\Many of you have asked me about smart thermostat choices, and I’ve always been one to point out the Ecobee smart thermostat. That said, my new home wouldn’t support my Ecobee without modification, and Nest just released a feature I REALLY wanted (temperature sensors for multiple rooms), so it was time to make the move.

Before buying, check out this US Nest Thermostat Compatibility Checker 

Nest Setup:

Setup was an absolute breeze. There is step by step instructions that guide you through each component of setup. One thing that could have been helpful is if I could use my phone to enter the internet password or something, vs using the Nest to type it in. Perhaps you could, but I didn’t see the option.

Once you’ve plugged in your wires in the back, you get a nice display on the Nest showing you what equipment has been detected. I was particularly a fan of how easy the wires were to attach, no screwdriver needed, just pinch the respective clips.

 

 

The system will walk you through the setup steps, and help you setup the thermostat to be used in the Nest app. It will also run some tests to make sure things are wired correctly. You’ll be able to hear it turn on your fan, heat, and AC as you go through the tests.

Using Nest:

After installation, it’s really simple to use. You can set it for Heat, Cool or Heat&Cool (what I always use). You can control from the unit, or the application. You can also voice control with most smart home assistants.

Temperature Sensors:

This is what made me finally make the move, was the ability to have sensors for each room that was important to me. If you order sensors, keep in mind that the thermostat itself is obviously a sensor, so you don’t need one to replace it.

Here are two major differences in the Nest thermostat sensors, vs the Ecobee.

1. Nest does not take an average of the sensors, it only lets you pick one sensor at a time, for the varying times of the day.
2. Since you assign which sensor is active when, there are no motion sensors evident on the Nest sensors, to tell the thermostat if you are actually in that room. That is a little upsetting but I am going to see how it works out. Sometimes I work in my office during the day, sometimes from the couch, so sometimes I don’t want my office temp used during the day.

The sensors are round, and come with fancy screws for putting them on the wall, or you can just sit them flat on a table or shelf or something. Just make sure you put it somewhere representative of the room temperature, not under a fan, vent, or in direct sunlight, etc.

History and Scheduling:

You can easily view your history, and see highlights of that day. For example, here you see that weather made my heat run less than usual on April 22nd. You can also see various points I was out of the house, or manually changed the thermostat.

 

 

Other Cool Features:

I found a lot of neat little features this thermostat came with, see the image below.

A few key features I like:

• Early On:
  •  Nest can start heating/cooling so it’s at your desired temperature by the time you scheduled.
• Airwave:
  • Airwave shuts off the AC once it knows its put in enough cold air to get to the temperature you want
  • It then uses the fan to spread that cold air through to get the temperature down more

Buy Nest On Amazon

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