
The Third Generation Nest Thermostat - jacobsimon
https://nest.com/thermostat/meet-nest-thermostat
======
Someone1234
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.

~~~
toomuchtodo
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!

~~~
joezydeco
_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?

~~~
jtoberon
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by utility real-time programs, but yes, this
probably is they meant. Nest knows where you live (I don't mean that in a
creepy way), and they can help you enroll in what are called "demand response"
or "load control" programs in your area. When you enroll, you get an incentive
like a bill credit or a free thermostat, and you give the utility permission
to turn your AC off for a little while at some point during the summer.

Many of these utility programs actively recruit customers, so chances are (a)
you'll get a chance to sign up even if you own a different type of connected
(e.g. WiFi) thermostat, and (b) the sign up process won't be hard.

~~~
joezydeco
Some utilities (like ComEd in Chicago) have a real-time program where the
price of electricity changes every 5 minutes in response to supply and demand.

[https://rrtp.comed.com/live-prices/](https://rrtp.comed.com/live-prices/)

I was asking if Nest can observe and respond to that data, which it looks like
it still cannot.

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antimatter
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.

~~~
iijj
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.

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e28eta
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.

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achr2
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.

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ghaff
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
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.

~~~
jellicle
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.

~~~
venomsnake
>Simple mechanical thermostats do this extremely well.

But they don't have api with which to auto post your daily temperature to
tumblr. Or security vulnerabilities.

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

~~~
dionidium
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."_

~~~
Someone1234
You can see comparison images of the three here:

[https://nest.com/support/article/How-can-I-tell-which-
Nest-L...](https://nest.com/support/article/How-can-I-tell-which-Nest-
Learning-Thermostat-I-have)

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.

~~~
dionidium
_Definitely an improvement at the same price point._

Sure, but not a big enough difference (for most folks) to consider upgrading
from a 2nd-gen.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Sure, but not a big enough difference (for most folks) to consider upgrading
> from a 2nd-gen.

Agreed, but thermostats really shouldn't be something we have to replace every
1-2 years anyways.

Hell, I've a v1 (.12) Nest and see nothing compelling to make me upgrade - and
that makes me happy.

~~~
dionidium
_Agreed, but thermostats really shouldn 't be something we have to replace
every 1-2 years anyways._

Neither are phones and laptops, really. The difference is that those advance
at a rate that makes an upgrade compelling. I have a Mid-2009 Macbook Pro.
It's fine. I put an SSD in it recently and it's even better than fine. The
only time I get the impulse to replace it is when I'm near a newer Macbook. In
a vacuum, it's all I'd ever need. Sadly (for my wallet), it doesn't exist in a
vacuum.

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S_A_P
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
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_P
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).

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

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lvs
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.

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

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'm not saying I find it a need. (And I can check my phone if I want to know,
regardless of what room I'm in.) But that's why they did it.

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ape4
In the video you seem to stick it to your wall. Is that really how its done?

~~~
Someone1234
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](http://i.imgur.com/kNUPqvF.jpg)

~~~
hvjackson
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.

~~~
simmons
As others have mentioned, there can be issues with running without a C wire.
Their "power stealing" technique did not seem to be effective for keeping my
first-generation Nest from running out of battery. (Although there may be some
variables in my situation that contribute to the problem.) I blogged about it
here:
[http://cafbit.com/entry/nest_learning_thermostat](http://cafbit.com/entry/nest_learning_thermostat)

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Frozenlock
Like Aral Balkan said... "dumb fucks"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh8supIUj6c&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh8supIUj6c&feature=youtu.be&t=42m52s)

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

------
datahack
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?

