Nest Thermostat Evaluation
Nest is regarded as an industry benchmark for its excellent industrial design. Nest was founded by Tony fadell, known as the father of iPod at Apple. Nest has maintained a high standard in industrial design.
Let's first look at nest's highlights in UI design.
Nest's interaction mode is very simple, which can be regarded as "one key + one knob": the whole thermostat can be regarded as a mechanical key, which can be pressed at any position to realize "key" operation. The annular metal frame can rotate clockwise and counterclockwise. Therefore, the whole operation is simplified to only three types: clockwise rotation, counterclockwise rotation and pressing. In fact, this design is in line with the click wheel used by the iPod.
According to its market positioning, without touch screen is certainly not based on cost considerations. After analysis, it is mainly based on two points:
(1) Requirements for industrial design style:
During Tony fadell's stay at Apple, iPod products have not been added to the touch screen. After he left, he quickly cancelled click wheel and changed it to full touch. No touch screen is the embodiment of its design style, which simplifies user operation and improves the sense of UI interaction experience.
(2) The smaller screen size is not suitable for touch interaction:
The third generation nest uses the 2.1-inch screen of Tianma 480 * 480. The screen size is small, and the key icons can only be made small. Therefore, if the capacitive touch screen is used to improve the interactive experience, the effect will be greatly reduced. In addition, it is also a technical difficulty to adjust the sensitivity and stability of the capacitive screen of the arc front cover plate.
Matching with the simple control mode, nest's overall UI style is also very concise, which is reflected in the following aspects:
·Color matching: nest has no more than two colors in all interfaces except black and white.
·Background: no background picture is used in all interfaces, and all interfaces are solid color background.
·Icon shape: it is suitable for its circular screen. The icons of setting interface and main interface are circular and circular. The overall style of other function icons also maintains a simple design. The color of all icons does not exceed bright colors, and no gradient color is used.
Compared with the traditional temperature controller, nest does not blindly add functions and display elements after applying the color screen, but makes many subtractions in the main interface, only retaining the real-time temperature, set temperature and working mode.
At the same time, nest has three points on the main interface that are worth learning from:
Matched with the metal ring design, the user can easily accept the knob adjustment. The consistency of display and operation brings humanized interactive experience. The refrigeration and heating mode switching also guides the user to adjust by setting the temperature and the current temperature. Compared with directly placing a mode key, it is more guiding and practical for users.
(2) The background color indicates the working state:
The traditional temperature controller can only read the current set state from the display, but the operation state of the actual equipment is not well displayed, so that it is difficult for users to understand the setting logic of temperature and wind speed.
Nest clearly expresses the cooling and heating states by switching the background color. Users can easily understand the relationship between temperature setting and equipment operation state.
By calculating the time to reach the target temperature through historical data and algorithms, users have a stronger perception of the operation results, so as to make the whole interactive experience more pleasant.
The timing function interaction of the traditional push-button thermostat is cumbersome. Let's take a look at how nest uses only the "knob + button" mode to realize convenient timing setting.
Nest uses a long scroll table representing seven days a week to display the set time and temperature. The user drags the long table through the knob and selects the timing opening time (15min interval). After pressing the key to confirm, the user selects the set temperature through the knob.
The moving distance of the screen is not only related to the rotation angle of the knob, but also related to the rotation speed, so that the whole knob dragging the page gives users a very good hand experience.
Nest's setup menu also selects the long menu knob to rotate, and all icons are in simple circles. Make an icon with the main interface to indicate exit.
Nest uses a rotary keyboard, which needs to be rotated once for each letter entered. Restricted by the interaction mode, the input is indeed cumbersome.
1.2 Home / away assistant and eco home / home assistant and energy saving mode
In order to achieve energy-saving effect, nest will guide users to set an energy-saving temperature corresponding to refrigeration and heating. Guide the user to select the energy-saving temperature as much as possible when timing and setting the temperature through the icon.
At the same time, nest jointly judges whether there are people at home through the location of sensors and mobile phones. When it is judged that there is no one at home, it will automatically switch to eco temperature.
According to the start-up time of eco temperature, nest will calculate energy-saving data for users and provide them to customers on app, so as to achieve its publicity of "saving a nest for users in two years".
1.3 Farsight proximity sensing
The third generation nest has upgraded the proximity sensor. The measured proximity sensing distance is about three meters. It can basically be recognized accurately as long as there are people in the room.
Through the application of proximity sensor, the lighting time of nest actual screen is shortened and the power consumption is reduced.
Users can set the contents displayed on the screen after proximity sensing, such as clock dial, room temperature, weather, etc.
1.4 Self programming algorithm
Nest has built-in various types of sensors, which can continuously monitor the indoor temperature, humidity, light and environmental changes around the thermostat. For example, it can judge whether there is someone in the room (whether there is movement) and decide whether to turn on the temperature regulating equipment.
It has "learning" in its name because nest thermostat has learning ability. For example, every time you set a temperature at a set time, it will record it once, and then after a week, it can learn and remember the user's daily work and rest habits and temperature preferences, and it will automatically generate a setting scheme by using the algorithm, As long as your living habits have not changed, you no longer need to set the nest thermostat manually.
2. Hardware decomposition
2.1 structure disassembly
The nest thermostat is a large physical key, as shown in the figure. A membrane key is placed in the center of the front screen bottom shell. When the whole front half structure is pressed, it will focus on the membrane key, so as to achieve the effect of physical key.
There are two points worth noting in the design:
(1) In addition to the buttons, there is also a five legged metal shrapnel to support and guide the pressing in different directions.
(2) The membrane key is integrated with the interface cable, and the customized cable arrangement is to simplify the structure.
The whole metal ring is not directly connected with PCBA, and the displacement of the metal ring is measured by an angle sensor (magnetoresistive displacement sensor).
On the board, a protection circuit is made for each interface on the screen cable, and four metal shrapnel are used to contact the front screen to increase the anti-interference ability of the whole board.
B horizontal display tube and wiring
In order to ensure horizontal installation, a horizontal display tube is added on the mounting plate to ensure that the user can install horizontally.
The wiring terminal adopts the mode of button to facilitate user wiring.
Nest uses a lithium battery to supply power to the front screen. In actual operation, it is found that only an error will be reported in case of power failure, and the display temperature will not work. It is speculated that it is to give an alarm in case of power failure.
Two customized shielding covers are used at the front and rear, and the workmanship is very fine. The base is pasted and the upper cover is buckled.
3、 More grounded gas solutions
Nest temperature controller redefines the needs of users for temperature controller in the new era, and also defines the direction of color screen of temperature controller in the future. In terms of product definition, nest uses the driving scheme of consumer mobile phones as the temperature controller to pursue the ultimate effect.
For the broader market, what is needed is a more cost-effective solution to replace the mid-range or even low-end market. Especially for the current environment of the domestic market, designing products according to nest's hardware design idea must be a dead end.
For nest, what we need to learn from is the spiritual core of its design, so that functional products meet more and more entertainment needs of consumers.
Based on the independent IC-T5Ldesigned for AIOT application, combined with 16 years of industry experience in smart screen and industrial chain integration, Devon Technology launched TFT color screen solution for temperature controller application.
4.1-inch 720 * 720 resolution incell screen:
http://vr.kuleiman.com/index.php?s=/member/photo/cube/cube_id/3091&from=singlemessage
4-inch 480 * 480 resolution IPS screen:
http://vr.kuleiman.com/index.php?s=/member/photo/cube/cube_id/3090&from=singlemessage
For the core customers in the industry, DWIN technology provides the core device combination scheme of T5L1 + LCD / TP + WiFi / speech recognition module to realize the autonomy of the scheme.
Based on the mature temperature controller scheme, Devon technology can provide complete development data, including PCB, schematic diagram and software code, to help customers quickly implement their products.
T5L1 is designed as GUI and OS Dual Core:
·The GUI core supports dgusii platform. The customer UI design is flexible, the development is simple, and the reliability and stability are strong.
·OS core is a 8051 single chip microcomputer platform that users can redevelop. The supported resources are as follows:
(1) The main frequency is 250MHz, single instruction cycle 8051 core, 64KB code space, 32KB extended ram and 256Kb variable memory.
(2) 64bit hardware multiplier adder (MAC) and divider support integer and rounding, greatly improving the computing power.
(3) It adopts 256Kb, 32-bit width dual port RAM variable memory and dgus II platform CPU to exchange data, which is simple and efficient.
(4) 28 high-speed IO ports, the maximum driving current is 32mA, and 2 external interrupts are convenient to expand the peripheral interface with IO port.
(5) 4-way full duplex UART serial port and 1-way can interface.
(6) 2-way (using resistive touch screen) or 6-way (not using resistive touch screen) 12bit ad.
(7) 1 channel 16bit precision high-speed PWM.
(8) C51 is developed under keil platform, and Devon technology provides an emulator.
Schematic diagram of T5L1 4-inch thermostat:
3.2 Advantages of the Solution
1. Shorten the development time and reduce the threshold of customization.
DGUSII is a highly efficient development platform that Devin has iterated on embedded GUI design requirements for more than a decade. Allows users to design a GUI as easily as a web page or POWERPOINT, while the effect can be comparable to that of consumer electronics. The DGUSII application can significantly reduce user r&d costs.
In the thermostat industry, although the standard product quantity is large, but the profit margin is low, for many enterprises to open the biggest value is to reduce the comprehensive production cost. The high-margin products in the industry are often tailored to customer needs.
Based on DGUSII design temperature controller application, UI customization can be realized within one week after familiar with the development, greatly improving the efficiency of customization and reducing the threshold of customization.
2, batch verification, strong reliability.
T5L itself is widely used in Divin's own smart screens and other industry solutions, and millions of shipments guarantee the reliability of its products.
At the same time, the batch application of multiple industries brings rich ecological chain. In the development and production process, in addition to the direct service of the original factory of Diwen Technology, the resources of ecological chain developers can also bring a lot of support.
3. Rely on DWIN industrial chain to reduce the cost of resource integration.
Devin technology builds an industrial chain around human-computer interaction solutions, and can provide high-quality resources for LCD, touch screen, full-fit processing and key components.
Relying on tiantang application, to provide a wealth of high-quality LCD screens, and can ensure a stable supply, the price is only affected by the exchange rate.
Provide capacitive touch screen manufacturing and OCA fitting services, improve the competitiveness of user products.
The key components for mass application of Divan Technology can be supplied, such as TI power supply and 485, Toshiba Flash, omron relays and connectors, etc.
T5L1 is a dedicated IC designed by Divin Technology for Internet of Things applications based on the 55nm process to reduce product power consumption.
Devin technology integrates and builds technology and solutions around chips, such as Devin Cloud, online/offline speech recognition, video surveillance, local networking, etc., which can be seamlessly connected.
Nest's success is another example of the value of idea.
The value of DWIN technology is to liberate users from tedious development tasks, and truly invest in the design of products, so that those exciting ideas really become exciting products
izzy806
gracieabrams
yousharknotpass
2087
tangentwithtanner
sugurugetos
areudirty