Nest 1st gen and 2nd gen thermostats no longer supported from Oct 25

This is one of the reasons I am working on an enclosure-compatible open-source version of the 2nd gen Nest thermostat. It reuses the enclosure, encoder ring, display, and mounts of the Nest but replaces the "thinking" part with an open-source PCB that can interact with Home Assistant. Nest has been pretty-badly supported in Home Assistant for over a year anyway, missing important connected features.

I've got the faceplate PCB done and working; the rotary encoder and ring working; and the display working but with terrible code with a low refresh rate.

I need to ship at the end of October to beat the retirement date. Plans to get some regular development report-outs and pre-orders are coming quite soon.

It's open source, and uses ESP32-C6 so it can be Wifi, BLE, or Zigbee, whatever software you intend to load onto it.

Do you have a link?

Very close to having one! I've been working on getting a blog published and a store to pre-order the finished product. I'll reply back here with the link when it's ready.

What language are you writing in? I recently did some rotary encoder work for a round display on an ESP32, and found the dev kit micro python stuff to be terribly slow. I’ve had good luck with LVGL in C++, and my “ick” feelings about c++ are pretty much totally resolved by a healthy dose of AI chat bots.

Send me an email if you’re interested in more info.

Awesome dude, I love projects like these.

Oh, good to know. I have been using Toit for all the business logic, but the display can have special handling for performance if necessary. Toit can also adapt into custom C++ code if needed. https://docs.toit.io/language/sdk/display

Any plans for 1st gen support too?

Not at the moment, as the physical layout and components are different. In theory, all the research we put into making boards and software for the 2nd gen should have some applicability to making equivalent models for the 1st gen as well.

You’re bad at marketing. This was your chance to capture a ton of users. Make a google form that just takes people’s emails for you to notify us when it’s ready. Because I’m not going to remember to track you down at some unknown time in the future.

Well here's your reminder not to forget - you can put your email in at https://sett.homes/

Store is published now: https://sett.homes/

There is so much fun to be had with a rotary encoder and some sensors. What are your plans for extensibility? I think this would be an awesome hacker device — everyone needs a thermostat anyways, and an easy way to build new screens (volume control, door buzzer, whatever) and deploy to the device would be so cool.

I expect you’ll need to be heads down on the hardware and basic software problems to hit your dates. But I also think it’d be worthwhile to figure out the baseline for extensibility early. Maybe this is just a call-home mechanism so you can advertise updates, so you can do something more in the future.

I also wonder if you could somehow take advantage of ESPHome here, for very basic HA etc integrations (of other functions, to be clear).

Also, what are your thermostat algorithm plans? Are you intending to consume HA thermometers / sensors? Or perhaps expose programmability hooks directly on the device?