There’s been a barrage of media coverage about the “Nest” smart thermostat and home automation system over the last few years, peaking when Google bought the 4-year old company for $3.2 billion dollars in cash in 2014.
You may not have paid a lot of attention to the coverage, unless you wanted to redesign your house as a “smart home” – or you’re simply a tech geek. After all, most houses have thermostats that work just fine.
The quick growth and technological evolution of Nest, though, has turned the product into a “must-have” product for any modern home. Here’s a closer look at the reasons why.
What is a “Learning Thermostat?”
The short answer is that Nest is more than a programmable thermostat. It pays attention to your actions and movements. If you turn the temperature up or down at the same time each day, Nest’s software “learns” your normal routine and plans a schedule to do it automatically for you. If you want the heat to be on when you wake up, you just tell Nest what time you’ll be getting out of bed; the system checks the current temperature and determines how long it will take the house to warm up, and then calculates the right time to kick on the furnace.
There’s a lot more. Nest can tell when you leave for the day and will turn down the heat or air conditioning automatically, and turn it back up when it expects you to return. Going to get home a little early? You can access Nest from your Android smartphone or device, wherever you are, to turn on the AC before you get to the house. It can also use your zip code to gauge conditions and change temperature settings for you automatically.
As you can see, this smart, learning thermostat system is tremendously convenient and will save you big bucks on your energy bill. It even shows you an icon when your heat or AC is set to the proper temperature to save money, and shows you daily charts of energy consumption. But there’s lot more to Nest than that.
Whole-Home Automation
Nest also manufactures smoke and carbon dioxide detectors, as well as the Nest Cam home security system which lets you watch what’s going on inside your house while you’re away, through an app on your phone. You’d expect that these devices can work hand-in-hand with your Nest thermostat, and you’d be right.
However, Nest also plays well with an enormous range of other home automation systems and devices, all easily identified because they’re part of the “Works With Nest” program. For example, you can link a Lutron lighting control system to Nest and set things up so that the device turns on your lights at the same time it warms up the house in the morning, or turns off both the heat and the lights when you head off to work each day.
You can also have Nest control your home appliances, so it will start the coffeemaker when it turns on the heat or turn on the washing machine when your home’s overall energy consumption is lowest. Plus $85 from ConEdison. Home theater operation and motorized shading systems can be automated through Nest, too.
DTV Installations can provide an entire Nest system for you. We can set it up to work by itself, or integrate it with all of the other components in your house to provide whole-home automation, at a very reasonable cost - just $99 for installation if we supply the equipment as well – that you’ll quickly recover with your daily energy savings. You might be able to get a discount on your home insurance, too. Give us a call to set up a free visit, inspection and proposal, and we’ll show you how you can make your home Nest-friendly and energy efficient.
