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Does anyone know of a good alternative to Nest products? I've never liked their marketing and this blog post doesn't do much to alleviate that feeling (even though he's on the way out, the tone remains).



I rather like my 20 year old super basic thermostat. It works. It doesn't require wifi. It doesn't consume any power whatsoever. It's never been bothered by bugs that magically turn my house into a sauna or a freezer. It was dirty cheap. It'll last forever.


Couldn't a smart thermostat end up being cheaper than dirt cheap if it saves you money in the long run?


If you're thinking of saving money, investing in insulation (ie, getting to R38+ in your attic, exterior walls, and also insualting under subflooring) would be a better win.

We're heavily insulated and don't even run the AC on 100 degree days.

I'd be far more interested in automating the combination of our whole-house-fan + windows/shades.


Unlikely. When you're buying a wifi-dependent, $300/unit thermostat, you're basically buying a device with a 5-6 year life. So you need to save $50/year to break even.

Meanwhile, an un-smart thermostat with a timer can be had at Home Depot for $25, and will achieve 80-90% of the savings assuming you have a typical schedule.


I also have an Ecobee3. I had come from a 2nd gen Nest. I will agree with others and say that the remote sensors are really nice. I've always had multi floor houses whose temperature differentials (between up and down) would border on 10F. Obviously I could adjust the temperature on the Nest from bed, but I found toward the end of my ownership (middle/end '14) that the service would be down every now and then and I couldn't communicate with my Nest. I haven't experienced this with the Ecobee yet. Another positive you can quickly see the weather forecast from the thermostat, which is great for when you're about to leave the house and don't want to whip out your phone.

On the downside, the Ecobee doesn't "feel" as high quality. The touchscreen shows finger prints, it has a plasticy feel and you don't have that nice orange or blue background color indicating whether it's cooling or heating (not a big deal). It also doesn't have the schedule learning system, but to be honest I would usually adjust the temps manually throughout the day anyway. It also doesn't have the automatic fan function after the AC has run, sort of an afterrun fan which helped continue to cool the house without the AC on.

In the end I wanted to try something different and so far I think it's met/exceeded my expectations. Just hope you have a C wire when you install! :)


If you are looking for a thermostat, I have heard good things about the Ecobee3. It can have several remote sensors around house, integrates with Smartthings and maybe just zigbee/zwave in general. I only got the Nest because of a great deal from a family member with an extra one. The downside is that is can be trickier to wire up. If you furnace is older, you may have to run an extra wire.


After 2 homes with Nest, I decided to try an Ecobee last December. I prefer the Ecobee.

1) Vacations: with the Ecobee, tell it when you'll be away (date/time range) and it will go into vacation mode. I travel often and I can add multiple vacations in advance. Not a complex feature and surprising Nest doesn't have this. With the Nest I have to keep tweaking my Away mode temps to ensure that it warms up when I return and doesn't just switch back to Away and stop heating (it can take hours to go from 50=>70 when its 15 outside).

2) Learning with the Nest was always wrong for me because I have an irregular schedule so I turned that off. For me, that was originally an appeal of the Nest.

3) Ecobee multi-room sensors are awesome. Unfortunately I've learned that my office is always 10 degrees warmer/cooler in summer/winter.

4) Ecobee is HomeKit/Siri compatible which I haven't really used much.

I installed the Ecobee myself and had to install the little box on my furnace to provide power. Not ideal, but easy.


I have 3 Ecobee3 thermostats at home and in general very pleased with them. The only issues I had - from time to time they loose connection to remote sensors (reconnect back without me doing anything) and once a thermostat got stuck on heating - rebooting fixed the issue. Otherwise works great, with great set of features that work as advertised and new updates coming regularly (Ecobee3 was first thermostat natively supported by Amazon Echo)


I chose the ecobee3 over the nest, works great, the remote sensors are awesome, and there is just the right amount of configuration possible if you want that, with sensible defaults otherwise


Well they have several products so are there specific alternatives you're looking for? I've heard great things about Honeywell thermostats but honestly haven't pulled the trigger on any yet. The Dropcam is okay but, in my opinion after using them for so long, they're way, way over priced for what little they do. I've never tried the smoke detector though their initial issues kinda scared me off from even trying them.


+1 for Honeywell thermostats and security. Only thing that reliably worked in my (very simple) home.


Mostly the thermostats but thanks for the tips on the other products as well!


As it turns out, your typical 5-2 programmable thermostat from Honeywell (or whoever) costs about $20 works pretty well. Set the schedule, 72 when you're there and lower/higher when you aren't there depending on the season. I think I interact with mine maybe 2 times a year.


That's the funny part.. I've been saying for years people could have 'saved energy' if they just set their 7 day schedule to their most common needs.

Most don't touch it.


Check out https://www.tado.com.

Disclaimer: I work there.




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