My Nest thermostat is saving me $30 a month

[alkemyst]

Don't see the point in it either. When people are home, the thermostat is set to 75. When we leave, we up it to 80 or so. I'm not seeing how this would theoretically save me money. Yea, it learns... whatever. Still not worth $250, when a $50 programmable thermostat does the same damn thing.

It has to do with chasing temps.

 

[alkemyst]

No point in us getting one... entire house is f*cking retarded and opens the windows while AC is on all the time.

Reasoning is that "we have to let the hot air get out" and "we have to manually help control the temperature and ignore the programmable thermostat".

I went to graduate school with half my degree in building sciece. My mind is blown. FML.

life in the retard academy?

 

[Tim]

life in the retard academy?

Why you're allowed to post here is beyond me.

 

[iamwiz82]

If someone likes this thermostat but doesn't want to spend the $, you may want to check out the Filtrete 3M50, or other thermostats made by RTCoA. Includes built-in wifi and has nearly all of the features of the nest, save for the design and learning capability. At 40% of the price.

Eek, the UI on that is awful, and the cost is about the same... At least for the CT80.

http://www.amazon.com/Homewerks-Ther.../dp/B004YZFU4S

 

[Leros]

Just picked mine up and installed it. There is an app for both Android and iOS to manage it, so you could control it remotely. It's also available via the web. My accounts automatically sync'd when I first signed into nest.com, I assume because we are coming from the same source IP. Otherwise there is a manual sync process using a key.

Does it do anything useful if you have an irregular schedule? It seems like the whole point of the nest is that it learns a regular schedule.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Does it do anything useful if you have an irregular schedule? It seems like the whole point of the nest is that it learns a regular schedule.

I'd be curious to know as well, so I can know if my custom <$100 solution is better or not.





I still need to make the interface tablet/phone friendly though, drop downs and text fields are kinda a pain with a tablet. But I don't own a tablet (that has wifi) anymore. I had a Playbook but the wifi started sucking so bad on it I gave up.

 

[alkemyst]

Why you're allowed to post here is beyond me.

Sorry you are having yet another shitty weekend.

Cheer up, Sparky!

 

[Leros]

I'd be curious to know as well, so I can know if my custom <$100 solution is better or not.





I still need to make the interface tablet/phone friendly though, drop downs and text fields are kinda a pain with a tablet. But I don't own a tablet (that has wifi) anymore. I had a Playbook but the wifi started sucking so bad on it I gave up.

Does your server communicate with a wifi thermostat?

I've got a design for a custom solution, but I've yet to implement it. As I said my schedule is irregular (depending on my mood, I leave for work between 8am-noon and leave work between 5pm-10pm). There are two basic pieces of functionality that I want:

1) Ability control the thermostat remotely. For example, I could start cooling the house an hour before I know I'm going home.

2) Have backup rules in case I forget. For example, if its Mon-Fri and my phone's GPS knows I left the house, it means I went to work. If the A/C is still on, it should turn off at this point.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Does your server communicate with a wifi thermostat?

I've got a design for a custom solution, but I've yet to implement it. As I said my schedule is irregular (depending on my mood, I leave for work between 8am-noon and leave work between 5pm-10pm). There are two basic pieces of functionality that I want:

1) Ability control the thermostat remotely. For example, I could start cooling the house an hour before I know I'm going home.

2) Have backup rules in case I forget. For example, if its Mon-Fri and my phone's GPS knows I left the house, it means I went to work. If the A/C is still on, it should turn off at this point.

I could not find any wifi thermostats so I ended up using a relay control board that happens to also have temp sensor inputs. So I have sensors around the house including two in the hvac (return and supply). I usually go by the living room sensor as it's location has the most accurate readings, the others are mostly just for info. The board shows up as a virtual serial port so my C++ app just talks to it that way. My old thermostat is connected in parallel for the heat only, and is left off, but if my system ever fails or what not, I can override it. The old thermostat also acts as a place to hide one of the sensors.

I eventually want to also monitor temps so I get an email if something abnormal happens like a sudden increase or decrease in temperature. I actually have them in Pandora right now but not sure if I will keep using that app or not. The graphs and stuff are neat but the alerting part is kinda sketchy.

 

[iamwiz82]

The new Nest update is out and it will definitely help those who have irregular schedules. With the enhanced auto-away it will detect pretty quickly when you leave (perhaps typical schedule plus detection of outside air temp/humidity when the door opens?). So now you set it to 70 and then it will detect when you are gone and simply shut down until you come back. Otherwise with a normal schedule it will arrive at the temp you want at the time you want (dependent on outside weather conditions and it's knowledge of your home's heating/cooling ability.

That means that right now I have the heat on, and I want the house warmed up when I wake up, so I have it set to 68 at 6am, meaning the furnace kicks in earlier in the morning. Yesterday it kicked in at 5:50am, Wednesday it kicked in at 5:15am. I have not seen a huge adjustment in my bill, it's about 10-15% down from the same time last year (FWIW) but I am finding the house a whole lot more comfortable now.

It's scheduled to cool down to 62 at 8am on weekdays, but it noticed that the house was empty at 7:30 yesterday, so it started sooner. By the way, we left at 7:10-7:15am yesterday, so it took 20 minutes to detect, at most.

 

[0roo0roo]

eh, a 50 dollar thermostat programmed to turn off during day when you are at work/school and at night would have done the same, and gave you a 200 dollar head start. actually digital thermostats start at 30 bucks, but i upped it to 50 for a name brand one even.

 

[Baked]

You know how I save money on my energy bill? I don't turn on the fucking thermostat!

 

[bigrash]

Looks cool, but I can't justify spending so much $ on a thermostat.