There are cheaper thermostats that work just as well, but once you put the Nest, you won’t want to use anything else.
One of the first things I bought when I moved into my first house last month was a used third-generation Nest Learning Thermostat. Since I’ve lived in an apartment in New York City for a long time, I mostly watched the device from a distance and wondered how a thermostat, of all things, became so important to Google’s hardware play.
Of course, I could have picked a better time, since the fourth-generation device just came out. Another person who helped me with money told me before I chose this home that “last year was the best time to buy a house.” Things will take a very long time if you wait for the right time.
This summer has been especially harsh, so I’ve grown to like the Nest a lot. However, getting one used on eBay wasn’t the best idea because it wouldn’t stay connected to Wi-Fi. Aside from having central air, the best thing about the installation is that it gave me trust.
If you stay in a flat for too long, you’ll start to doubt your abilities at even the most basic jobs. But on a very hot afternoon in the middle of July, I turned off the power to the house, took out the old digital thermostat, and hooked up the Nest. Other than the fact that I didn’t go to the hospital, the fact that it worked was the only thing that surprised me.
After I fixed the thermostat, I did a few other small wire jobs and, as you can probably guess, I didn’t kill myself. When the new Nest showed up at my door, I quickly took it out of the box and set it up. Once more, still living. Of course, your mileage will be different because of a lot of things, such as how well the gas works with your HVAC system.
To do it, I just turned off the power, took off the old face, disconnected the wires, switched out the wall plates, and put in the new model. You can follow the right steps with the Google Home app. Once you connect it to your home Wi-Fi (luckily it worked this time), it’s ready to go.
The fourth-generation model has an extra step because it comes with a second sensor. The pebble-shaped add-on can be put on a flat surface or hung on the wall away from the thermostat in any room of the house. The Nest gets a better sense of the temperature as you add more. It looks good in the box, and you can always add more if you need to. The one should work for me since my place is small.
There is also a picture of the weather outside on the new thermometer. This, along with the device’s built-in sensor and any other secondary devices, helps the system reach its goal of meeting the user’s needs without wasting power. This is what Google gives as an example: “The heat will stop if it gets warmer in your home on its own on a sunny winter day.” Or, if it’s humid outside, the thermostat will change to make the house feel warmer than it really is.
That’s what the Nest Learning Thermostat does at its core. AI is used by the system to look at the data it gathers. The “Learning” part of the name comes from the fact that it learns from your habits and changes its settings to stay within your comfort range. At this point, it’s not possible to give the Nest a full review because it will only be proven to work over time.
More than how easy it is to install and use, I can say right away that this piece of hardware, like the ones that came before it, looks great. Before the first Nest Thermostat came out in 2011, I doubt that many people gave much thought to how their thermostats looked. It’s not a mistake that two of Nest’s leaders used to work at Apple. The startup pretty much made the iPod of thermostats, right down to the sliding interface.
The 2.7-inch screen on the new model is 60% bigger than the one on the old model, and it now goes all the way to the edges. In fact, the screen is bigger than the base, which makes it look like a mushroom when seen from the side. Google gets more use out of the new curved display. It uses a proximity sensor to know when someone is nearby and shows a variety of faces, such as different clocks, the weather, or just the usual thermostat information.
When you walk into my new house, the temperature is the first thing you see. It’s right there on the other wall, and it draws your attention right away, for better or worse. This is a good place for a display that shows more details. The extra information is a nice touch for people who aren’t too interested in the indoor weather but are still interested in the display.
The Nest Learning Thermostat is still a beautiful piece of industrial design, but it has some new features that make it fit in better with other smart home devices and the home itself. When it comes to twists, the company has kept the spinning interface with the clicks that drew many people to the queue in the first place.
Google wants to bring its smart home products up to date for the era of AI-powered helpers that can learn on their own, so it might as well have gone back to the device that started it all. After nine years, the fourth-generation thermostat might not be the kind of top-down innovation that some people might have hoped for. Then, even though there was more competition in the smart thermostat market, the classic model kept doing well.
Also Read: Google Assistant is Still Alive and Well to Handle Tomorrow
The device costs $280, which is a lot of money for something that not many people thought much about ten years ago. It won’t be coming down from my wall any time soon, though.
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