Nest's $39 Room Temperature Sensors Now Available to Order

[MacRumors]

Nest's new Temperature Sensor, which works with the company's latest Learning Thermostat and the Thermostat E, is available to buy online from today.

The battery-powered, inch-wide sensors are designed to be placed in different rooms around the house where they silently monitor how warm or cold it is.

The white puck-shaped sensors continually relay this information to the companion thermostat, which responds by adjusting the central heating system to keep those rooms at the temperature level the user specified.

Nest started taking pre-orders for the Temperature Sensor in March, but is now selling them direct from the website. Each sensor costs $39, or $99 for a three-pack, and comes with wall mounting screws and up to 2 years of battery life. Up to six sensors are supported per connected thermostat, and up to 18 are supported per home.

Customers looking to pick up a Nest Learning Thermostat or Nest Thermostat E can also order the Temperature Sensor as part of a bundle pack, which gets them $20 or $10 off the standard price for a single sensor, respectively.

Nest products don't integrate with Apple's HomeKit setup, but are popular competing connected home solutions. See the Nest website for more details.

Article Link: Nest's $39 Room Temperature Sensors Now Available to Order

 

[wardo5757]

Does the Nest work with Homekit yet?

 

[hagar]

I don’t understand how this works. How can these sensors control the individual temperature of rooms when there’s a centralised heating system controlled by the Nest thermostat.

Does it keep heating/cooling under the highest/lowest temp of all sensors has been reached? Or is it smarter than that?

[doublepost=1525346113][/doublepost]

Does the Nest work with Homekit yet?

No. Read the last line. And I guess they never will. It’s not like HomeKit is the defacto platform for smart homes. Apple is giving that position away to Alexa.

 

[pdoobs]

so now nest has something it’s main competitor has included for years and it’s not even bundling them? not to mention this this is never going to be HomeKit compatible.

 

[fjfjfjfj]

I don’t understand how this works. How can these sensors control the individual temperature of rooms when there’s a centralised heating system controlled by the Nest thermostat.

Does it keep heating/cooling under the highest/lowest temp of all sensors has been reached? Or is it smarter than that?

[doublepost=1525346113][/doublepost]
No. Read the last line. And I guess they never will. It’s not like HomeKit is the defacto platform for smart homes. Apple is giving that position away to Alexa.

It doesn’t control the temperature in each room where there is a sensor, it just uses the temperature reading from that room to control the entire house. So the room you’re in will be the temperature you set, but the rest of the house will potentially be hotter or colder than that set point. It’s more convenient if your thermostat is upstairs say and during the evening you want to be comfortable downstairs you can have it read downstairs and then when you go to bed read upstairs so it’s comfortable in the sleeping rooms. Hope that makes sense.

 

[xinam]

*But not in the UK.

 

[IGI2]

No HomeKit, no buy.

 

[Kognito]

No. Read the last line. And I guess they never will. It’s not like HomeKit is the defacto platform for smart homes. Apple is giving that position away to Alexa.

I wouldn’t be so sure about never. Nest didn’t want to pay to put Apple’s HomeKit authentication chip in their devices (I don’t blame them) and it’s only been with iOS 11.3 that software authentication has become an option.

9to5Mac reported that Nest were open to supporting HomeKit once software authentication was available, in the same way that they opened up support to Alexa.

I think the chances are better than ever that we’ll see HomeKit support for Nest products.

 

[hagar]

It doesn’t control the temperature in each room where there is a sensor, it just uses the temperature reading from that room to control the entire house. So the room you’re in will be the temperature you set, but the rest of the house will potentially be hotter or colder than that set point. It’s more convenient if your thermostat is upstairs say and during the evening you want to be comfortable downstairs you can have it read downstairs and then when you go to bed read upstairs so it’s comfortable in the sleeping rooms. Hope that makes sense.

Actually, it doesn't. With a centralised heating system the heaters in all rooms are pretty much configured so that they reach the temperature you want when the system is on. So the whole house is comfortable. An individual sensor does not contribute anything in my opinion. It's vastly inferior to a system that controls the individual heaters.

 

[splitpea]

"Temperature sensor" ... so, expensive digitally connected thermometer?

 

[picaman]

I got one of these for $19 during their ramp up and have had one for a while. I don’t have zones in my HVAC so basically I put this on my 2nd floor bedroom wall, and it keeps the temperature there at the setting for the thermostat downstairs. You can program the default unit for different times of the day.

 

[hagar]

I wouldn’t be so sure about never. Nest didn’t want to pay to put Apple’s HomeKit authentication chip in their devices (I don’t blame them) and it’s only been with iOS 11.3 that software authentication has become an option.

9to5Mac reported that Nest were open to supporting HomeKit in the same way that they opened up support to Alexa.

I think the chances are better than ever that we’ll see HomeKit support for Nest products.

I hope you're right. I have homebridge running on a Raspberry Pi but native support would even be better.
But to be honest: it's not that useful. I have already removed most of our HomeKit devices (Hue lights, Elgato sensors) because it's just not practical. iOS Scenes and Automation are too limited. A smart light switch would make more sense than a smart light at this point. And the iOS app and Siri integration are buggy and user unfriendly. I hope iOS 12 improves the platform to a usable state.

 

[Piggie]

Actually, it doesn't. With a centralised heating system the heaters in all rooms are pretty much configured so that they reach the temperature you want when the system is on. So the whole house is comfortable. An individual sensor does not contribute anything in my opinion. It's vastly inferior to a system that controls the individual heaters.

Given that a lot of plumbing, (most in the UK) is a central boiler which pumps water around pipes and into a radiator in each room.
To have what you wish, would mean a power point near every radiator with a motorized, connected to a thermostat elsewhere in the room, so the central system can vary the water flow to the radiator contactly dependent upon the temperature.

Not many are going to wish to do all of that set-up

 

[hagar]

Given that a lot of plumbing, (most in the UK) is a central boiler which pumps water around pipes and into a radiator in each room.
To have what you wish, would mean a power point near every radiator with a motorized, connected to a thermostat elsewhere in the room, so the central system can vary the water flow to the radiator contactly dependent upon the temperature.

Not many are going to wish to do all of that set-up

Or you buy this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evohome-HR924UK-Wireless-Radiator-Multi/dp/B01L4P4YKQ
Not very good looking, but seems way more efficient if zoning is what you're after. And it's homekit compliant.

 

[toph2toast]

so now nest has something it’s main competitor has included for years and it’s not even bundling them? not to mention this this is never going to be HomeKit compatible.

Just curious to who the main competitors to Nest are. I'm looking to replace the 2 thermostats at my house in the next month or 2.

 

[Boatboy24]

Just curious to who the main competitors to Nest are. I'm looking to replace the 2 thermostats at my house in the next month or 2.

Ecobee has a great product. At least that's what my research determined. Ultimately, I was unable to install one because of the proprietary nature of my system.

 

[brucewayne]

Nest is offering a thermostat / sensor bundle on their website.

It doesn't appear to have a motion sensor. So you have to program it for when you think you will be in a room in comparison to the ecobee which can 'follow' you around the house.

 

[MacOH21]

Have had similar functionality through my ecobee for a couple years. Does a good job of regulating temperature. You can basically set up zones for where you want the temperature read from, what days or time of days to ignore, etc. Very helpful.

Another cool feature: It's an occupancy sensor that you can tie into other automations.

 

[brucewayne]

Just curious to who the main competitors to Nest are. I'm looking to replace the 2 thermostats at my house in the next month or 2.

I agree with the ecobee. I have a '3' has been solid for several years.. Only main issue I have is that if you unregister it from your ecobee account (say for troubleshooting) you lose all of your historical data

 

[diipii]

My "temperature sensor" is a thermostat and came included with the heating boiler or "Centigrade calibrated liquid temperature gradient inducer and non cooling distribution evoker". I might need to re-imagine that last bit or I could get super excited.

 

[aristobrat]

Actually, it doesn't. With a centralised heating system the heaters in all rooms are pretty much configured so that they reach the temperature you want when the system is on. So the whole house is comfortable. An individual sensor does not contribute anything in my opinion. It's vastly inferior to a system that controls the individual heaters.

Actually, it does... at least for the majority of the houses here in the US that don't use the style of heating that you have.

Maybe it's because most of the country here also uses centralized air conditioning (so most systems here are forced air), but the type of system you're talking about <with a heater in every room> is rare here.

 

[Jacquesass]

We have 3 Nest thermostats and recently bought the pre-order 3-pack of sensors. They work well for their limited function.

We put one each in our children’s rooms, which lets us both monitor the temp in their rooms and let’s us set the thermostat by one of their rooms (we had a significant difference between the temp in the hall and the temp in their rooms when their doors were closed). The third is in the master, which lets the trigger for the HVAC to change from the living room to our bedroom at night.

Unfortunately, the sensors don’t work with older Nest thermostats.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Just curious to who the main competitors to Nest are. I'm looking to replace the 2 thermostats at my house in the next month or 2.

I have an Ecobee 4. It's great. Comes with the temp sensor and is Homekit compatible, the lack of the latter being why Nest products are complete non-starters for me at this point.

 

[belvdr]

Actually, it does... at least for the majority of the houses here in the US that don't use the style of heating that you have.

Maybe it's because most of the country here also uses centralized air conditioning (so most systems here are forced air), but the type of system you're talking about <with a heater in every room> is rare here.

With a central system, it can make one room comfortable and other rooms uncomfortable, such as multi-story structures. I could see this freezing the lower level to make the upstairs comfortable during summer. I would prefer implementing a zoned system that actually does what this wants to do.

 

[bbeers]

I have been doing this for a while except with SensorPush http://www.sensorpush.com
It monitors Temp and Humidity, and charts everything. The Nest is surprisingly cheaper, but doesn't appear to have a humidity sensor in it.

I use it to monitor the environmental status of some large format printers. I get an alert when the printer is out of operating conditions, so I can shut them down to save the equipment.