Good morning folks, today I showed the smartest heat and cooling control technology for your home. It’s from Nest.com, recently acquired by Google for its smartly designed home eco-systems.
Before we get into the Nest Learning Thermostat, which I have been trying out for the past six weeks, Albertans are now first in Canada to get a free Nest thermostat, valued at $249. It’s for new subscribers only, who sign up for a five year Comfort and Control Dual plan (electricity and gas) from Direct Energy. www.directenergy.com/nest
For those who have not heard of the Nest, it is everything it claims and more. I have been using two Nests for my two furnaces on a two story home with completed basement.
The Nest Learning Thermostat goes beyond traditional thermostats which basically turn your heat on or off to required pre-set temperatures, some even smart enough to schedule many settings over a week.
Nest learns from your heating and cooling behaviour needs at home. The initial learning period after installation is one week, but it constantly learns new habits when you adjust settings along the way.
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It remembers new settings you make and when. Nest has near and far sensors to detect warm body movement across the room, up to 50 feet away. It takes note if you get up every morning at 7 am and walk to the bathroom for your morning shower, or head to the kitchen for breakfast, or go to bed. You can fine tune a heating schedule too, to suit your needs.
I found for example, that if I go to bed earlier than usual, and lower the temperature early, it will indicate the temperature will stay low until 7 am, remembering my wakeup patterns. Impressive.
The experience gets better with its wireless connection on your Wifi home network. Updates happen on their own and you can use free iPhone, iPad and Android apps to monitor your home heat settings from afar. Like dropping the temperature, from your car, if you left home unexpectedly for dinner and a movie and raising it on the way home. Or turning the fan on to freshen the house air before you return.
You can control multiple Nest units, check the temperature, or a history of how long your furnace(s) have been running.
Most installs can be done by you with an excellent online help system, including uploading pictures of your wiring when talking to a Nest help technician. Nest reports less than one per cent of installations might be problematic in homes with only two existing wires (red and white) as was in my case on one of my two installations. “We will do what we need to take care of our customers,” said Nest’s Alex Ornelas. This includes getting a local technician to your home. Nice.
The Nest Learning Thermostat has a battery backup constantly charged up, compared to most of today’s thermostats that need battery replacements.
Nest claims savings of up to 20 per cent, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. I have not been able to verify that over the relatively short period I have been using Nest. But I can tell how more flexible it is on its own, especially when left to Auto Away mode where its sensors simply turn things down if there is no movement at home. It would not require seasonal changes like standard thermostats as it constantly learns your changing patterns, helping you with new settings.
The construction and design are top tier and the graphical interface by simply rotating the Nest and pushing in is smart and easy to use.
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