally I see it as no great loss.