KCLUG July 2026

kclug@kclug.org

4 participants
3 discussions

KCLUG Meeting Reminder – Wednesday, July 8 at Leawood Pioneer
by Steve G 13 Jul '26

13 Jul '26

Hi everyone! I wanted to let you all know that our booking for Study Room #2 has been confirmed. • Location: Johnson County Library – Leawood Pioneer, 4700 Town Center Dr, Leawood, KS 66211 • Date: Wednesday, July 8 • Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM To address Billy’s question from the other thread: no, I have not yet booked rooms for August or September. The automation idea you mentioned previously might be a good thing for us to look into. In addition to Billy’s Nest / No Longer Evil demo, I also wanted to share some of my recent adventures with NixOS, a version of Linux that is managed entirely declaratively. I can speak to what I have learned so far, and how it's different from a traditional Linux distribution. So for Wednesday’s meeting, we currently have at least two good topics lined up: • Billy’s demo of No Longer Evil and controlling a liberated Nest thermostat • A discussion/demo around NixOS and declarative system configuration As usual, everyone is welcome to bring questions, projects, problems, or anything Linux related they want to discuss. See you Wednesday! Steve Gilmore

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Nest Thermostat Script
by Billy Croan 09 Jul '26

09 Jul '26

Here's my script for controlling the AC from my laptop shell while I'm working at home in a sunny room This is for Nest Thermosats that have been jailbroken with the NoLongerEvil firmware hack: https://NoLongerEvil.com Google bricked Gen1 and Gen2 Nest Thermostats last year, but NLE has a linux flash tool that updates your thermostat to connect to a new non-google cloud at NoLongerEvil.com, or you can self-host it. Inspired by Louis Rossman's FULU bounties <https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties> The new cloud supports MQTT and HTTPS APIs, and I'd argue is functionally better than the normal Nest thermostats if you want to integrate with your own systems. You save it as /usr/local/bin/chillout and symlink to it as unchill. Fill in your own serial number, device ID and api key. When you call chillout, it will turn the temperature down substantially to make the system start, then back up 0.5C below ambient, so the equipment stays on for a little period of time unchill does the inverse: it turns the temp up to stop the ac then back down to 0.5 above ambient, so that it stays off. But it also gives you an option to keep the fan running for a while to dry condensation out of the air conditioner and get the last bit of cooling you paid for. It also keeps a logfile of what it does each time its run, and shows the full https request and responses if ever they error.

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Nest Thermostat Jailbreaking
by Billy Croan 02 Jul '26

02 Jul '26

Anyone here have a nest thermostat that Google bricked this year/last year when they shut off their cloud? I can jailbreak it at the next meeting and demo "No Longer Evil", the firmware replacement project, and it's API that let's me control my thermostat from a terminal. bcroan@x360:~$ chillout Starting execution in [CHILLOUT] mode... Retrieving thermostat metrics via NLE API... Initial metrics: Ambient=24.75999°C | State=idle Dropping target setpoint down to 21.75999°C to force trigger AC... ✅ Target temperature setpoint adjusted to 21.75999°C Monitoring HVAC activation state (waiting for AC to start)... Current HVAC activity: cooling ❄️ AC engagement detected! Re-adjusting final target threshold to: 24.25999°C ✅ Target temperature setpoint adjusted to 24.25999°C Process completed successfully. chillout EXITED 0 bcroan@x360:~$

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KCLUG July 2026