For those of us living here in New Jersey, as well as several other states who offer energy deregulation, we've been getting phone calls, mailings, and even a few people knocking on our door asking us to switch our energy provider to another carrier. The fact of the matter though is that the majority of people who choose another provider end up losing money in the long term instead of the savings they're told they should be seeing. It just doesn't make much sense.
With that in mind, Kelly and I decided to go another route. We bought a Nest! [Well, we wanted to buy a Nest...but first we had to wait 4 months while they were back-ordered. These things were going like hotcakes when they first came out last fall] What the hell is a Nest you ask? Well, it's pretty simple actually, just a regular old home thermostat that's gotten major makeover thanks to the guy who invented the iPod. [No, Steve Jobs didn't create the iPod, it was a guy named Tony Fadell who was actually the brains behind the operation] He started his own company and decided their first project would be rethinking a basic device that is in a majority of homes, yet doesn't get used to its full potential, the programmable thermostat.
They've made it much simpler to program...just do what you normally do. After a few weeks of use the Nest actually learns your habbits, creates a schedule, and can even sense when you are away from the house and adjust the temperature accordingly. It's pretty amazing! It's not that a regular programmable thermostat isn't good, because they do save people a lot of money, but they have limitations, and the Nest solves them.
Have a look, it even feels like an Apple product when you open and take it out of the box. Instructions are super easy and they even provide a nifty little screw driver incase you don't have one!
Nest includes 3 different cover plate sizes incase you need to cover up a large hole from your old system, but I decided to patch the existing holed so that I could mount this as it was designed to be mounted, clean and simple. So I did have to do a little patching and painting. [I should note that we do plan on getting a new alarm system at some point soon and once that happens we'll move the panel location and then move the Nest so that it's above the light switches there on the right. Should be a much cleaner look]
If I didn't have to do the patch and paint the entire installation would have taken about 2.5 minutes. Just connect the 4 wires and the computer does the rest. Let's talk about that computer part. Nest is essentially a mini-computer and it connects to your homes WiFi to gather current weather conditions and forecasts so that it can control your heating and cooling as efficiently as possible. Instead of just turning the temperature up and down and setting the on-off for 7 days of the week, this computer learns how you use your thermostat and can predict when you want it to come on and when you want it to be turned off. Just give it a few weeks and it'll figure out your schedule. It's even good enough to know when you're home and when your not. Most of the time we'd leave for the day and remember to turn the heat down...but sometimes we'd forget. With the Nest's audio and proximity sensors it can sense when people are in the house and when they're gone. So, if no one is home, it's smart enough to turn the system down.
Even a simple thing like raising the temperature a few degrees just becuase you want it a little warmer...Nest will learn your home and tell you how many minutes it'll take to reach that temperature.
Here's a shot of our unit installed and ready to roll.
With the WiFi connection one of the best features is the remote access with a smart phone. No longer do you have to come home to a chilly house. Now you can just log on remotely and adjust the temperature 15-20 minutes before you arrive home and you're all set. Simple as that. I think this is the aspect that Kelly likes the most!
The other great thing about the WiFi is that the unit sends data back to Nest and they create piles of data for you to see just how much energy is being use, at what times, and the reason why. Did someone adjust the temperature? Was it colder out than normal? Were you away all day and as a result the system didn't need to turn on? With all this data you can create some very informative reports on your usage and I'm anxious to compare them to previous years bills without the Nest.
With cooling season just around the corner [probably tomorrow for us here with temps predicted to be in the 90's] I'm excited to test out one of the best features Nest has, the Airwave technology. Again, after a few weeks of learning your home and the cooling system, Nest can control your a/c to save you up to 30% of your energy usage. For a house like ours, where a summer bill can be about $300 bucks, even if we only saved 15% that's $45 bucks a month. Easy to see how quickly this unit can pay for itself. So here's how this airwave technology works. Nest learns your house and will turn off the compressor a few minutes before reaching the desired temp, but it'll keep the fan running a bit longer to capture all of that cool air still in the system and coming off of the coils, to get you to that temp you selected. Pretty ingenious, right? Saves energy, and saves money.
An interesting aside...you can imagine that the leader in thermostat sales for all these years, Honeywell, wasn't too happy with a new kid on the block, so they tried to say that Nest was infringing on basically every patent they own. They've done the same thing with a few other companies so Nest wasn't surprised. Their court response is actually quite funny...
Stay tuned...I'll start to post some of the data on this thing in 6 months or so.
