Nest Thermostat Added to Apple Online Store

This is fancy thermostat but the one I have now is just fine. Programmable and it's simple to use once you learn how to use it. If you can install this thing yourself, you can program the common programmable thermostats - it's really ironic to say this thing is so easy to use while other thermostats are too hard and confusing to use (non-intuitive) but you can install this yourself??

I would not hesitate to buy it in a heartbeat but the $249 price tag is way too high. If it was $99, I would snatch it up. $149 tops to include wifi capabilities.

And I don't have A/C, I only use the heater 6 months out of the whole year and no thermostat including this one will reduce your natural gas bills - it's just common sense to RUN YOUR FURNACE LESS to reduce the bills! You can do that with any thermostat on the market and ones that are $20.

redscull said:

I've never understood why all thermostats offer programmability when it's such a pointless feature. What would be infinitely more useful is also exceedingly simpler: min and max. Does this thermostat have that feature?

e.g. I want to put in just two numbers. 68f and 76f. If the temperature in the house is ever below 68f, I want it to be heated up to 68f. If the house is ever above 76f, I want it cooled down to 76f. Obviously, no action needed while temp is between 68f and 76f.

What's annoying is having to manually toggle a thermostat between cool and heat and having to adjust the target temp accordingly. Or I can set it to auto but then it only takes one number. For budget (and comfort) concerns, I don't want to pick a number in between 68f and 76f that solves for both heating and cooling; there is no perfect number.

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It has a range mode, though I think it turns off auto learn if you use it. The away mode uses the range mode (extremes) to set temp of the house.

PracticalMac said:

Now, I wonder why no wired version?

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You mean as far as connecting to a network? Probably due to how people are unlikely to have a network cable running to their thermostat.

Damn, I need one of these.
My bills go up to $200 p/month during winter. If I can save at least $50 that would pay this thing after few months.

NAG said:

You mean as far as connecting to a network? Probably due to how people are unlikely to have a network cable running to their thermostat.

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Well I've seen in some houses people running ethernet cables to TVs and refrigerators. Now they will be running ethernet cables to their thermostats LOL.

I wonder when will they start putting wifi/ethernet in litter boxes so you know when to change them? Would love to get an email from my cats during the day .

kingtj said:

I don't know about you? But in my house, I find people are constantly pressing the temp up/down buttons on my thermostat to override the current programmed settings if they feel it's "too hot" or "too cold" -- making the fixed schedule less useful.

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Never happens in my household. Guess the weather is a little erratic where you are. Here we pretty much have cold weather for 8 months, mild weather for 3 months and hot weather for 1 month (if we're lucky).

Sorry...still dont get it. It may be a 'big deal' in the US, but outside...not so much. It's still $250 just for the ability to set the temperature of your thermostat and have your thermostat turn off when you're not home. A heavily overpriced product. $99 would be a lot more realistic...seriously, this thing is not the second coming, its a thermostat. If it hadn't been made by an ex-Apple employee I highly doubt we'd be having this discussion.

OrangeSVTguy said:

Well I've seen in some houses people running ethernet cables to TVs and refrigerators. Now they will be running ethernet cables to their thermostats LOL.

I wonder when will they start putting wifi/ethernet in litter boxes so you know when to change them? Would love to get an email from my cats during the day .

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I thought they already had wifi enabled cat litter boxes that self clean. And they do have wifi enabled cat messaging systems too so your cat can text you through out the day about what it is "thinking" (includes a picture of what it looks at).

rmwebs said:

Never happens in my household. Guess the weather is a little erratic where you are. Here we pretty much have cold weather for 8 months, mild weather for 3 months and hot weather for 1 month (if we're lucky).

Sorry...still dont get it. It may be a 'big deal' in the US, but outside...not so much. It's still $250 just for the ability to set the temperature of your thermostat and have your thermostat turn off when you're not home. A heavily overpriced product. $99 would be a lot more realistic...seriously, this thing is not the second coming, its a thermostat. If it hadn't been made by an ex-Apple employee I highly doubt we'd be having this discussion.

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It has nothing to do with erratic weather. It's a programmable thermostat. It saves money and energy by adjusting the temperature when you are away from the house or sleeping. It is far more user friendly than other programmable thermostats, so it's actually more likely to be used for these reasons.

If you don't care about saving money or energy over your current setup, it's not for you. If you are diligent about adjusting the thermostat on your own and don't want it to happen automatically, it's not for you. If you are conformable using a traditional programmable thermostat and don't see the advantage of the added features, it's not for you.

kingtj said:

What really makes it beneficial is its "intelligent" capabilities. Unlike my $40 programmable thermostat at home now, I'm not stuck entering a series of temperatures for fixed times on a schedule -- one for "heat", and another whole set for "cool".

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Just a couple of points... yes you don't have to enter a schedule, but if you are living on a fixed schedule like most people do won't the Nest adapt to the same schedule anyhow? I suppose there is also the motion sensor so if you do leave and forget to hit the "away" button it will do it for you, but what if your thermostat isn't in a perfect place to detect motion all the time?

Second my $50 programmable Robertshaw has an auto change-over from Heat to AC or vise versa. If the heat builds up over a certain amount of degrees it will change-over to AC and if the AC drops past a certain point the heat will be activated. It is also smart enough to calculate how much time is needed to raise or lower the temp so recovery is finished when the set time hits. Not bad for $50.

Yes I agree mine doesn't look as nice nor does it "learn" however I can do a pretty good job of programming it to the point that I don't think the Nest would really save me tons of energy over my current one. I mean it would take years and years to ever make back the additional $200. In fact one might never make it back.

I'm not saying that it isn't a cool gadget and doesn't look cool on a wall, but trying to argue that this thing is really going to save some serious energy over a current Energy Star programable is a stretch. If spending $250 on something like this makes you happy then by all means go for it. Heck I spend money all the time because I think something is cool even if the benefits it provides are little over something else that costs a lot less.

Cats and dogs and couch potatoes

Is the thing smart enough to know that I am home but not moving? Watching tv or having a snooze on the couch, for example?

Is the thing smart enough to know that I am away but my dog is doing laps around the living room and does not need the heat on?

If not than I am gonna have to babysit it almost as much as the $20 manual thermostat I have right now and, in some cases it will waste energy instead of saving it.

Bummer. Spoke with Nest today, it doesn't support two-stage systems (just installed a Trane HVAC system in 2010). They may include this in future hardware releases.

kingtj said:

The remote programming capability is actually just a minor benefit of the Nest, as far as I've been able to tell.

What really makes it beneficial is its "intelligent" capabilities. Unlike my $40 programmable thermostat at home now, I'm not stuck entering a series of temperatures for fixed times on a schedule -- one for "heat", and another whole set for "cool".

Rather, the Nest actually uses a built-in microphone to "hear" when everything is silent for a period of time -- indicating people aren't home, or everyone's sound asleep, and can use that information to decide it's time to save a little energy on heating or cooling.

Additionally, by people simply adjusting the current temp. up or down a bit, whenever they want to -- it learns patterns and programs its own rules based on them.

I don't know about you? But in my house, I find people are constantly pressing the temp up/down buttons on my thermostat to override the current programmed settings if they feel it's "too hot" or "too cold" -- making the fixed schedule less useful.

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The Nest can be locked with pin to avoid anyone from changing the temp if they
Don't have the pin number.

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After I installed two Nest Thermostats today, I discover that the old thermostat I had upstairs was faulty. That thermostat would turn on the ac every 7 minutes, when the outside temp was like 80 degrees. The Nest keeps it off about 30 or more minutes and the space is cool through that hold time. I have been robbed for two years with that thing.

bedifferent said:

Bummer. Spoke with Nest today, it doesn't support two-stage systems (just installed a Trane HVAC system in 2010). They may include this in future hardware releases.

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You have two stage cooling?

Ok? Why is this thermostat in the iOS blog? I know it has an app but this is just too irrelevant. MacRumors needs a new section of all non-Mac, non-iOS devices. Things like this just get in my way for what I am really looking for is all.

appleaddictx said:

Ok? Why is this thermostat in the iOS blog?

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It was designed by Tony Fadell who designed the iPod.

Wow, after these two back-to-back thermostat posts, I'll never make fun of obscure iPhone part photo leak posts again.

diamond.g said:

You have two stage cooling?

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Yup. I spoke with a rep on the phone who talked be through the wiring on my thermostat. They don't support Y2, Y3, W2, W3, etc.

I've had one since a month before the official launch (had early access).

It's made a very material impact on my electric bill, which wasn't exactly high to begin with (average $50/mo). It'll definitely pay for itself in 2 to 2 1/2 years despite the small size and high-efficiency of my living space. The "airwave" feature was a nice touch in the recent Spring upgrade, as the A/C compressor runs a lot less, with the fan just circulating the cold air around to achieve the same temperature.

What's useful, however, are the reports. The thing has 256MB of memory, and they're starting to use some of it. It's nice to see how I compare to other nest users in my area on metrics, as well as the other trends. Plus, the leaf is a good reinforcing tool that coaxes me into giving a second thought as to whether I really need it at that temperature, of if I'm already comfortable and could instead be saving a buck.

For the record, I don't give a pig's ass about any greenness. For me, it's just about saving money over time and not having something ugly on the wall. Additionally, it really was "set it and forget it". I had to touch it the first 2 or 3 days, and for the first 2 or 3 days after spring rolled around. Aside from that initial learning, I can count the number of times I've adjusted the thermostat on one hand. Not having to ever adjust the thermostat and just have the place always be comfortable is a big plus.

Personally I really like it, looks, design, UI, use of the fact it will be hands-off after a week or so of teaching it new things then you don't have to worry about your bills going down as it will do this for you. I do really like it!

newdeal said:

Will the control a geothermal system with 3 stage heat and 2 stage cooling? My thermostat sucks and while I don't need it to turn up and down (that isn't good for geothermal) I would like to control it with an app. Also does it control humidity as well?

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No. The Nest cannot control 2+ stage systems.

I know.... that seriously sucks.

Everyone in Florida who has a reasonably new system has 2 stage cooling. And, I would say that Florida is the type of climate where there would be a lot of benefit to having the Nest.

Oh well, I will probably just stick with the manually programmable Trane thermostat.

subterFUSE said:

No. The Nest cannot control 2+ stage systems.

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There's always THIS ONE : "The Advanced 7-Day Programmable Thermostat is compatible with up to 3-stage heat and 2-stage cool and can be used with gas/electric, electric, and hydronic heat as well as heat pumps."

If you add THIS adapter, you can control your thermostat with an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch using a home automation solution such as Perceptive Automation's Indigo .

Granted it isn't round

The Apple store for Canada doesn't show it.

Doesn't matter, as soon as I heard that Nest was now selling them online for Canada I ordered one.
Can't wait to install this and see what happens. Now my wife can stop complaining on how she can't understand current digital thermostat. Now she can just turn the ring up or down. Easy-peasy

appleaddictx said:

Ok? Why is this thermostat in the iOS blog? I know it has an app but this is just too irrelevant. MacRumors needs a new section of all non-Mac, non-iOS devices. Things like this just get in my way for what I am really looking for is all.

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Would you prefer more NASCAR stories?

rdowns said:

Would you prefer more NASCAR stories?

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There is a "Apple TV and Home Theater" topic, how about a "Mac OS/iOS and Home Automation" topic?

Aeolius said:

There is a "Apple TV and Home Theater" topic, how about a "Mac OS/iOS and Home Automation" topic?

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That's a sub-forum for members to create threads. MR doesn't post news stories there. A homr automation sub-forum woul dbe a great idea as more products become available.