Nest

[audacity]

So, I ordered one of these things yesterday now that they ship to Canada.

Did anyone else get one?

We currently have a programmable thermostat, but it is frustratingly difficult to program. I'm a sucker for elegant interfaces and if this can do for my thermostat what Sonos did for my home audio then I'll be very happy.

[notsure]

I really want one. Please let me know how it goes.

They have just gone on sale at the US Apple store online. I'm hoping/guessing they are available from there in Canada soon.

[timlocke]

I just looked at the NEST website. They ship to Canada now as of yesterday!

[TKG26]

I think they should send all HVAC TECHS free stats!!

I WANT!

[txv]

I would never want a self programming t-stat with a mind of it's own.

A $50-$150 (depending on stages of heat required, programming options) honeywell or white rogers model ought to be good enough for anyone.

Or T87 for seniors.

[txv]

$414 on amazon.

[audacity]

Originally Posted by txv

I would never want a self programming t-stat with a mind of it's own.

Sure, and I can appreciate your point of view. Lots of people are not comfortable with technology (or they are suspicious of it). Of course people who are more comfortable with technology shouldn't have a problem with this product since the "learning" it does is actually very basic (from a computer science perspective) so there isn't much risk of things going wrong.

Originally Posted by txv

A $50-$150 (depending on stages of heat required, programming options) honeywell or white rogers model ought to be good enough for anyone.

Is there a particular model that you could recommend that you feel would be a better choice?

The 4 year old house I'm in came with a White Rogers programmable thermostat and it's user interface is horrible! I can understand why only 11% of programmable thermostats are actually programmed. With a little fiddling I was able to figure out how to set the temperatures for different days/times, but actually setting a different set of days/times? Not just the "weekday" and "weekend" day groups, I'd like to have Friday set differently than the rest of the weekdays. That seems to be impossible! I dug up the manual, and whoever wrote it needs to learn how to communicate ideas.

My point is that the thermostat industry is one that could use some "shaking up" as their current set of products are devices that could have been made 25 years ago. Where is the innovation?

The higher end "Prestige" products from Honeywell seem to have most of the features of Nest, but they have inherited the same clunky interfaces (a "arrow key" design) of the lower end models, and cost more than Nest.

Originally Posted by txv

Or T87 for seniors.

Of course - if seniors want to forego the estimated 20% cost savings that a programmable thermostat offers then a T87 is fine. The T87 seems to have a very similar "turn the knob" user interface for changing the temperature as a Nest - it just has the downside of costing more in the long run.

If the reviews I see are accurate, I think Nest would work well for seniors. The user interface is very understandable and the numbers are much larger and easier to read than those on the T87.

Originally Posted by txv

$414 on amazon.

$249 from the nest.com website (which ships to Canada).

I see the Nest as a product that is dramatically better than what the vast majority of consumers have today. It's very easy to setup and use, and to compare it to products from Honeywell and White Rogers is like comparing a modern computer to a computer from 1990.

[txv]

The honeywell vision pro or rth8500 is good.

You can select groups of days to program at the same time rather than doing each day manually. (for example, monday-thursday, friday, saturday-sunday)

The rth7600 does the same thing but it's not as easy to use.

-------------------------
The nest stat is supposed to learn your schedule - does that mean that every manual adjustment changes the way it's programmed?

[tandem]

I like the idea of this product, but seeing as I do and have always programmed my thermostats, and switched the unit "off" or to Hold 15C when we are away, I doubt I'd recover the purchase price in gas savings in anything resembling a reasonable length of time.

[txv]

Here's a review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrgcOL4oLzc

[audacity]

The nest stat is supposed to learn your schedule - does that mean that every manual adjustment changes the way it's programmed?

Not necessarily. I don't have a Nest yet, but typically when you write "learning" software you would wait for at least one "confirmation" event before you "learn" the event and repeat it automatically. For example, if the customer wakes up in the morning at 7am and increases the house temperature to 23 degrees C, you don't remember and repeat that action until he does it at least once more around the same time period (so, if he were to set the same temperature again for the next two days at 7am plus or minus 15 minutes that would become a learned action).

Also, when writing the learning software you would look for daily patterns from historical data - like patterns when you group the data by day (e.g. Mondays vs Tuesdays).

Either way, I imagine you'll be changing the temperature yourself quite a few times for the first week, but after that it should have enough data to make reasonable estimates of what you like the temperature of your house to be.

So every manual adjustment shouldn't mean that it changes its learned schedule.

Of course, after looking at the review you linked to (which was very comprehensive, nice find!) I can see that if you wish you can disable the learning feature and just program the schedule yourself either on your thermostat or on a PC or smartphone. I plan on trying out the learning features though.

[notsure]

We currently use a basic Honeywell programmable unit at the moment and it does an okay job for us (more in the winter than summer since we try not to use the AC too much).

That being said, being able to set the stat from anywhere with internet access should prove to be very handy (we both have iphones). In the winter we are often going away for a few days at a time not knowing exactly when we are coming back. It is some times pretty chilly in the house upon our return or the heat has been on for no reason for a day or two.

I have read the unit comes with a plate to cover the wall so you don't have to repaint over where the old stat was. I'm wondering just how big the plate is and how it would look.

Audacity, I would be very interesting in your own hands on / real world review once you have it setup - should you be so inclined to post!

TIA

[timlocke]

WE have a two part Carrier stat. The room unit contains a humidistat and all the, not too difficult, programmable stuff. It communicates on 2 wires to the part mounted on the furnace which is connected to the A/C, Furnace and the outside temperature sensor. This enables our 1999 Carrier Weathermaker and 2008 high efficiency Carrier A/C to emulate the newer systems that can use the Carrier Infinity controller.

I would like a NEST but I fear that I'd then need separate humidity measurement and control.

Maybe next year on a Mk II version.


Edit: seems it does have a humidistat...according to the review linked by Audacity.

[grog]

I'm very interested in picking one of these up too. However, I'm moving in a couple of months so I'm going to wait until then.

The learning aspect is cool, but I also really like the occupancy sensors it uses so that it can automatically adjust the schedule temporarily. And sure, you can manually do this with a decent programmable thermostat (i.e. override the schedule temporarily) but again it's a manual process, and one you can often forget to do.

Sure, the thing is definitely gimmicky too but $250 isn't much more than a decent programmable thermostat anyway so it's not like you're paying a big premium for it.

[Nuje]

I heard on a podcast earlier in the week that they were in Canadian Apple Stores this week as well. Don't have one near me to verify