got an offer from my electric company for a 3rd gen Nest Thermostat for $149. $100 off. is it worth it?

i have been wanting a wifi enabled thermostat but pretty much figured a Nest was better suited for households that have regular schedules. mine changes every week and i'm probably in my house more than most folks. the nest would learn that nothing is the same from day to day so i'm not sure i'd gain much from a wifi enabled thermostat being a Nest.

experiences anyone?

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yes, yes, and yes. The ability to set it from my smart phone is awesome. And when the AC was acting wonky, I could check from work if there was an issue. And unlike other 'scheduling' thermostats, the learning feature helps very nicely.

You can just set it up to geofence. As soon as you and your iPhone leave the house, it sets to 'away' mode.

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cbelt3
You can just set it up to geofence. As soon as you and your iPhone leave the house, it sets to 'away' mode.

can you geofence it for more than one phone? i'm sure my son would not be amused if the temp changed when i went out but he was still in the house.

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If you want to fix our country, work with us in the states. statesproject.org

"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

You fancy folks with your thermostats...

you can shut off the auto-learning schedule or auto-schedule learning and set it manually.
my nephew has it and the camera and he can see his family room and what the temp is in the room and change it from his iphone. Nice to turn the heat or air up/down while you are in the airport arriving or departing.

I tried a programmable with a stylus and a tiny tiny screen a while back but the second time it glitched and I had to reset the whole week I put the old honeywell with the round dial back on the wall.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2016 03:51PM by billb.

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ka jowct
You fancy folks with your thermostats...

I know... I get up, turn up or down the temp. Leave the house, turn up or down the temp. I come home, I turn up or down the temp. Go to bed, turn up or down the temp. All with a $30 thermostat I've had for fifteen years.

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Heard their hit the other day and thought, "why haven't I remembered these guys?"

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"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

Can't wait until we hear about nest hacks bringing thermostats down to 52º while the owner is away on a 2 week vacation...

I got the Ecobee3 (there is supposedly a newer version) and like it a lot better than the old programmable where I had to manually switch from heating to cooling. I got two extra sensors, I really like that they allow me to set the temp for the room I am in (computer room gets hot with sun coming in late afternoons). I don't care about the Nest learning function. Remotely changing the temp while away is nice but I only use it about once a year.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

I would proceed with caution. We got our first two Nests in 2011 and loved them! They worked together well, the software seemed great, and everything worked well. We even bought a few more for a vacation home. For years, nothing much changed (there was one major software update) and they did the job. Sure there were quirks and a few features that we wished we had, but we figured they'd address them over time. Well, it's 2016 and they have not.

Even worse, some of the more recent software updates have been BAD. In the middle of winter, we were sitting in our living room and heard a weird noise outside. The Nest had turned on the AC. In the winter. When it was set to heat only. And it wasn't hot in the house, it was 67. We are just lucky that we were there to catch it. Apparently some folks weren't so lucky and their AC units were destroyed.

We've also had major wifi issues with our newest Nests. We received one that would drain its battery every day. Every day! Of course, when the battery drained, we had no heating and cooling. Since this was a vacation home in the winter, it was a bit of an issue that we wanted fixed quickly. We tried swapping bases, locations - we mixed up every variable possible and determined that it had to be the actual thermostat. We spent hours over a period of days talking to Nest support trying to get it swapped out under warranty but each time they would want us to repeat the same time-consuming troubleshooting steps. They finally agreed to swap out the unit but it took days.

Then we started having other units randomly drop off the network. We figured it was because they weren't getting enough power and going to an energy save mode. We ended up paying an HVAC company to run C (common) wires to all of our thermostats but we *still* have ones that just disappear until we reboot them.

We almost went Ecobee at our vacation home and I wish we had. I think that Nest is just stagnating - lacking innovation and quality control for both software and hardware is declining. Even worse, software updates are automatically pushed out and there is no way to escape them - except for taking the thermostat off the network which kinda defeats the purpose.

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FormerlySaleenl
I would proceed with caution. We got our first two Nests in 2011 and loved them! They worked together well, the software seemed great, and everything worked well. We even bought a few more for a vacation home. For years, nothing much changed (there was one major software update) and they did the job. Sure there were quirks and a few features that we wished we had, but we figured they'd address them over time. Well, it's 2016 and they have not.

Even worse, some of the more recent software updates have been BAD. In the middle of winter, we were sitting in our living room and heard a weird noise outside. The Nest had turned on the AC. In the winter. When it was set to heat only. And it wasn't hot in the house, it was 67. We are just lucky that we were there to catch it. Apparently some folks weren't so lucky and their AC units were destroyed.

We've also had major wifi issues with our newest Nests. We received one that would drain its battery every day. Every day! Of course, when the battery drained, we had no heating and cooling. Since this was a vacation home in the winter, it was a bit of an issue that we wanted fixed quickly. We tried swapping bases, locations - we mixed up every variable possible and determined that it had to be the actual thermostat. We spent hours over a period of days talking to Nest support trying to get it swapped out under warranty but each time they would want us to repeat the same time-consuming troubleshooting steps. They finally agreed to swap out the unit but it took days.

Then we started having other units randomly drop off the network. We figured it was because they weren't getting enough power and going to an energy save mode. We ended up paying an HVAC company to run C (common) wires to all of our thermostats but we *still* have ones that just disappear until we reboot them.

We almost went Ecobee at our vacation home and I wish we had. I think that Nest is just stagnating - lacking innovation and quality control for both software and hardware is declining. Even worse, software updates are automatically pushed out and there is no way to escape them - except for taking the thermostat off the network which kinda defeats the purpose.

Like I was saying. If you all are happy with them so be it but this seems like a lot of trouble and for an expensive piece of goods with batteries and software and, and, and...

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Heard their hit the other day and thought, "why haven't I remembered these guys?"

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2016 04:32PM by DP.

I'm happy with the FREE programmable thermostat I got from BGE. I can access it remotely via a web interface if I want to override the programmed settings, but I find I am able to schedule things precisely enough that this is not really needed.

EDIT: It's a Honeywell, almost exactly like this:




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2016 05:14PM by mikebw.

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graylocks

Quote
cbelt3
You can just set it up to geofence. As soon as you and your iPhone leave the house, it sets to 'away' mode.

can you geofence it for more than one phone? i'm sure my son would not be amused if the temp changed when i went out but he was still in the house.

I am not sure it is actually tied to a phone. Or if it is, it can be set aside.
Anybody passing by a thermostat tells it that somebody is home....

The two we got for the house paid for themselves within 3 months, our bills went down by more than 50%.
I liked them so much, I went and installed in our offices. One was bad, Nest sent a replacement within 24 hours.
I am very satisfied. For us it was worth it.

The two we got for the house paid for themselves within 3 months, our bills went down by more than 50%.

did you have a simple thermostat or a programmable thermostat before? if it was programmable, was it programmed properly? I am surprised you saw such a large saving.

I have a programmable thermostat, but I basically use it as a manual thermostat. When I try to use it in programmable mode, it behaves like Windows, or even worse, MS Office. In other words, it tries to second guess me.

It has all kinds of weird features such as "dual mode", where you can set a range of temperatures. So, you can run the heat in the morning, and the AC in the afternoon. I can't possibly imagine why I'd want to do that. I simply don't use either on a day like that.

I think a Nest thermostat would drive me bonkers.

Lots of great info. We are going to wait to hear what Google does with nest before buying into that ecosystem.

Used a Nest before I changed my outside A/C unit. I had a problem with the battery draining because I have no "Common" wire. Had to run the fan for 15 mins every hour to keep the Nest charged. After the installation, my A/C guy put in a simple Honeywell thermostat: heat/cool fan on/fan off and temp up/down. The only thing I miss with the Nest is to be able to change the temp from upstairs. On the plus side, I get more exercise. I never reset the temp when I was out of the house. I could not stand the learning mode and had to turn it off. Within a week's time, the schedule would have about thirty or more settings on it because we were changing the temp manually.
I might go with a Honeywell WiFi thermostat if it were simple enough.

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richorlin

Just want to mention that we got a $100 rebate per thermostat from our power company so it's not like we didn't get a deal or anything!

Also, forgot to mention another issue. There is no way to receive an alert if the Nest service has been unable to reach the thermostat after [X] number of hours, meaning that it might be powered down and no longer controlling your HVAC. Mike investigated their API, figuring he could write his own alert. There is *no* way to create an alert like this and the Nest is so closed you can't even ping a thermostat periodically.

Mike posted to their forums and this had been an issue for several years. But, no worries, they decided to redo their forums and wipe all past posts. They said they are going to actually start responding to their customers with their new forum format. We'll see. :-/

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Like I was saying. If you all are happy with them so be it but this seems like a lot of trouble and for an expensive piece of goods with batteries and software and, and, and...

And...google. No thanks.

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Quote
space-time
The two we got for the house paid for themselves within 3 months, our bills went down by more than 50%.

did you have a simple thermostat or a programmable thermostat before? if it was programmable, was it programmed properly? I am surprised you saw such a large saving.

Programmable, but by the time I would find the time to reprogram for the right season it would at least a month later than I should had.

For me it was a tight solution, at home and at work....

.....read an article about how when Google took an interest in Nest....they thought it would surge.....but nothing happened with it.....if anything, the product got worse.......

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_____________________________________

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Quote
graylocks
got an offer from my electric company for a 3rd gen Nest Thermostat for $149. $100 off. is it worth it?

Nope. Get an Ecobee or Honeywell. Unlike the Nest, both are HomeKit-compatible.

Nest has problems:

[arstechnica.com]
[uk.businessinsider.com]
[www.nytimes.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2016 12:28AM by Article Accelerator.

Another take on these kinds of things.

I've played with the thought of some of these gadgets, but right now, it's still like the wild west, and more importantly, I'm not going to buy something that ends up severely crippled, or turns into a brick if/when the VC funding runs out and the servers are taken offline.

I like mine.

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....don't we all have the NESTing instinct......???

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Installed one of these a few months ago and have been pleased with it. iPhone app is good so I can control it from anywhere. No battery issues cuz there ain't no battery; draws power from the furnace. That required some minor wiring, but it was easy with all the videos out there showing what to do. Usually can find it somewhere for about $160.

[yourhome.honeywell.com]

No question, get an Ecobee! Recently as low as $180? Depending on where your stat is located within your home, that $30 or so difference will be nothing compared to the additional functions over the nest. In our home we don't actually use the stat as the stat, we use different remote sensors during different times of the day to control the HVAC.