The Third Generation Nest Thermostat

https://nest.com/thermostat/meet-nest-thermostat

by jacobsimon • 11 years ago

41 59 11 years ago

ape4• 11 years ago

In the video you seem to stick it to your wall. Is that really how its done?

ceejayoz2• 11 years ago

You're sticking it to the backplate, which holds the wires that run to your furnace. No difference between v2 and v3 in this - the video shows it.

Someone12346• 11 years ago

You wire a plastic Nest bracket up[0], the bracket redirects the inputs, and when you place the Nest into the bracket it makes the correct contacts with the back of the thermostat.

Wiring up a Nest isn't too bad, you just need the precious C wire. Most of these fancy thermostats require the C wire for electrical power, and many homes lack it. They have a work around, but it requires re-wiring and you lose some functionality (do not recommend).

PS - No idea why nobody offers an AC adapter as an alternative to the C wire. All the C does is provide electrical power anyway...

[0] The middle white thing: http://i.imgur.com/kNUPqvF.jpg

hvjackson• 11 years ago

You don't need a C wire for the Nest, although if you have one it's recommended to use it. The Nest has a small internal battery and can trickle-charge from the R and W wires.

jtoberon2• 11 years ago

FWIW, the Lux Geo can run on on 24VAC, AA batteries, or micro-USB. I don't know how long the batteries last though.

There are lots of reasons why most fancy thermostats need a lot of power. For example, a fancy screen is hungry, WiFi is an expensive protocol (e.g. as compared to ZWave), etc.. Compare the Lux screen to the Nest, and you'll see at least one reason why they think they can get away with batteries.

Another option, patented by Honeywell I think, is called "power stealing." Here's an interesting article on the subject: https://www.ecobee.com/2014/01/the-problem-with-power-steali....

function_seven• 11 years ago

They have a work around, but it requires re-wiring and you lose some functionality (do not recommend).

Are you talking about re-purposing the G wire to become the C wire? I had to do that just recently, and I lost the ability to cycle the fan on by itself (without calling for heat or cooling). Not a big loss in my opinion, but my system is dead simple.

The most infuriating thing about it is that the previous HVAC installer cut the fifth wire off instead of sparing it out.

Someone12346• 11 years ago

Meh.

Nest largely created this market, and their product is fine. But since the Nest appeared their competitors have upped their game and in my opinion overtaken the Nest. For example the "Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat," same price as the Nest, arguably easier to use, and doesn't require a third party app or website to get basic things done.

Nest might win awards for simplicity and design, and it is still better than traditional black & white thermostats with push buttons, but it definitely isn't leading the market at this point, in fact I'd argue Nest is sacrificing the user experience for the sake of that design.

I can teach my grandparents to use the Honeywell Smart Thermostat, I cannot say the same about Nest beyond the basics.

toomuchtodo5• 11 years ago

Disagree. I still give the Nest away to family members and friends because of how simple it is to use.

Does the Honeywell integrate with your utility to provide you rebates if you use their load shedding program? Does it have AirWave (the nest calculates how long it can keep running a fan over cold coils after shutting the compressor down to keep cooling your home while saving energy)? Does it integrate with Google Now? Does it show you the history of your heating or air conditioning over the last 7 days? Does it have an API you can interface with?

My 86 year old Grandmother loves her Nest. If she can use it, anyone can. Nest second place in the market. Puh-lease!

Someone12346• 11 years ago

I still give the Nest away to family members and friends because of how simple it is to use.

The tap through menus are anything but pleasant. Just watch this video:

https://youtu.be/YD3DfoJ3TVw?t=7m24s

To use a phone analogy it is like using a Nokia 3100 to write text messages, tap tap tap A, tap tap tap B, tap tap tap C. You have to do this literally in some cases to set the name.

Contrast that with this:

https://youtu.be/CmvX6YgAqMI?t=1m18s

To use the phone analogy once again, this is like using an iPhone to write text messages.

One is a modern accessible UX not dissimilar from a smartphone, the other is clunky and dated, you're working around limitations of the physical design.

Does the Honeywell integrate with your utility to provide you rebates if you use their load shedding program?

Neither the Nest or Honeywell do.

Does it have AirWave, integrate with Google Now, an API

It is a thermostat. It might have some of these, but they're beyond the scope of what I expect or would use from either one.

It does offer history, most smart thermostats do.

Nest second place in the market. Puh-lease!

That's what people said about Blackberry too. I think touchscreen interfaces are a proven technology that consumers love.

The Nest could come back from this, they can offer additional product lines that address what their competitors are doing.

Some people legitimately do want a minimalist product. There is a real market for that. Others want a straight forward product with an iPad-like UX.

joezydeco2• 11 years ago

Does the Honeywell integrate with your utility to provide you rebates if you use their load shedding program?

Are you saying the Nest now has direct integration with utility real-time programs, or is this just a rebate check you get from your utility for buying the setback thermostat?

fancyketchup• 11 years ago

That's a silly question. Of course it doesn't have AirWave. AirWave is Nest's trademarked name for the very simple technology of continuing to run the fan a bit after the compressor has switched off.

But even old cheap digital thermostats with chicklet keys know to run the fan after turning off the furnace or AC[1].

[1] http://inspectapedia.com/heat/Thermostat_FAN_Switch.php

venomsnake2• 11 years ago

The only thing you really need for a perfect thermostat is a 10GBP PID controller, thermoprobe and SSR.

And your Grandma won't even have to use it because it will maintain perfect 22C all year long due to its dual cooling/heating outputs.

pasbesoin• 11 years ago

IIRC, Honeywell (I'm pretty sure, but it might have been a different major manufacturer) recently had some pretty serious security vulnerabilities with some of their models.

aaronbrethorst• 11 years ago

Huh, I worked on that thermostat (or a prototype with a similar feature set) at Honeywell in 2003 right after graduating from college. Given how dysfunctional the company seemed to be, I'm not surprised it would take them a decade to ship.

simoes• 11 years ago

What exactly are the main differences here between this third gen and the previous version?

dionidium3• 11 years ago

I'm wondering the same. All I can get from the marketing copy are the following:

* "It’s slimmer and sleeker with a bigger, sharper display"

* "Now the Nest Thermostat does something new. It’s called Farsight and it lights up to show you the temperature you’ve set or the time. You can even choose a digital or analog clock face."

Someone12346• 11 years ago

You can see comparison images of the three here:

https://nest.com/support/article/How-can-I-tell-which-Nest-L...

They appear to have both reduced the brazel size and increased the display's size. Additionally it is a little thinner than the 2nd gen and massively thinner than the 1st gen.

Definitely an improvement at the same price point.

S_A_P2• 11 years ago

I have 2 of the second gen nests. There is a plate that installs on the wall(with screws and attaches to the wire), then it kind of snaps into place on the mount. It feels pretty substantial, and I don't worry that it will pop off inadvertently. So while the nest itself is nicely built, I feel like the wall plate is kind of chintzy and doesn't really look "professional".

jasonellis• 11 years ago

The wall plate is only needed if your drywall is already has a large cutout. When I took my old thermostat off the hole was small enough that I just painted around it and was able to mount the Nest without the mounting plate. I agree, it doesn't look quite as good with the mounting plate.

S_A_P2• 11 years ago

agreed, and my wall did have an unnecessarily large cut out(house was built in 78 and it had some monstrous analog thermostat on it).

ocdtrekkie4• 11 years ago

It's definitely better without the plate, but if you have a giant hole in your drywall, or it's not painted there, or what-have-you, it's nice to have the option in the interim.

Frozenlock• 11 years ago

Like Aral Balkan said... "dumb fucks"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh8supIUj6c&feature=youtu.be...

tcfunk• 11 years ago

It's worth noting that the "dumb fucks" thing was apparently taken from a Mark Zuckerberg quote.

e28eta• 11 years ago

Still no HomeKit support? Worst part of the Google acquisition, IMO. I've actually considered replacing my Nest with one of their competitors that does support HomeKit.

I set up SiriProxy a couple years ago, mainly for the Nest support. I think that broke with iOS 7 though.

antimatter• 11 years ago

Can anyone with a Nest tell me if it's possible to turn off all the smart features and turn it into a dumb on/off switch? I really like the design but don't care for any of the complicated smart features and would much rather be able manually control it from my phone. I recall that this was not possible with reviews of the first gen Nest.

knz• 11 years ago

Yes you can do that. The app and hardware let you set it to either heat, cool, heat/cool, or off. There are probably cheaper ways to do this (IoT hub + zwave controller?).

josephwegner• 11 years ago

Yes, you can, very simply. Just turn off learning and don't put in any schedule.

iijj• 11 years ago

Yes, there are individual settings to turn off the 'Sense' features like the learning-schedule, auto-away.

If you literally mean using it as an on/off switch... I don't think you can do that without just cranking the temp between min and max. There is a function to run the furnace fan for X minutes, but you can't directly tell it to run the heating and AC for a period of time.

ghaff2• 11 years ago

What is the failure mode of a Nest these days? i.e. if it crashes or otherwise has a failure what mode does it default to? This isn't a purely theoretical concern as I know someone who had an older Nest fail and they said it defaulted to just being off. I'm sure this is a rare event (and could theoretically happen with any thermostat or the furnace itself of course) but living in the Northeast and traveling a lot I hesitate to introduce anything into my furnace control system that could increase the potential probability of failure.

john_b• 11 years ago

What failure mode would you want, if not off? Having a failed sensor+controller control temperature in any way isn't what I'd want. One could have a backup thermostat as a fallback, but I doubt their average customer wants anything that complicated.

ghaff2• 11 years ago

I'd want it to failsafe to some sensible minimum temperature: 65 degrees F or whatever.

jellicle• 11 years ago

The problem is that a failure mode of "off", in the winter, in cold climates, means you come home to $30,000 of water damage and pipe replacement which probably won't be covered by home insurance.

The "fail safe" mode here needs to be "maintain moderate temperatures, neither burning nor freezing". Simple mechanical thermostats do this extremely well.

achr2• 11 years ago

I have a nest and like it, but the issue that I hope they have fixed is the inability to calibrate the temperature against a secondary thermometer. This is a major issue as the device is designed to work with a large span of voltages that cause significantly different internal heat dissipation. On a friend's older 35v system, the nest read around 26°C when the room was in fact closer to 22.

lvs• 11 years ago

Why does anyone need a bigger display on their thermostat? In fact, having a dedicated display at all is only vaguely justifiable, since we all have displays in our pockets, on our walls, etc.

ocdtrekkie4• 11 years ago

They specifically said they went with a larger display so they can detect when you enter the room and display the temperature in a font size you can see from anywhere in said room.

tgb• 11 years ago

But why would I want that? I only check my thermostat if I think it's misbehaving. Does the Nest misbehave that much?

datahack• 11 years ago

I was really hoping to see software upgrades available to existing nest customers.

I don't need a thinner version with a larger screen (it's nice, but it's not a smartphone and I don't think most people will care).

Tesla gives you a better car with ota firmware updates. How come a thermostat startup with Google's resources can't do the same thing or better?

makeitsuckless• 11 years ago

Still doesn't support OpenTherm, and therefor useless (or at least of limited use) for much of Europe.

The Third Generation Nest Thermostat

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