Nest thermostat: nuisance or practicality?
I’ve never got around setting up my thermostat to fit my schedule. Partially because setting it up is not something that can be done easily without a manual. But also because my schedule isn’t as fixed as my thermostat would want it to be. Maybe i should look into buying a smarter thermostat such as the one Nest is currently launching in Europe.
The thermostat is praised for its very simple user interface. It has some really cool features such as lighting up only when someone is around and of course it’s learning abilities. All you have to do is modify the temperature to your desired temperature and gradually the thermostat will learn when you want the heat turned up and down. It takes a couple of days to learn a new schedule but that’s as easy as what you would do with a regular thermostat anyhow: just turn the heat up or down. Seems like a good idea doesn’t it?
Though I’m also having second thoughts certainly for the $250 price tag it currently has. Do you actually save money and energy? I read a whole lot of reviews going both ways. Some say it works splendidly and earns the investment back in a couple of months while others find that it actually costs them money. Also what if the thermostat guesses wrong? The tester in this article mentions that he feels like he is controlled by the thermostat more than the other way around. Maybe if a GPS module is used that it would be more accurate but this comes at the cost of privacy. And security is already an issue for me since you can access it from anywhere with your smart phone. How secure is this really?
So for now I won’t be buying one but I do see a lot of potential in it. Some improvements will have to be made but i will keep my eyes peeled for future generations of this kind of smart thermostats.
