It isn't clear that 'conserve water' is a reasonable default position. Perhaps 'keep doing what it was programmed to be doing' would be a better position?
Depends... the focus here isn't on convenience or utility, but on safety.
The furnace defaults to on to save the water pipes. The sprinkler defaults to off to conserve water as the system is potentially unmonitored and a burst pipe could cause issues.
Defaulting a furnace to on certainly shouldn't be considered safe. What if it's leaking CO into your house, what if it gets dangerously hot and causes a fire?
A thermostat and controls are a necessary requirement for HVAC systems and defaulting anything to "run" if your control plane doesn't exist anymore is definitely not the safe option.
The other issue is that in almost all situations (like this one) what you think is a safe and sane default won't align with what other people think.
There should be defaults and they should be clearly defined, but I don't think it's always obvious to determine what they are.
> The sprinkler defaults to off to conserve water as the system is potentially unmonitored and a burst pipe could cause issues.
I had a friend in Australia who ran cattle on his farm. Failing open would waste water, but failing closed would mean dead cattle (and hundreds of thousands in losses). It depends on the application.
julianlam|4 months ago
The furnace defaults to on to save the water pipes. The sprinkler defaults to off to conserve water as the system is potentially unmonitored and a burst pipe could cause issues.
InitialBP|4 months ago
A thermostat and controls are a necessary requirement for HVAC systems and defaulting anything to "run" if your control plane doesn't exist anymore is definitely not the safe option.
The other issue is that in almost all situations (like this one) what you think is a safe and sane default won't align with what other people think.
There should be defaults and they should be clearly defined, but I don't think it's always obvious to determine what they are.
stevejb|4 months ago
I had a friend in Australia who ran cattle on his farm. Failing open would waste water, but failing closed would mean dead cattle (and hundreds of thousands in losses). It depends on the application.