Help with Nest Thermostat Please

[cctaylor88]

I haven't done much of anything with the Nest Thermostat since installation and just want to make sure I'm getting the most out of it. However, this morning before work I did try to set the "schedule" starting at 4pm (before arriving home from work) to our desired temp of 74 degrees... but noticed the Thermostat counting down as I was walking about and about to kick on again even though it wasn't schedule until 4pm... so I may have messed everything up.

I also have no idea what to set, or if I should even use "Eco" mode.

Can someone give me a simple breakdown of what I should set the settings to/schedule etc in order to obviously save energy/money?

 

[razel]

It has a lot of automatic settings that override your presets. It's the ones that try to learn about your habits especially ones that will ensure that your home will be at a certain temperature at a certain time not that it will turn the system on at a certain times. Having your home be at a certain temperature means it will turn on well before that that time happens.

When I had mine I tried turning all those 'smart' features on and found that was cooling my home even when I'm not there. This is despite me telling it to find out when I'm home via the home/away function tied to my smartphone. Luckily I was still able to turn it off remotely via the app.

I suggest turning all such features off instead of on and use it as a regular on/off switch for your cooling until you get more comfortable with each individual 'smart' setting. I tried to understand what each did, but found them pretty useless for me. I did not touch my old thermostat much and ended up returning the Nest. I will be back though. Main reason why I replaced my control unit was because it's plastic was turning beyond yellow. It was functioning fine otherwise, but it was still pretty nice to modernize that old yellow wall box. I had the 3rd gen Nest that was $200 after local electric incentives, but the newly released one is much more reasonably priced at $170 I think without any electric rebates.