Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Two weeks with a Nest Thermostat

I replaced a perfectly good programmable thermostat with one ridiculously more expensive. But was it worth it?

“It cost how much?”

That’s not exactly an uncommon phrase in my house. Only this time, my wife wasn’t asking about some phone or tablet I brought home — and promptly placed next to all the other phones and tablets I’d previously brought home. This time it was a futuristic-looking thermostat.

On Jan. 13, Google announced that it bought Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. What’s good for Google is good for Android Central, I imagine. But not having quite that much cash on hand, we settled for buying one single, solitary Nest thermostat for the not-so-low price of $249.

Part of the selling point of Nest is that it learns your heating and cooling habits and adjusts itself accordingly to save you money. That’s a long-term play, and the idea is that Nest’s high price is recouped in a year or two.

So we can’t speak to any long-term savings just yet. But for those who are thinking about getting into the connected-home game with a Nest, we can offer up a couple weeks’ worth of experience and advice.