The Nest – a Programmable Learning Thermostat

Can the Nest save you money?

Recently we bought The Nest, a programmable “learning” thermostat. Although the price tag may be shocking, it is meant to save you big bucks on your heating and cooling bill.

A programmable thermostat, like The Nest can save you a lot of money on your bill simply because you do not need your house to stay at the same temperature at all times. Night is the best example. In the winter I like my home to be warm, until the evening. I like to sleep with it slightly cooler so I can snuggle under the blankets. Another time it is good to program your house to a different temperature is when there is nobody home. Those of you who have regular schedules that include being away from your house should program your house to be 10-15 degrees warmer or cooler while you are out. There is no reason to spend all that energy heating or cooling a house that is empty.

Programmable Thermostats

When we moved to this house there was a regular thermostat. It became one of the top things on my list of things that needed replaced. In my search for a new, money-saving thermostat, I came across The Nest.

Heating and cooling makes up an average of 50% of your electric bill. A programmable thermostat can save you about 20% of that (or a total of 10% of your bill), an average of $173 per year for an American home. A “regular” programmable thermostat will also help you save that money if you program it correctly, but The Nest is unique in that it is a learning thermostat (no programming required).

The Nest (a Learning Thermostat)

A learning thermostat, like The Nest, actually learns your schedule so it will program itself. You do not have to set a program or change a program. I also liked that it changed the program daily. Some programmable thermostats ask you to write a program for the week and another for the weekend. Since I stay home and my husbands “weekend” is Tuesday/Wednesday, a weekly and weekend schedule doesn't make sense for us. There are other thermostats that allow you to write a different schedule for each day, but they are more expensive (more comparable to The Nest price). Here are some more great features:

• Auto-away. When we leave our house The Nest knows and shuts itself into an away setting. So, we never heat or cool our home if nobody is inside. It has never shut off when we are home and it has always shut itself off within 2 hours of us leaving. Since I have an irregular schedule, this feature saves us a lot.

• Airwave. The Nest will keep your fans blowing after your air conditioner turns off while the pipes are still cool. In other words, you get a few extra minutes of cold air without the air conditioner actually being on.

• The “leaf” that you can earn if you make a green choice. It sometimes encourages you to turn the temperature down or up an extra degree. You will get a monthly energy summary from them that tells you how many leaves you earned compared to the average for your area and competition has always been good for me.

• It also graphs exactly when your heat and air turns on and off. I used to turn my heat down to 66 at night, but using their graph I found out that if I turn it down to 64 the heat didn't run at all.  It turned out that those hours where it dipped between 64 and 66 made no difference to us and it saved us an average of 1.5 hours of heating each night. I could see where this would be very useful for those of you who are on a variable energy plan (one that charges you more or less for the energy depending on what time you use it).

• I can access and control my home information from my iPod or computer

• The Nest reminds you when to change your filters.

Installation and Use of The Nest

Installation was a breeze. It took only a few minutes. I did need to paint the wall since The Nest was smaller than my other thermostat. It looks nice on the wall compared to my old thermostat.

The price tag was $249, although you can find first generation thermostats for closer to $200. The only difference between generations is the look. The Nest will always be updated with the Wi-Fi system, so your thermostat will always work with the latest software. Since it saves the average family $173/year it should pay for itself (on average) in a year and a half and you will be saving yourself $14/month after that. It adds up fast! I have seen savings already.

You can purchase The Nest at Lowes, Amazon, the Apple Store, or online at The Nest website. I used free amazon gift certificates from Swagbucks to pay for mine.