Nest

[notsure]

I just called our local Apple store and they said they don't currently stock them. They didn't know if they would ever have them.

[notsure]

Audacity, I was just wondering if you would be so kind as to tell me the size of the rectangular plate that comes in the box when you receive your unit.

TIA!

Edit: Actually, no need to measure... I found a printable template that will let me measure for myself. Thanks anyway! http://support.nest.com/customer/por...match-my-wall-

[audacity]

I just got my Nest installed a few hours ago. The installation was easy. Most of the time was spent doing the drywall patching of the screw holes from the previous thermostat and painting (~2 hours total waiting for stuff to dry). We didn't want any wall plates behind the Nest since it looks so cool by itself.

We have a furnace and central AC and had the wires C, RC & RH (they were jumpered) W, and Y. After plugging in the 4 wires (no more jumper wire) Nest automatically detected that we have heating and AC in the house. Setting up the system was very quick and went without incident.

I installed the smartphone/tablet apps, but they are very simple since all you can really do with them is set your desired temperatures and the "away mode". Well, I suppose you could look at the current temperature in your house and check out the settings, but that isn't very interesting. I'm sure their website and apps will become a lot more interesting once I have some temperature data uploaded to it.

There isn't a whole lot more to say. I was tempted to take the Nest apart to see what makes it tick, but then I searched and found a teardown that someone else did. The Zigbee antenna looks like it has some interesting future potential.

[notsure]

I'm interested to hear how the "learning" will go for you. Many people in the early reviews of the unit seemed to complain greatly about that but the newer reviews don't seem to mention it hardly at all. I'm guessing they've been tweaking the s/w to fix the issues.

I also really like the sound of the feature that will leave your fan on for a while after the AC shuts off. I was doing this but in a manual way.

[r_mcdoog]

I'd also be interested in hearing reports back on its learning capabilities. Having a nicely designed thermostat is, well, nice but really the value here is whether it's a 'set and forget' kind of learning capability.

Be interesting what's next for these guys since they'll have to expand beyond just thermostats at some point.

[audacity]

After a few days with Nest I can see how the learning works.

I was going to do a little write-up on it, but then realized that Nest has a description of how the learning works on their support pages.

I love how Nest produces reports on your heating/AC use! I've only got a couple days worth of data, but after I have a months worth, I think it would be really interesting. I like how it includes the local weather as an explanation of why more or less energy was used from day to day, and what affect thermostat adjustments did (and charting it all out for you).

[txv]

"
I love how Nest produces reports on your heating/AC use! I've only got a couple days worth of data, but after I have a months worth, I think it would be really interesting. I like how it includes the local weather as an explanation of why more or less energy was used from day to day, and what affect thermostat adjustments did (and charting it all out for you). "

That's a neat feature - I don't think the major manufacturers offer anything like that.

[notsure]

Audacity, I think that report will only display the last 10 or 20 days (can't remember what I read).

So, while it's a great thing you will need to continually harvest the data (if I'm right) for it to be very useful.

Glad to hear you are liking it.

[audacity]

Originally Posted by notsure

I think that report will only display the last 10 or 20 days (can't remember what I read).

Well, that is unfortunate. I figured it would be a nice marketing point to present to customers if they had all their historical data in a running total and can say to them "18% energy saved" or whatever that number turns out to be.

[notsure]

Finally found the link. It is 10 days.

[AllCznsHeating]

These sound like great thermostats, however, I would be concerned if someone hacked into either my computer or smartphone and turned my house into either a freezer or an oven...

[audacity]

That's one thing that the safety range prevents (the max/min temperatures).

[Steve0]

Im sure hackers with the ability to hack into your network or phone would have their eyes on a bigger prize than your thermostat.

[audacity]

After having Nest for a while, I thought I'd post an update:

Stuff that's great:
- I love the reports! It's great to see how much (and when) the AC runs during the day.
- The Airwave feature is smart, and it seems to be reducing our AC costs (but it's difficult to put a quantitative number on that).
- It looks cool. Guests/visitors comment on it when they see it.
- Everything about the product (from the device to the smartphone/tablet apps) is very well designed. You certainly get a feeling that they have pride in their work over at Nest.

There are lots of little thing about the product that are better than the previous thermostat (e.g. more flexibility in the programming) but the above four items are what I've noticed the most.

Stuff I wish Nest did that it doesn't do (yet?):
- Retain lots of history for the energy use/weather data. It's currently only keeping 10 days of historical data.
- Act as a humidistat as well as a thermostat. I've got the humidity control on the same wall as the Nest, and next to the Nest the white humidity control looks ugly, and I'd prefer if I could remove it and do everything with the Nest.

[jshel101]

Thanks for the update audacity. As soon as the wife approves, I am going to pick one of these up.