Nest and Smart Watches and Other Smart Devices.
Well, it has now been something like 9 months since I put in the Nest.
In the beginning, I was worried that I had made a mistake of sorts. I mean, the biggest selling feature of the Nest was it's ability to adapt to when you were home or out. And between the fact that the thermostat is in a rarely used room, I work from home and my wife and daughter are home most days, that feature is effectively useless to me.
I think my arguments in support came off largely as me trying to convince myself in the earlier days. And they felt like it too.
9 months in though, and I'm really feeling I don't need to convince myself anymore. Smart devices work. Especially if done properly.
The problem with traditional, even programmable thermostats was twofold; a pain to configure and no data to work off of. At the end of the day, if you want to save energy or money, weather patterns are far too erratic for simple programs and not having decent usage information makes it impossible anyway.
One of the things Nest has taught me is this. I'm bad at predicting my heating and cooling needs. Days I thought were cool will still see the AC kick in for hours. Maybe it was humid out or sunnier than usual. And some days I thought would be warm end up using little to no AC for a host of reasons. And the same in the winter with the heating.
Having the data, and having it in a smartphone app is improving my predictions. Which is helping me plan ahead to keep the house at a comfortable temperature while also keeping my energy usage as low as possible. Today for instance, I spent just 15 minutes cooling the house. And had I been a tad more proactive it would have easily been 0 minutes with the low humidity and very livable temperatures today.
I can't say it is difficult, per se, to change the temperature on any T-Stat I've ever used. But, the Nest is definitely easier. But, what makes the biggest different is the difference in ease in programming it. Back when I felt like I might have been lying to myself, I was concerned that I would simply set both a hot and cold threshold at some point and never turn back. But, that didn't happen. It is easy enough to change the schedule, and it can be as simple or complex as I want.
Right now I tend to have weekday and weekend settings with an overnight temperature and one through the day. But, I do generally tweak it, especially at the beginning of the seasons while I get used to what will work for the average day.
Again, it isn't that I can't change schedules with programmable devices. Just that without the data and the ease, the reality was... in my last house aside from changing the mode from heating to cooling, I probably touched the thermostat less than 10 times in 7 years.
And, probably, the biggest thing for me is simply having the data.
Which is where smart watches come in. NEVER thought I would use one. Got one for Christmas. I love it now. Still use my phone to check the time. I use the sleep and fitness tracking data. I'm not an active person. I rarely hit my goals. But, I can review the data and have made some life style adjustments.
That being said, given that usage data is pretty much always going to be my prime motivator, I really need to acknowledge that smart devices are luxury devices. You can get this data elsewhere. I pedometer is much cheaper than a smart watch. A sleep journal can provide as much or more insight into sleeping habits and I'm sure that there are accurate ways to track heating and cooling usage without a smart thermostat.
But, I would also ask the question "are you really the type who will do those things?". I'm not. And while I know people like that exist. Most people need something else to collect the data for them. My Nest will pay for itself one day as a result. My smart watch was free, but the nudges in the right direction might improve the quality and length of my time in this life.
Smart lights and locks and other things have also yielded benefits, though, annoyingly, much less data :)
Conclusion. If nothing else, focus on smart solution which provide you detailed data/reports. At the very least you can review down the road and decide with some level informed-ness whether or not it was worth it.
In the beginning, I was worried that I had made a mistake of sorts. I mean, the biggest selling feature of the Nest was it's ability to adapt to when you were home or out. And between the fact that the thermostat is in a rarely used room, I work from home and my wife and daughter are home most days, that feature is effectively useless to me.
I think my arguments in support came off largely as me trying to convince myself in the earlier days. And they felt like it too.
9 months in though, and I'm really feeling I don't need to convince myself anymore. Smart devices work. Especially if done properly.
The problem with traditional, even programmable thermostats was twofold; a pain to configure and no data to work off of. At the end of the day, if you want to save energy or money, weather patterns are far too erratic for simple programs and not having decent usage information makes it impossible anyway.
One of the things Nest has taught me is this. I'm bad at predicting my heating and cooling needs. Days I thought were cool will still see the AC kick in for hours. Maybe it was humid out or sunnier than usual. And some days I thought would be warm end up using little to no AC for a host of reasons. And the same in the winter with the heating.
Having the data, and having it in a smartphone app is improving my predictions. Which is helping me plan ahead to keep the house at a comfortable temperature while also keeping my energy usage as low as possible. Today for instance, I spent just 15 minutes cooling the house. And had I been a tad more proactive it would have easily been 0 minutes with the low humidity and very livable temperatures today.
I can't say it is difficult, per se, to change the temperature on any T-Stat I've ever used. But, the Nest is definitely easier. But, what makes the biggest different is the difference in ease in programming it. Back when I felt like I might have been lying to myself, I was concerned that I would simply set both a hot and cold threshold at some point and never turn back. But, that didn't happen. It is easy enough to change the schedule, and it can be as simple or complex as I want.
Right now I tend to have weekday and weekend settings with an overnight temperature and one through the day. But, I do generally tweak it, especially at the beginning of the seasons while I get used to what will work for the average day.
Again, it isn't that I can't change schedules with programmable devices. Just that without the data and the ease, the reality was... in my last house aside from changing the mode from heating to cooling, I probably touched the thermostat less than 10 times in 7 years.
And, probably, the biggest thing for me is simply having the data.
Which is where smart watches come in. NEVER thought I would use one. Got one for Christmas. I love it now. Still use my phone to check the time. I use the sleep and fitness tracking data. I'm not an active person. I rarely hit my goals. But, I can review the data and have made some life style adjustments.
That being said, given that usage data is pretty much always going to be my prime motivator, I really need to acknowledge that smart devices are luxury devices. You can get this data elsewhere. I pedometer is much cheaper than a smart watch. A sleep journal can provide as much or more insight into sleeping habits and I'm sure that there are accurate ways to track heating and cooling usage without a smart thermostat.
But, I would also ask the question "are you really the type who will do those things?". I'm not. And while I know people like that exist. Most people need something else to collect the data for them. My Nest will pay for itself one day as a result. My smart watch was free, but the nudges in the right direction might improve the quality and length of my time in this life.
Smart lights and locks and other things have also yielded benefits, though, annoyingly, much less data :)
Conclusion. If nothing else, focus on smart solution which provide you detailed data/reports. At the very least you can review down the road and decide with some level informed-ness whether or not it was worth it.
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