Anybody Have a $200 Thermostat?

erco

I chuckle when I see these $249 Nest smart connected thermostats. If anybody can rationalize them, it's you forumistas. I live in LA where winters are mild and one central gas floor furnace gets the job done passably. No A/C. We lived many years with a mechanical clock/mercury switch setback thermostat, moving the plastic pegs on the 1 rev/day dial to toggle between day/night thermostat temps. Upgraded to a $30 electronic Honeywell 10 years ago and don't need anything else for now. Wouldn't save me a dime. I don't understand the need to log in from out of state and change the thermostat temp. Please explain it to me. Are your kids wildly changing the thermostat after you leave and running up the heating/cooling bills?

pmrobert

I'm in South FL and have one of these. It has cut my energy (electrical) bill by ~15% over the last 3 years. The "learning" mode actually works really well. It has a motion sensor and can be programmed to go into "eco" mode if the motion sensor is not activated for a set amount of time. Yes, it's expensive but in my case it paid for itself within 8 months. I don't work for them and was very apprehensive about dropping $250 on a pretty thermostat but it DOES work. When I leave work I use the phone app to start cooling the house. No waiting for 85F house to cool down after I get home is really nice!

-Mike R...

pmrobert

Oh, also, if wife is home and not around phone to answer I just remotely turn the heat on. Guaranteed call back very soon! She does same to me so all good...

erco

pmrobert wrote: »

I'm in South FL and have one of these.... No waiting for 85F house to cool down after I get home is really nice!

Good input. I lived in Jupiter (WPB) for 2 years, I know that heat & humidity well. My commute home from Pratt & Whitney got kinda toasty in my un-air-conditioned Corvair with black vinyl seats.

Buck Rogers

erco wrote: »

pmrobert wrote: »

I'm in South FL and have one of these.... No waiting for 85F house to cool down after I get home is really nice!

Good input. I lived in Jupiter (WPB) for 2 years, I know that heat & humidity well. My commute home from Pratt & Whitney got kinda toasty in my un-air-conditioned Corvair with black vinyl seats.

Yikes!
I know that area. There's an excellent theme park over there, that's run by it's named individuals.

Each time I would visit family, I would find the environment excessive. That is until visiting family who was in Texas.....

Incidentally those thermostats may be nice, but they have another problem. It is one of security.

pmrobert

Re the security issue, is it just that it can be hacked and controlled from the outside (bad enough!) or can it be used to gain access to my LAN? That would be much worse.

Mike R...

erco

Russian hackers rigged the election through the White House thermostat?

If my new thermostat needs regular virus scans, it's time to get an old thermostat.

Tor

In Japan we just live with whatever the temperature/humidity level is.. many layers of clothing in the winter, dripping sweat in the hot and humid summer. You get used to that after a while. I use a fan in the hottest and most humid season when I'm working from my home office. Not much electricity needed.

erco

Roger that, I lived in Roppongi (Tokyo) for 9 weeks in the summer. Felt like I was back home in Charleston SC.

Suck it up, Buttercup!

When it's humid, a ceiling fan makes a huge difference.

Antediluvian

I have a Nest Thermostat. I got it because there were many times I went to bed and left the heat turned up. My bedroom was downstairs at one end of the house, while the thermostat was upstairs at the other end. So I could simply say, "Hey Google, set the temperature to xx degrees." I could also pre-warm the house up before taking a shower in the morning.

The problem I have with it, and I will never buy another one, is there is no hold mode. It's always trying to adjust the temperature to what it thinks my "pattern" is. The problem is, as an engineer, I have no "pattern"! So I'm constantly getting too hot or cold, asking "Hey Google, what's the temperature inside?", only to have it be set at something other than where it was a 1/2 hour ago. Drives me nuts! Kind of glad I'm going to be living out of a trailer from now on.

P.S. - I did get a nice rebate on my gas bill through Avista after the install though. :nerd:

Mike Cook

I've have owned the first generation for 7 or so years. I love mine.

geo_leeman

We got one with our house and turned out to really like it. The feature of being able to turn the heat/air on when it sees my phone's location coming home from work (not always a regular schedule) is very nice. It's also been good to turn up the heat when we are away and a winter storm is heading for the house to keep the pipes warmer. Finally, connecting it to Alexa so I can just yell out the new temperature is a handy convenience that's totally unnecessary.

dgately

A few years back, while visiting my in-laws in Greece, I checked-in on my Nest thermostat back in the states and found that the young couple that was taking care of our home, had the A/C set to 66 degrees (F) 24 hours a day... Knowing that our home is quite well insulated, I set the Nest schedule to be reasonable for the occupants and 'affordable' for us. I only checked-in a few more times during our 7-week absence and all went well. So, I would say that the Nest has been a good investment.

We've also recently added a heated floor to our bathroom and its control unit (NuHeat) takes advantage of our Nest infrastructure. An unexpected bonus!

dgately