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Nest Learning Thermostat Cuts Energy Use, Looks Awesome, Has Apps

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A thermostat shouldn’t excite me this much, but I can’t help but want the new Nest Learning Thermostat.

Designed by the former iPod creator, the Nest Learning Thermostat looks great, but that’s not why I am so excited about our heating and cooling future.

The $250 programmable thermostat ditches the hard to navigate and program controls of most programmable thermostats for a simple dial behavior and an intelligence factor that might make you think Siri is controlling your home.

In the promo video below, you can see how Nest learns and get a look at some of the features.

https://youtu.be/QCJ1PnVlzIE

Nest Learning Thermostat

Nest Learning Thermostat - Heating

The Nest Learning Thermostat learns your habits and temperature preferences so that it can automatically adjust heat and cooling based on your preferences, but also help you save money by identifying when you don’t need the same temperature held. Inside, Nest uses the following technology to keep your home at the right temperature;

  • Activity sensors to set to Auto-Away mode after 2 hours
  • Three temperature sensors for more accurate temps.
  • Weather Aware – uses Wifi to be away of changes in outside temp, that impact in home temperature

In addition to simplifying the setup and making it easy to change temperature on the fly, the Nest Learning Thermostat is able to use advances in power consumption to work with more home heating and cooling systems, without the need for a dedicated power wire. This is one of the limitations of the $99 WiFi connected thermostat that caught my eye previously. You can check to see if your heating system is compatible with Nest by popping the cover off and selecting your wires on the next website. Nest claims that the Nest is easy to install, but also offers local installers for those who want help.

Here’s a look at how Nest learns more about your heating and cooling needs;

In addition to learning from your behaviors and sensing when people are home, Nest also can be controlled by your iPhone, Android, Tablet or notebook. This lets you change your home temperature from wherever you happen to be.

I only hope that the team finds a way to bring even more home automation direct to the consumer like this. I would love to take control of my home lighting with my phone, but most home automation systems are geared towards contractors and builders, and leave consumers, even tech minded ones, confused.

Nest is available for preorder on Nest.com and at Best Buy for $250, and should start shipping in November.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    10/25/2011 at 8:38 pm

    Whoa! $250? Looks like a great product, but it had better save a LOT of energy.

    • Xavier Lanier

      10/26/2011 at 12:09 am

      $250 sounds like a lot to me too, but it could pay for itself pretty quickly if you have a high energy bill. 

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