back to article Belgium to the rescue as UK consumers freeze after BST blunder

British consumers awoke to cold houses this morning as Nest “Learning” Thermostats failed to accommodate the switch to British Summer Time. Nest customers have not only been deprived of an hour's sleep, but also a warm house in which to struggle to wake up. According to complaints raised on the Nest community support forum …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When are we going to do away with BST, it's only a few jock farmers that want to keep it. Note to farmers, either get up an hour earlier or an hour later.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Do away with BST, don't blame farmers

      I agree, do away with BST, but it has nothing to do with farmers - they work by the sun, and the cows turn up for milking irrespective of what's on the clock.

      1. Richard Jones 1
        Flame

        Re: Don't away with BST, don't blame farmers

        Time is a largely arbitrary concept but losing daylight for most of the population in the interests of a few members makes no sense to me.

        Why the heck do I have to live with GMT wintertime? Who buys their milk straight from the farm at daft-o-clock?

        If the farmer wants to milk their cows at point that suits the cows and the farm plus factory process do it then. The produce will still arrive at the supermarket, corner shop or dairy when it gets there and be available for purchase.

        As for the statistics from the last 'experiment'. All the reports I have seen point to an 11% reduction in accidents affecting children. You may not care about the children not getting hurt but if that is the case at least think about the reduced cost to the NHS of not having to treat them.

        The last time it was the Scots who had problems. Since apart from wanting money from London - (just look at them salivate over the proposed London housing Tax sorry mansion tax), the Scots can do whatever they like with Scotland time, - or the scheduling of their activities. They should do what they want when they are ready to do it, without slavishly clock watching.

        1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

          Re: Don't away with BST, don't blame farmers

          Daylight savings time wasn't invented for farmers, but as a way to save energy (by shifting work hours to times of day when less artificial light would be required) and to give office and factory workers more access to daylight in the evening. It was first proposed by a new zealander and first implemented in germany and austria-hungary during world war 1.

          It is entirely a myth that it was created for the farmers. That's an excuse politicians use to justify its continued existence.

        2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          Re: Don't away with BST, don't blame farmers @Richard Jones 1

          Time is not quite arbitrary. The definition currently accepted around the world is based on the rotation of the Earth on it's axis in relation to the Sun, and is intricately associated with popular angular measurement.

          Putting aside the discussion on units of time, my view is that noon should be when the Sun is highest in the sky. There's no particular reason it should be so, I just think that this should be the case.

          I'm not (quite) suggesting that we go to completely local time measured solely by the Sun, but quantized into hour-wide zones with some geographical adjustments for national reasons seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Holmes

            Re: Don't away with BST, don't blame farmers @Richard Jones 1

            "my view is that noon should be when the Sun is highest in the sky."

            It used to be that way. Then someone invented the railway and steam trains and eventually they got to places so quickly that the time on the town hall clock was noticeably different from ones pocket watch which made it difficult to schedule trains to timetables, especially when on a jaunt to ones country estate.

      2. Sarah Balfour

        Re: Do away with BST, don't blame farmers

        Or goats…or sheep…or, as I prefer, buffalo. I'd REALLY prefer reindeer - highe saturated fat content than single cream, most wonderful milk I've ever tasted. Never catch on, though, what with the NHS scaring everyone stiff with their BS about saturated fat and cholesterol… pity, because it's far healthier than any other milk due to the high fat content.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      On the face of it farmers are the least likely to want clock changes - cows do not conveniently change their milking schedules.

      The arguments against abolition used to be about children en route to school when it was dark. IIRC accident statistics gathered in the last abolition experiment did not support that argument. However for some reason the trial was not allowed to become permanent.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Boffin

        Election Time

        As it is this time of the parliamentary cycle are you:-

        1) standing for election on the abolish BST platform?

        2) voting for a candidate that will propose 1) above if that is so vitally important to you

        3) do nowt?

        What is it then. It is it 1) then I am sure that you'd get a few votes from the readers here. not so sure about the wider electorate though.

        1. jonathanb Silver badge

          Re: Election Time

          Summertime rules are set by the EU, not Westminster, and the next Euro elections are in 2019.

          1. AndrueC Silver badge
            Stop

            Re: Election Time

            Summertime rules are set by the EU

            Not sure what statement you're trying to make there. Are you suggesting it would be better if member countries did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted as far as DST is concerned? Bearing in mind how fractious Europeans are the result would probably be chaos.

            Surely even euro-sceptics have to draw the line somewhere and accept that a degree of coordination is better for the common good.

            1. jonathanb Silver badge

              Re: Election Time

              My statement is that standing for parliament on an anti-BST platform isn't going to help, because they don't have any control over the matter.

              As it happens, when the EU harmonised the rules, the adopted the British rules across Europe.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I was at primary school in Westmorland when experiment with all year summer time happened. One reason why accident rate for school kids didn't go up was in areas like it's where it was pitch black for trip to school that parents got together to sort out rotas to drive us all to school plus local garage started a mini bus service and we all stopped waking to school.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "One reason why accident rate for school kids didn't go up was in areas like it's where it was pitch black for trip to school that parents got together to sort out rotas to drive us all to school plus local garage started a mini bus service and we all stopped waking to school."

          I'm guessing this was in about 1969 or thereabouts (I think, I was about 7 or 8 then) and all the school kids around here were issued with (or had to buy from the school, I'm not sure) reflective armbands and/or sashes. We walked to school without parents. Less traffic back then and we were taught how to cross roads and then allowed to actually do what we had been taught. Alone and without adult supervision!

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        " IIRC accident statistics...did not support that argument."

        That would explain it. British governments and civil servants have a track record of doing the opposite of whatever science suggests, from drugs through to badger culling.

    3. Mystic Megabyte

      @Mine's a Guiness

      Re: BST you might like to listen to this for an explanation. Warning, contains Stephen Fry. May cause allergies.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nk5qq

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: @Mine's a Guiness

        We've got him, lads! Fry said he was speaking over the very same BBC airwaves now as the other chap was in 1930. Commission a Register article!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Mine's a Guiness

        @ Mystic Megabyte

        Are you sure that's Stephen Fry and not David Lander ?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Mine's a Guiness

        John Oliver did a section of Last Week Tonight where he explained the genesis of daylight savings time in the U.S. (probably the same thing as BST). I'd put down a link, but you'd need HBO to access it (legally--its probably on YouTube on a whack-a-mole basis).

        In short, blame Kaiser Wilhelm and the WW1 Germans!

    4. John H Woods Silver badge

      "When are we going to do away with BST, it's only a few jock farmers that want to keep it. Note to farmers, either get up an hour earlier or an hour later."

      Actually, as someone who likes to spend some time outside when work finishes (17:30 all year round), I rather like it; I'm sure I can't be the only one?

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        I'm sure I can't be the only one?

        No, you're not. If the weather was cooperating a bit more I could get a round of golf in this evening after work and will be able to for several months. My preference is actually to start work at 8am so that I can get even more light after work. Sadly at the moment that's not an option so the switch to BST is very welcome.

        Anyway as far as the article goes I'll just point out that the 7-day programmable, predictive thermostat that's been controlling my heating for over a decade had no problems. Its radio controlled clock changed to BST and it did exactly what it was supposed to. Tell me again - what's the advantage of Nest and similar?

    5. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      @Mine's a Guinness

      Funnily enough, most people I know get the switch the wrong way round.

      Most people I know think that the clock change is to adjust time to suit the sun in Winter. This is the argument some people used to try to prevent children going to school in the dark, but that argument is bogus, because winter has the clocks aligned with sidereal time.

      So all abolishing BST will do is to make the lit evenings an hour shorter in the summer months. At one time, when people worked in the fields, this may have made a small difference, but with the reduction in manpower required to run farms now, most farmers will be pretty indifferent to this. They get up when required, and often work the fields by floodlight to extend the working day in the evening.

      I have no problem with abolishing BST, but not with aligning the clock to BST permanently, which some people suggest, or even aligning the UK to CET/CEST, which some business leaders want (blooming Gallophiles)!

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Oh, for goodness sake

      When are we going to do away with BST

      Having our clocks change at the same time as the Europeans is very convenient for those who do business internationally. It would be very tedious if we didn't change times at all. Have you ever tried scheduling multiple regular international calls when the participants have clocks changing at different times? Some of us spend most of our working day on such calls!

      There is a case for moving to CET (with winter/summer time) -- but presumably that is not what the poster here is asking for. Personally I think we do very well by being close to European time but one hour closer to US time. I have worked for 30 years for US IT companies in the UK. One reason they employ people in the UK is to be their interface to Europe. I am virtually in the same time zone as my European contacts, but I have an extra hour of overlap with the US allowing more company work to get done at reasonable times of day (I work a bit late, they work a bit early, but not excessively so). I currently work for a European company but for a team run from the US -- they find it much easier to use me than the people in our European company HQ.

      The time zone is part of the UK's competitive differentiation for inward investment from the US.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Oh, for goodness sake

        It couldn't come soon enough in the year for me. As someone who habitually wakes at dawn, it galls me to wake up at 5.30 then go back to sleep for two hours when the sun is up just because I only have to leave at 8 to get to work. I could do something productive with those two hours, but it's 6 o'clock in the morning, man!

        1. illiad

          Re: Oh, for goodness sake

          Jeez.. have you not have decent 'blackout' window covering, so the sun does not wake you??

          or do you just not need that much sleep, or do not work a full day, unlike most of us???

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh, for goodness sake

        Could be convenient for those doing business "internationally" with Europe. But for those of us working with people in, for example, California it would move us another hour away from them. I'm already staying in the office till 7+pm at least twice a week for phone confs with rest of team in "silicon valley" ... Extending that to 8+pm would be a significant problem

        1. Kevin Johnston

          Re: Oh, for goodness sake

          It would be more appropriate for portions of Europe to join us on GMT as several (France/Spain/Portugal) either have the Greenwich meridian pass through them or they are West of the line.

          This 'give up the time-shift' happens twice a year and normally is linked to the 'Use CET' sub-plot with the advantages to business forefront amongst the reasons but everyone saying that ignores the way that the US have a lot of time-zones and not only do they see no problem but they actually take advantage of them allowing a split office East/West coast to cover a much larger portion of the day without needing people to start early/stay late.

          1. Tim Worstal

            Re: Oh, for goodness sake

            Portugal is on GMT (or, rather, today, BST).

          2. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: Oh, for goodness sake

            In Spain the argument goes that it should move back an hour to be in the same timezone as Britain so that the sun sets at an earlier time (it's a bit of a problem for those in the west of Spain) and this should help as part of the overall effort to reduce those interminable lunchtime breaks, have more productive working hours and therefore a more productive economy, and finally improve peoples' work-life balance.

            It ain't going to happen though, tourism and working all hours God sends apparently form part of Spanish culture.

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Oh, for goodness sake

        "There is a case for moving to CET"

        Really? The only sensible case for this is being in central Europe. And we're not.

    7. Amorous Cowherder

      As an amateur landscape photographer, the BST change over gives just a couple of weeks more when I can shoot in the morning before work and catch the sunset after work.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The issue isn't BST

      The issue is stupid people who bought overpriced programable thermostats. Should have saved their money and bought one from a real appliance manufacturer for a quarter the price.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: The issue isn't BST

        The issue isn't BST. The issue is stupid people who bought overpriced programable thermostats. Should have saved their money and bought one from a real appliance manufacturer for a quarter the price.

        This.

        Those annoying bloody adverts telling me how my life can be so much different now because I can fiddle with the hot water whilst out and about with my daughter... RAAAARRR! Like what did I do before, eh? Had to go to the woods and chop two oaks down before stoking the hypercaust?!!!

    9. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      This moan comes up twice a year regularly.

      People seem to think clock changes are somehow unique to the UK. They're not. On my laptop /usr/share/zoneinfo, the directory with the time zone rules, runs to 3.5M on account of the number of different countries that have to be covered.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    "The schedule is correct but it doesn't obey!?!"

    Machine doesn't obey you. You obey machine.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The schedule is correct but it doesn't obey!?!"

      Internet of Things Internet of Things Internet of Things

      smart appliance smart appliance smart appliance

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It always surprises me when IT things use wall-clock time rather than UTC.

    Someone was asked to design a logged 24x7 CCTV system. They were going to use wall-clock time for the log. It was pointed out to them that there would be ambiguous times during the hour in which the clocks went back at the end of Summer Time.

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      UTC and ambiguous times...

      To be pedantic, even UTC has discontinuities; TAI should be used on devices that are not expected to handle leap seconds.

      More on topic, though, how on earth did this get missed in testing? It has got to be pretty high up on the test strategy for a domestic appliance that uses time to schedule things, surely!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: UTC and ambiguous times...

        "[...] how on earth did this get missed in testing?"

        Possibly someone made a small code change whose expected effects were "so obvious" that it didn't need full regression testing. The changed code apparently did what it should - and the ripples were not fully understood or considered.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: UTC and ambiguous times...

        More on topic, though, how on earth did this get missed in testing?

        Nest smart bots™ did not write the code.

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: UTC and ambiguous times...

        "More on topic, though, how on earth did this get missed in testing?"

        From the article, Nest seem to be saying it's only affected some UK customers. I'm betting on a localisation error in the already tested software of a specific version.

  4. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    Designed by americans?

    Most Americans I meet seem to think that "GMT" means "the time in London", and have no concept that Daylight Saving Time means that the UK is not always on GMT. They'll say "3pm GMT" when they mean "3 in the afternoon UK time", ignoring the fact that in the summer the UK is on BST. Perhaps this 'smart' thermostat software has the same assumption built-in?

    Do we have an "IoT Fail" icon yet?

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Designed by americans?

      But which London?

      That's why merikans always use 'London, England' rather than say London, Kentucky which is not even a dot on most maps.

      {Other places called 'London' are available}

    2. WraithCadmus
      Devil

      Re: Designed by americans?

      I had a customer who did that... once.

      "I want you to start the service at 1400GMT"

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Timestamps

    Some social media sites store their postings' timestamps in UTC seconds - but display them adjusted for the viewer's local time zone. There is a sneaking suspicion that a further correction is applied according to the current Summer Time state whenever it is subsequently viewed - not that which pertained when it was written.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Timestamps

      The standard *NIX approach is to do all your data storage and maths in linear UTC and only for humans do you display it in a readable form and at that point you allow for the local time-zone & language. Its the sensible way.

      The complication arises when you have a time-of-day event that some human wants at a set local time and you need special logic if that is in the hour where the "clocks change" as you could get either 2 or 0[*] time-crossing occurrences depending on the direction of the change. But that is independent of which zone your in, other than it is a zone that has "daylight saving" with is practically all significantly northern and southern latitudes.

      It makes bugger-all difference to the amount of daylight of course, but humans seem unable to cope in modern times with doing things that are not a set times.

      * - of course when local time jumps from 1am to 2am you cross all times in between, but how do you handle that? You could trigger all events set for 1-2 simultaneously, but what if the person needed A to be 5 mins before B, and both 10 min before C and all in that 1 hour window?

      1. Frumious Bandersnatch

        Re: Timestamps

        in the hour where the "clocks change" as you could get either 2 or 0[*] time-crossing occurrences depending on the direction of the change

        Some systems can be configured to change the time gradually (eg, if the `date` program has a -a option on some *nix systems, or using the adjtime(3) system call), but changing the apparent rate at which time changes introduces different problems. On the whole, changing it gradually probably breaks fewer assumptions that people might make in their code but I would guess that this Nest problem would still manifest either way.

        1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          Re: Timestamps @Frumious Bandersnatch

          I think you are talking about changing the underlying system clock (i.e. UTC time).

          That is normally slewed by NTP unless its a leap second (where the kernel gets that and ought to handle it properly for event timers, etc) or if the time error is too big to be done in a sensible window (typically at system boot where you have no idea if the clock is OK).

          The "jump" I am referring to is in local time when the daylight saving hour goes in/out of effect. I don't know of any system that would slew the DST value, but its not an impossible thing to consider.

      2. JacobZ

        Re: Timestamps

        One of the first serious pieces of code I wrote and got paid for was to add user-defined event scheduling to an operating system that was very good at milliseconds and microseconds, not so good at days and months. And one of the primary uses was to schedule the clock changes.

        Since I was 17 and clueless at the time my code was, of course, hopelessly wrong*. I don't know what happened the first time the system hit the 2am "set the clocks back to 1am" event as I had buggered off to Uni at that point, but I suspect the phrase "rinse, repeat" may have been relevant.

        *Among many other things, it was perfectly happy for you to set events for times that didn't exist, such as the middle of the skipped hour in the Spring.

  6. Shrimpling

    GMT/BST and working with Americans

    It was nice for the last few weeks when we have had an extra hour per day to do business with Americans. I had the novelty of them replying to an email while I was still at work and it not taking several days to get issues fixed.

    I would vote to end BST if I had the choice.

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: GMT/BST and working with Americans

      Except the Americans are already on the summer time. They just switch over 3 weeks earlier than we here.

      1. Bronek Kozicki

        Re: GMT/BST and working with Americans

        @VP that is exactly where one extra hour came from (time difference to UK was 4hrs instead of the usual 5hrs).

        1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          Re: GMT/BST and working with Americans

          Yep. And had we stayed on GMT it will have gone back to 5 hours in October anyway.

          The consolation of course is that in that case we could blame the clueless Americans! :-)

  7. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    That what happens

    When you give away control over the things in your house to someone else.

    Internet of fucking things, right...

  8. PCS

    So only 6 people woke up to a cold house then? Misleading headline methinks.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Why...

    ...after all this time are people STILL fucking up daylight saving times. It's not like it is even unique to the UK.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_country

    1. Proud Father

      Re: Why...

      " Why after all this time are people STILL fucking up daylight saving times. It's not like it is even unique to the UK."

      Exactly what I came here to post! Unbelievable.

    2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Why...

      Why - cheap (usually) code monkeys not using/understanding the details of time/time-libraries, and NOT BLOODY TESTING them!

  10. Harry the Bastard

    mmm belgium

    beer

    chocolate

    cobbled classics

    vlaamse stoverij with frites

    gets my vote

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: mmm belgium

      Apparently Belgium managed without a central Government for several months a few years back.

      What's not to like? Wonder if there's any jobs going over there.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Support Suggestion

    Well,

    The advice from the Nest support line is "do a hard reset". Basically have you tried turning it off and on again?

    And there was me trying to be helpful and give them some more information, as they said they don't have enough of it.

  12. Barely registers
    Black Helicopters

    Earth Hour - now mandatory

    I suspect a plot - Earth Hour is now to be enforced centrally.

    You can go about your business now.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Earth Hour - now mandatory

      No doubt as the IoT takes over there will be a steady stream of minor changes to simplify/improve things - those annoying time zones can go for a start.

  13. x 7

    We should be on BST in the Winter and double summer time (i.e. 2 hours ahead of GMT) in the summer, just as we were during WWII.

    And everyone forgets.......the 1970's experiment was to keep BST during the winter, not GMT during the summer

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yep, and it was a f-ing disaster for school - we had to do afternoon sport & then lessons rather than the normal order of lessons then sport, eliminating the chance of nipping off early when nobody was looking.

  14. Nameless Dread
    Mushroom

    Time is an illusion

    - British Summer Time doubly so {shivers}

    And when Scotland comes independent, we'll have CET, The Euro, border controls and driving on the right. Right ?

    1. dorsetknob
      Facepalm

      Re: Time is an illusion

      Quote

      "And when Scotland comes independent, we'll have CET, The Euro, border controls and driving on the right. Right ?"

      yes and they ( The Spastic Moron Party ) will Ban right hand Drive Cars (they are so English) so your have to scrap your Car (for Sod All) and Buy a Left hand Drive Car ( AS WE ENGLISH SAY A KACK HANDED CAR)

    2. Simon Rockman

      Re: Time is an illusion

      Quite, when I saw Belgium I wondered if that was as in Holy Zarquon, singing fish.

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      "The wall clock should remain constant, and our routines should change. That would be more logical than trying to falsely adjust a 'constant'."

      Do you mean the 'constant' time at which the sun sets?

      If BST were abolished, I'm pretty sure my employer would agree to me working 08:00 to 16:30 in the summer. Would yours though? Would everybody else's?

      I'm sticking to my guns --- and probably inviting repeats of my earlier downvotes --- I would rather have more daylight hours after work than before work. My ideal job is probably refuse collection: start early, several hours of physical labour, be out of work in time to collect the kids (now sadly grown up) from school.

      Yes, almost everything can be done by artificial light, farming, commuting, working --- but some things are nicer in long evening daylight: sitting in the garden; walking in the countryside; messing around with horses, boats, model aircraft, etc. I do realise that some people would rather have daylight for a morning run than an evening one, but it's always going to be like that ...

      ... unless ... we have alternate months of BST and GMT during the summer. Any takers?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Shrimpling

        "If BST were abolished, I'm pretty sure my employer would agree to me working 08:00 to 16:30 in the summer. Would yours though? Would everybody else's?"

        Look into the flexible working laws...

        Your employer has to give a valid reason you can't work from 08:00 to 16:30 instead of 09:00 to 17:30. Because they don't want you to is not a valid reason.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "If BST were abolished, I'm pretty sure my employer would agree to me working 08:00 to 16:30 in the summer. "

        IIRC when I worked in Sweden in the 1970s they had shorter office hours in the Summer - and compensatory longer ones in the Winter.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Trainee grumpy old ****

          >> What's the difficulty? Printed timetables could just include a note to the effect that, "services will run an hour before the printed time between April and October, whilst on-line and electronic timetables could adjust automatically.

          So if I want to get the 14:22, to <wherever> which train do I catch?

    3. Hellcat

      I was just talking about this subject at the weekend with Mrs Hellcat. When we defined GMT we had the chance then to impose this - which we should have! In America? Well you will work 14:00-22:00 and have lunch at 18:00.

      1. Dan Paul

        Not on your life!

        In America we quite like our AM and PM. So I am at work at 7:30 AM and leave at 4:30 PM.

        You can take our time conventions when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Only the military and the daft uses the 24 hour format.

        1. MrXavia

          Re: Not on your life!

          In America you still use Feet & Inches....

          About the only thing I want to keep imperial is the pint, why? because 1 Pint is bigger than 500ml

          1. Dan Paul

            Re: Not on your life!

            So what, Feet and Inches was perfectly good for Britain for hundreds of years until some deluded fools decided that the French idea of metric was better.

            We didn't drink their kool-aid.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Not on your life!

              If we are running by beer o'clock, I prefer French to American.

          2. jonathanb Silver badge

            Re: Not on your life!

            British pints are bigger, 568ml, but the American ones are smaller, only 473ml of refreshment.

      2. BJC

        Universal world time

        >> In America? Well you will work 14:00-22:00 and have lunch at 18:00. <<

        Doesn't that just change the problem?

        Consider you're reading and the subject has breakfast at "15:00". Is that early, normal, late? It wouldn't be possible to tell unless you find out where the character is. So, does the time become "15:00 90degW"? That wouldn't seem to be a simplifcation.

        Similarly, if you were to schedule a business meeting between UK and US colleagues, it might still be necessary to know whether all parties are likely to be awake and at work.

        At least with the current system, once the time conversion is done, I can easily determine if it's a normal business hour, or not.

        Just my 2p.

  16. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Leap second.

      Oh great. So now my motion controller is out of step with my heating which is out of step with my microwave and my clock...

  17. CommanderGalaxian
    Thumb Down

    Stuff BST

    I'm guessing you don't live in Scotland - since if you did - rather than accussing "Jock farmers", you'd find just about everyone can't be arsed with BST and would prefer if the damn time was just left at GMT the whole year round - and for exactly the reason you've managed to get arse about face - BST makes it darker in the mornings the further North you live - so as far a light levels go, people in Scotland *are* effictively getting up an hour earlier than people in the South of England.

    1. Fonant

      Re: Stuff BST

      Scotland is also futher west than England, mostly. Taking the mid-point as being 4 degrees west, both Wales and Scotland should be 16 minutes behind GMT, ideally. Even middle-England is about 1.5 degrees west, so should be on average about 6 minutes behind GMT. London's spot on, though :)

      Fun fact: the eastern end of Edinburgh Waverly station is actually a tiny bit west of the western end of Cardiff Central station.

  18. nsld

    I suspect

    The original code was written by a Californian using PST as the baseline time for all things global.

    3 weeks ago people woke upto a warm house which probably started heating an hour earlier and they didnt notice, then come our change and the error comes to the fore.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: I suspect

      It was written by someone who was PST at the time.

  19. eJ2095

    Failed to mention

    Only affects people who are called "Dave"

  20. Sureo

    Fail

    I have an old clock radio that was programmed to change time automatically. Then a few years ago the powers that be here in North America moved the dates a few weeks. Now I have to manually change this clock four times a year!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fail

      Household clocks in the UK and Europe can adjust for Summer Time automatically with a synchronising national radio signal. It also usually keeps them accurate to the second all day long. Not sure if North America has equivalent transmitters to what used to be known in the UK as "MSF".

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Fail

        Ah sadly no. They don't have the Rugby time signal. Their nearest equivalent would be American Football. So... the World Series Time Signal.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Fail

          "Rugby" is now "Anthorn"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fail

      I have a not-so-old security system in my house that has the exact same problem and no way to reprogram the dates. I turned off the summertime change entirely and just ignore the fact that the damn thing has a clock.

  21. Weaseboy
    FAIL

    Hive was on the fail bus too!

    Wasn't just Nest!. Hive was the same all weekend!

    They didn't fix it until some time last night... how hard could it be.

    But to be fair their Twitter account is manned all weekend it seems, so they could tell me how they had no ETA for a fix!

    1. AOD
      Thumb Up

      Schadenfreude

      As an owner of neither a Nest or Hive thermostat, I'm happy to report that the GMT/BST switch was a complete non-event for our tado°.

      It happily started pre-heating the house as per usual to ensure it was toasty warm just as I had to roll out of bed.

  22. King Jack

    I love BST. The only time I didn't was when I had to work nights on the time switch form GMT to BST. It cost me 1 hours pay. I made sure I never worked nights on the change over again.

    1. damworker

      Yup, I love BST too. Hours of day light after work has finished. Saves lives and energy.

      Yes, I know time is just a number but all that happens if you stay on GMT is that most people are in bed for the first 2 hours of daylight in the summer then have the lights on before they go to bed.

      While on the subject of BST, why is savings time not based on the calendar? By which I mean the clocks go back much 'later' in autumn than they reverse in spring i.e. there is much less daylight at the end of October than there is at the end of March. 'Forward' is about 7 weeks before the shortest day while 'back' is 14 weeks after it - why is that?

      1. TRT Silver badge

        It's all down to the speed of light in a strong thaumic field...

  23. Frumious Bandersnatch

    Daylight Saving Time moaners

    Consider yourself lucky you're not living in China, where they've got just one time zone despite the country spanning five (geographical) time zones.

  24. wolfetone Silver badge

    Nest owners

    Have you not heard of a quilt?

    I have, it's lovely and warm under it and works regardless of clocks going forward or back.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Nest owners

      It's when you have to leave the warm confortable quilt or duvet - or are you some sort of heritic that walks around in a quilt?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Momentum

    When Daylight Time was first proposed at the turn of the last century it didn't get very far, until it was implemented by Austria during the Great War as a scheme to preserve coal supplies used in the generation of electricity. The theory was an extra hour of daylight would reduce the need for lighting. It was then mostly abandoned until the next world war, after which it was abandoned again. When reintroduced in the US during the early 1970's energy crisis it was again promoted as a way to conserve electricity, seemingly in the face of the fact that those going to school and work in the morning would be turning on their lights an hour earlier.

    As others have noted, subsequent justifications advanced for DT included road safety (apparently ignoring the fact that those of us who avoided walking home from school at dusk would still be leaving closer to dawn than before), or vaguely placing the blame on farmers (who had nothing to do with it at all).

    DT was, and is, a fraud. In fact it actually costs more than the alternative. Besides the fact that more energy is expended by both lighting and heating in the early morning than at dusk, there is an enormous administrative price associated with the complicated, and ever shifting, periods during which DT is in force during a given year.

    So why do we still use DT? In a word, momentum. The early advocates of DT bamboozled their audiences with arguments for its benefits those listening did not understand. Rather than admit their lack of mental acuity, leaders in business and government implemented DT. During the world wars it allowed governments and their citizens to "do something" to help the war effort (like the massive recycling and home garden campaigns undertaken at the same time). It didn't really matter if it didn't actually result in less energy usage. It made everyone feel good. In the 70's, politicians in the U.S. were especially vulnerable to the siren song of easy fixes to strangulation of the economy by foreign suppliers displeased with U.S. foreign policy. Implementing DT made it look like they were doing something in response, and had the added benefit of allowing citizen participation.

    But why do we continue to use DT in the 21st century, when all this is known? Certainly even those who proposed its reintroduction in the 70's are long gone from public life, their reputations wouldn't be affected by its discontinuance now. The answer may be that their successors in office, who joined their predecessors in advancing the cause of DT over many generations, are also stuck on a treadmill driven by sheer momentum. They are unable to break free because they simply cannot admit that their previous support of DT, and the costs it carried with it was unreasonable and the result of weak minded deference to the sort of vacuous public policy that causes people to lack respect for their leaders.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    An answer is here

    For anyone still looking, the community has come up with an answer here:

    https://community.nest.com/thread/9752

    Comment at 30th March 2015, 07:59 by user Stuy.

    No comment from Nest support yet, but I can verify that this worked for me.

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