Just made a breakthrough in getting the v1.5-dev image created. It's now fully functional out of the box! Next I need to manually poke around and make sure the unnecessary services have been turned off. After that I'll send it to the community for review and testing. Once any issues identified are fixed, then it will be sent to the project creator for final approval. To people who expect software producers to dictate what users will get, this process may seem bureaucratic, but it's democratic!

Yes. In fairness, they did support it for a decade, but the design decisions made in 2015 sealed their fate. They're not going to keep running their servers forever. That's why the HestiaPi doesn't connect to any remote servers. It's all run locally so nobody can cut you off, not even me. That's simply a superior design.

Thanks for helping spread the good word. There's no ads for HestiaPi, no marketing budget, no sponsoring podcasts... just everyday people like you telling others. I'd much rather give people a lower price and have word of mouth advertising than charge more and have a marketing budget. The grassroots style fits with who I am, and I am NOT a startup founder, going into debt get explosive growth. I want something sustainable, not an exit strategy. If it limits my impact, so be it.

Big news: Permanent price drop & international shipping! Down to $150 fully loaded, assembled, flashed and ready to plug & play in North America. Also, I've enabled shipping to Canada and Europe. I hope I don't regret that. 😅 https://www.tindie.com/products/eternalsunshine/hestiapi-one-silent/ I'm ready to help people kick #Nest & #Google to the curb. 💪 Lets do this! #FOSS #OpenSource #hardware #OpenHardware #electronics #FLOSS #RaspberryPi #HestiaPi #privacy #freedom #FreedomTech #thermostat #BigTech #DIY

Next month, Google is going to make some Nest thermostats not-so-smart. https://www.tomsguide.com/home/smart-home/google-announces-end-of-support-for-1st-and-2nd-gen-nest-thermostats-what-you-need-to-know This can never happen with a #HestiaPi. It's not even possible because it doesn't depend on some third party cloud service. Everything is run inside your home, and it's yours, forever. ❤️ The HestiaPi is also #repairable and #upgradable. In summary, it's better by design. #OpenSource #hardware #OpenHardware #FOSS #diy #electronics

Once the current batch of components arrive, I plan on running the numbers to see if I can make a permenent price reduction. I've been getting killed on shipping prices, but ordering in larger quantities helps mitigate that. The other persistent problem is finding components in stock within 5-10% of the regular price. Building out a bigger inventory helps here too. I'm optimistic. My goal is to get down to $150. Stretch goal is to hit $129.99 (the same price as Google's cheapest Nest)

Thanks, but I'm not into the "buy & sell bitcoin to make a profit" thing. I'm not making these thermostats to try to get rich. I'm doing it so people have an alternative to the big companies who hoover up everyone's data, try to lock them into subscription services, and then end-of-life their products 3-5 years later. The only reason I started selling HestiaPi units is because the one person who was building them was unable to continue dedicating the time and effort to make them available to the world. My choices were to limit the project to people with the skills, time, and inclination to build their own, or start building them myself. You can see the path I've chosen and I don't regret a minute of it. I'm fine with being paid in bitcoin. I'd be happy to buy components in bitcoin. I'm just not into the trading thing.

I'm about to place an order for $700 in thermostat components. Weee. Stocking up like this always makes me a little nervous. What if people stop caring about open source thermostats? What if I just spent all this money on parts that will just sit on my shelf? On the flip side, what if I don't buy these parts? Then nobody can buy a pre-assembled HestiaPi, which means anyone isn't willing & able to make their own gets left behind. And that's why I keep doing it. Leave no one behind! #FOSS #OpenHardware #hardware #OpenSource

Getting close to an updated firmware image based on bookworm. I have a #thermostat running with it, but I want to make sure the build process can be replicated in an automated fashion. When I die, I want others to be able to easily pick up my work. Plus, it'll be handy for the next O/S upgrade. After it's reproducable, it will still need to go through community testing. If everything goes smoothly, I should have a final release in the next few weeks.

The joke's on me. I already have it priced ay $149.99 for the kit. Oh what the heck, I'll drop it another $15 so the assembled version is $149.99. #yolo Get it now before I realize I literally can't afford to keep doing this. LOL

And before anyone asks "what, are they supposed to run their servers forever without compensation?" 😭 No, they should design their products so they don't need to run a server forever for a bloody thermostat to work! 🔥 But if they want to push this flawed design, give people the option to subscribe to the service or not, and make it clear subscribing might not always be an option in the future so people understand what they're signing up for. 🧐 And if they can't do any of that, and it's cloud service of no changing the temperature with your phone, then yeah, I expect them to keep running the service until nobody uses it anymore. If that's 50 years later, well maybe they should have thought of that at design time. If they pick a flawed design, they should live with the consequences.

What's especially messed up about the Google Nest thing is that these are thermostats people paid $100+ for and they own them. They shouldn't get the rug pulled out from under them like this. Customers should be able to expect that their thermostats will work as well as they did when they bought it. At a bare minimum, Google should release the server side source code so people can run their own server to maintain the ability to connect to their thermostat over wifi. Yeah, they've got my panties in a bunch by pulling stunts like this. This is rancid!