Reviews for Nest Learning Thermostat 2nd Generation

I replaced my old programmable with the Nest after reading a great deal of positive reviews. They were right, it's just fantastic. I believe it is saving energy. The temperature feels more constant and more comfortable overall. It leaves little to be desired, except a few things. For one, the app that controls it should provide more information and graphs on the main screen. It was easy to program. I would recommend to anyone that can afford one. It is said they pay for themselves in less than two years. Time will tell.

4 of 4 people found this useful

I had a two wire thermostat, gas fired furnace installation.
While the instructions state that this type of installation is straight forward and will work, it quickly became apparent that this is not the case.
The unit has an internal re-chargeable battery that charges itself while the heating circuit is closed and the furnace is running when in used a two-wire thermostat system. The problem with this is that the heating system may not be active for a long enough time to fully charge this battery.
This was the case in our installation and it was not long (about 10 hours after installation) before the battery was discharged to the point where the Nest would not function.
To ensure that the battery does charge on a regular basis I ran a third wire from the thermostat to the furnace and connected this to the continuous low-voltage supply at the furnace thermostat wiring panel. This wire is referred to as a "C" wire and the "C" terminal on our furnace wiring panel was clearly marked with a "C" making it easy to complete this installation on my own. Having done this I have had no problems with the unit and it works exactly as promised in all of the literature.
The "self learning" function works great and the ability to activate and control the Nest from wherever I have an internet connection and my iPhone or iPad is outstanding.
We have been using the Nest for over one month now, during a particularly cold period, and can already see a difference in our overall power consumption. While this may be due to any number of other factors I feel that this product has contributed.

13 of 14 people found this useful

I recently purchased my first home and the first thing that I noticed was an incomprehensible programmable thermostat. The instructions were provided, but the thing requires an advanced degree of technical expertise in order to operate it... oh and it was beige and ugly. When I did use it, I would change the temperature manually but even then it would 'forget' after a day or two and return the temp to some hidden factory setting stored in its memory.

Being a gadget-geek, I was browsing the Apple store for one of my wife's christmas gifts (an iPad mini which she has yet to put down... the diamond tennis bracelet however is still in the box. I love my wife!) I noticed the nest and made an impulse buy mostly for the elegance of it's design and implied ease of use. Upon installation, I was not disappointed. I did my own installation. As other owners have mentioned, the Nest is MUCH smaller than a typical programmable thermostat. I for one broke out the plaster, sandpaper, and touch up paint... I like things that are simple and intuitive. You can use one of the enclosed backing panels, but it simply will not be as clean and streamlined.

I love the iPhone and iPad apps, which allow me to create a manual schedule - a constant 68 degrees. And when you set it at 68, that is where it stays. That doesn't sound like much, but it was a new experience for me... a much appreciated one.

The only issue I had was connecting it to my Airport Extreme. I maintained a hidden network, and Nest simply could not maintain a connection... after calling customer support (who are amazing) I decided to unhide my network and it worked without issue.

13 of 14 people found this useful