Yeah I wouldn't use it all the time, I'd rather have it preheat for longer on most days when I leave at the regular time. And I could get pretty crazy with rules for when I'm not leaving the office on time.
Dammit stop trying to convince me to get the Nest! I see they don't yet have Ecobee integration. But, IFTTT should take care of that.
I've been eyeing the Automatic for awhile, I think it's time to pick one up.
How many people actually have multiple heating zones? In a home that's under 2000 square feet at least?
How can you not want a Nest? It's so invigorating turning that sexy silver dial. The black face melts into glowing blue, curvy LED numbers. The more you turn it the hotter it gets!
When you're done twisting it it softly whispers to you telling you how long till you'll be heated up.
Ohhh ahhh!
The Nest will definitely save you money, but it seems like we are at the start of something bigger with home automation.
I have an Ecobee3, and the sensors are kind of worthless. They are really only decent for the ability to switch from Away to Home, but that's about it. There's no point in using temperature variance, because if a room is warmer, there's a chance that it's a fault of the HVAC design and not something that the Ecobee can fix without over-cooling/heating other areas. I've also had my Ecobee3 royally screw up on me. I walked in, and it felt awfully warm inside. Well, while the Ecobee stated that it was the correct temperature, but my other thermometer had it at about +6F from that. It turns out that my Ecobee was in some bad, frozen state, and I had to pull it (or cycle the breaker) to get it to work.
STOP IT! That circular shape and silver wheel are sexy as fuck. It sure heats me up!
But Nest is not helping matters with their track record anymore. And while having a fuller developed Google smarthome platform (more in time, especially with the Nest security hardware that will surely be coming... at some point, if Nest doesn't brick themselves), I feel like there is still some time before that comes to fruition. Other services, even if it requires multiple platforms, seem to be providing better options in capability and feature sets, at least for the specific components. Thermostat here, home integration there, security package out that way, etc. A little effort and all are tied together with potentially superior results. It's not the Apple approach, dreaded modularity, but it can be better for some.
I'm still utterly undecided between Ecobee3 and Nest. And dammit, why can't the Honeywell Lyric (circular variety) be on the same playing field as those other two? They have the experience! The Lyric looks great, I do like the classic thermostat look. But from everything I've read, functionality is half-baked, that's where the upstarts always outshine the established players, of which coasted forever and never built up that skillset.
If it's not going to have that classic shape with designer appeal, then it ought to at least look like it isn't a generic 90s programmable thermostat with an upgraded touchscreen. It should at least look like a sexy wall tablet. I'd go cheap and get something like the Ecobee Smart Si or Emerson Sensi, which all have great features, but they look hideous. If I'm upgrading any visible item in my house, it needs to have modern appeal. I'm trying to ditch the old 70s design cues that litter this place lol, not patch it over.
How many people actually have multiple heating zones? In a home that's under 2000 square feet at least?
Almost all homes here in the south that are multiple stories have multiple heating/cooling zones. Just more efficient to manage the levels independently instead of trying to pump heat or a/c from the basement to the second floor plus you can size the units more appropriately.
You're in a bad spot, I recommend just spending money and get the itch over with
Yeah, since you posted this thread I've been reading about their smoke detectors being disabled from a user waving their hands at it. Kind of odd, but they seem to be going in the wrong direction since google took them over. I myself have been wanting to get one of those video door bells, but none seem to seamlessly tie in together with other systems or have that killer app feel to them.
All I know if my 2nd gen Nest has served me well. When no one is around it drops the the heat or A/C to savings levels you just can't get with a programmable thermostat. When you get home and walk into the room where the Nest is at it perks up and greets you like the family dog would only it does so with a little click.
I didn't read all the responses.
I have 2 Nest (3's), and they're awesome IMO. I had a thread a few months ago due to missing the C wire in my setup. Nest support was helpful overall, and ended up reimbursing my HVAC bill too. So calling support was super easy, and I spoke to someone knowledgeable, understanding, and spoke English (huge win in my book).
Once it's setup, I haven't touched it since. Manage everything through the droid app.
I recently picked up a wired smoke detector, it's pretty cool so far. very easy to setup. I like that it covers the two typical types of fires, and CO as well.
C wire is "Common", basically it allows a smart t-stat to trickle charge the built in battery without calling for heat. I did not have one in my setup, and my Aquastat relay doesn't have one on it (it's over 10 years old). My t-stats were emitting a buzzing noise while calling for heat, because it was calling for heat and charging the battery at the same time.
I ended up connecting the C wire to the Neutral return on the 24v transformer. October was my hvac learning month lol...
Yes, I have 3rd gen nests. If you only have one zone....you may not notice. I have two, and no C-wire creates a "load sharing" (Nest's words) environment. There's a voltage setting that you can check called "lin", but you can't see if from the app. "lin" should be reading 200ma, before the C wire....mine were at 20ma and 40ma. "lin" can be found on the nest under: Technical Info > Power
Is this an issue on the 3rd gen Nest?
I didn't even know it had a battery. It's run fine for years now.
Do you have five wires, or at least a Blue wire going into the thermostat? Maybe you didn't just know you already hooked it up? lol
Then again, it's usually labeled C on the thermostat wire blocks.
Ecobee includes an adapter that allows you to hook up a fifth wire at the wiring panel in the furnace, combine it through the adapter onto another wire, and thus deliver that power without actually running a fifth wire.
The C wire provides a constant 24v. The Rh and/or Rc lines only provide power when the system is actively heating or cooling. Without that C wire, the Nest has to briefly turn on the furnace or other unit in order to receive the voltage to charge it's internal battery; how often depends on how often it has to turn them on to accomplish the heating/cooling goals. The less often the thermostat is running your heating/cooling, the more often it has to cycle them on for a very short while. The worry with this is that it will cause unnecessary wear and tear on the HVAC equipment, and worse, it can at times let itself die (perhaps the 24v fuse blew, or a breaker popped) and once dead, it cannot turn on a system to charge itself... and next thing you know, frozen pipes (or oppressive rainforest heat, depending on where you live).
Oh, and it's not an issue with the 3rd gen Nest specifically, but rather an issue for all smart thermostats that rely on recharging batteries through this process, which is often called "power stealing."
I have the ecobee 3 and have it integrated with my SmartThings home automation system. I really like it and can use its sensors as part of my other automation routines. And yeah, as you mentioned, even if you go with Nest, you'd be wise to use a C wire. Nest's power stealing causes issues for some folks. In my case, I didn't have a C-wire at my thermostat BUT there were unused wires shoved into the wall from the furnace so I was able to use one of those wires to connect to the C-wire terminal block. Also, for those interested, even if you don't have extra wires or a C-wire, the ecobee comes with a power extender kit which may work for you - check their site for more details.
I haven't read the entire thread so this may have been mentioned, but I'll mention it again - whichever thermostat you get, make sure you check with both your electric and gas utilities to see about rebates. I bought my ecobee on sale for $199 during Amazon's holiday sales and my gas company gave me a rebate check of $100. Some people are lucky and BOTH their electric and gas utilities will give rebates.
ha i have an Automatic too. It's a neat device. I don't nerd out over it as much as I used to but I still like it. That functionality should just be built right into a car though. No need for a third party product in 5 years or less.Yeah I wouldn't use it all the time, I'd rather have it preheat for longer on most days when I leave at the regular time. And I could get pretty crazy with rules for when I'm not leaving the office on time.
Dammit stop trying to convince me to get the Nest! I see they don't yet have Ecobee integration. But, IFTTT should take care of that.
I've been eyeing the Automatic for awhile, I think it's time to pick one up.
smart vents, brah. https://keenhome.io/smart-ventWell, that's the stated point of the room temperature sensing part. It's based on occupancy: if only one room is occupied, you may prefer to have that room be the temperature you prefer. If you have a house where that is happening, then that's exactly what the feature is meant to do. You may sacrifice comfort in other rooms, but they presumably not being used. When multiple sensor-equipped rooms are being used, it is supposed to average the temperature between them.
Frankly, I can't believe there is much you can really do when you have a multi-floor domicile. If you have inconsistent heating through a one-level place, then yes, there's most likely inefficient HVAC design that deserves blame. But if you have a basement and two floors above it, how would you possible avoid a temperature gradient? Heat rises, cool air sinks. Yes air gets cycled through with return ducts, but there's only so much that can accomplish.
As far as devices kind of locking up, that may be the unfortunate nature of the beast right now. Even the greatest, most expensive computers crash. Servers crash. Routers crash. And that's to say nothing of smart phones and wearable tech. Stability will improve in time but that's something any owner of any IoT equipment should keep in mind.
I've definitely read of Nest thermostats suffering similar issues. And worse, for a number, if not the majority of those users, they were running on battery and not on the C wire. So it crashes, never gets charged, and the house freezes. Ecobee was very smart to include that fifth-wire adapter. A problem we are facing is many homes with programmable thermostats do not have that C wire installed, because the old programmable thermostats ran on simple alkaline batteries, and you just changed them when they said they needed replaced. Whereas now, these devices are nowhere near as power-sipping, and have to rely on power-stealing if there is no C wire. Ecobee doesn't do the battery thing, so that alleviates a lot of those concerns. Obviously the more complex our devices get, the more prone they are to computer-like crashes.