Nest Temperature Sensor
Well, added another piece to the Smart Home mix today.
Last night was horrible. I haven't slept so poorly in a very long time. I feel like death this morning.
The cause? The extended family member renting one of our extra rooms asked to bump up the heat because it was supposedly freezing in the room. Of course, we said yes. In fact, we had encouraged them to do so prior to this if they felt cold/hot/whatever.
Being the idiot I am, I assumed that they would know how home heating works. They jacked up the temperature 3.5 degrees Celsius! I continued my streak of idiocy by noticing right away what was being done and letting the experiment go on. I had a fairly good idea of what would happen and why. But, truth be told, I had never tried setting thermostat so high in November and was slightly curious.
What happened was; I woke up fully 3 hours earlier than usual in a sweat. After I had already woken up hours prior to that to take my shirt off. I sleep directly beside a fan with a blanket which does very little to keep the breeze away. It was still too warm.
Now, the problem is an understandable one. The how is decently insulated. Maybe not up to top standards, but at the time of the home inspection before we bought last year, it seemed reasonably close. Which is pretty amazing since the house is about 30 years old. This is a problem though because it can make heating and cooling a minor nightmare. Ontario is humid as all hell in the summer and the temperature is all over the place every other season.
In the summer, if the temperature is anywhere near where the thermostat is set at, we can go hours and hours without the AC ever turning on, which is great for the electricity bill, but the AC also serves an even more important function while running; it remove the humidity from the air. So, where it doesn't kick in, at least every couple hours or so, the house can become unbearable, even if the temperature stays in a decent range.
In the colder months, the problem is a little different. When it is cold out, but not extremely cold, as with the AC, the furnace doesn't come on all that much. Again, great for the utility bills. But, the further a room is away from the thermostat, especially if it is a guest room or some room where the door is often closed, the temperature can get QUITE a lot colder than the room where the thermostat is.
Our guest room happens to be on the top floor, as far from the Nest as possible in a corner room. So, 2 walls are outside walls, at night there is no "free" warming from the sun, and the door is closed 24/7 so very little benefit from the temperature of the rest of the air mass in the house. I have no clue how cold it actually gets in there. But I wouldn't be surprised to find if, at night, it was 5 degrees C or more different from the main floor. My daughter's room is beside his and similar and her room does get quite cold at night.
Anyway, the problem, a little more specifically is this. The rooms upstairs, in the colder months, aren't really affected by the temperature set on the thermostat. It almost doesn't matter what the temperature is. It matters when it last turned on. All of the bedrooms are small enough that they heat up quickly. But, when the doors are closed they can also cool down more quickly than the rest of the house.
My daughter is a four year old. She sleeps with a small army of fuzzy blankets and my wife and I don't seem to mind the cold most nights. But, it is easy enough to admit that we haven't really been able to control the temperatures in the rooms upstairs all that efficiently.
And this is the longest lead up to a new smart device ever. But, that is where the temperature sensor comes in. Understanding how home heating works, and consequently doesn't work lead to the answer. The effect in a bedroom is very different if the furnace runs for a long time early in the night and then rarely or perhaps even never, turns on in the night than if it runs in short bursts throughout the night.
It could end up running for the exact same amount of time over a 24hr period, but have a totally different impact on the residents. In fact, the long burst is a double whammy. When the furnace cuts out, the closed bedrooms will be even warmer than the overall house temperature, which will make the drop in temperature even more pronounced while waiting for the overall house temperature to either rise or get low enough to turn the furnace on.
The temperature sensor will, in theory, let me get those short bursts. By moving the temperature readings to one of the smaller, outlier rooms during the period in which we are generally all in those rooms, the furnace shouldn't have to run as long just to get the temperatures up in those rooms. And it should be more responsive to the temperatures dropping there as well.
The hope is that this will A) allow me to keep the house at a temperature that won't incinerate me in my sleep B) keep the energy bills similar, if not cheaper than before and C) make everyone in the house a little more comfortable at night.
I'll probably write up another review some time down the road on how this all turns out. But, if nothing else, it will give me a chance to compare the temperatures between the main floor and bedrooms rather easily. And, it is an option I didn't have with the old thermostat. So, another win for the smart home.
It isn't a perfect solution though. As other reviews have no doubt pointed out, I can only set it to automatically switch between thermostats on a hardcoded schedule. There are four slots and the times are predetermined. Honestly, 4 time slots is probably enough, but I work from home and we go to bed late, whereas our daughter goes to bed early. If I could control those boundaries I'd both find it more useful AND be more likely to buy more sensors.
The next problem is the lack of overrides. It is great in theory to switch automatically based on predetermined time slots, but there really needs to be some overrides or fail safes. For instance, just because I'm using the main thermostat, if the temperature in one of the rooms gets too cold or too hot, I'd like the heating or cooling to kick in anyway.
Easy example, if you have a baby and you're at home. Babies are up and down sporadically. You can't use 4 predefined times or even predefined times at all. What really makes the most sense is to let the main thermostat drive the household temperature, but being able to make sure that the babies room doesn't go too far in either direction just in case they need a nap.
Similarly, I may only want my bedroom so warm and so I want to use the thermostat in the bedroom. But, my bedroom is upstairs and has two vents and so temperature adjustments are rather rapid. If a cold snap hits, I don't want the pipes to burst just my bedroom is warm enough for me.
I don't have a baby and I'm not super worried about those kinds of extremes. But, I think most people can fabricate examples of their own. Our cold renter for instance. It would be great to just leave the main thermostat set the way we always have, and then simply set a min and max temperature which MUST be maintained on that other sensor.
Another great add would be smart vents to work with the system. When I'm sleeping, as long as the main floor doesn't get too cold, I'd be perfectly happy to shut or partially shut the vents on the other levels of the house to maximize the heating and cooling in the rooms I'm actually using.
But, as I said, bigger/better review will be for later.
Last night was horrible. I haven't slept so poorly in a very long time. I feel like death this morning.
The cause? The extended family member renting one of our extra rooms asked to bump up the heat because it was supposedly freezing in the room. Of course, we said yes. In fact, we had encouraged them to do so prior to this if they felt cold/hot/whatever.
Being the idiot I am, I assumed that they would know how home heating works. They jacked up the temperature 3.5 degrees Celsius! I continued my streak of idiocy by noticing right away what was being done and letting the experiment go on. I had a fairly good idea of what would happen and why. But, truth be told, I had never tried setting thermostat so high in November and was slightly curious.
What happened was; I woke up fully 3 hours earlier than usual in a sweat. After I had already woken up hours prior to that to take my shirt off. I sleep directly beside a fan with a blanket which does very little to keep the breeze away. It was still too warm.
Now, the problem is an understandable one. The how is decently insulated. Maybe not up to top standards, but at the time of the home inspection before we bought last year, it seemed reasonably close. Which is pretty amazing since the house is about 30 years old. This is a problem though because it can make heating and cooling a minor nightmare. Ontario is humid as all hell in the summer and the temperature is all over the place every other season.
In the summer, if the temperature is anywhere near where the thermostat is set at, we can go hours and hours without the AC ever turning on, which is great for the electricity bill, but the AC also serves an even more important function while running; it remove the humidity from the air. So, where it doesn't kick in, at least every couple hours or so, the house can become unbearable, even if the temperature stays in a decent range.
In the colder months, the problem is a little different. When it is cold out, but not extremely cold, as with the AC, the furnace doesn't come on all that much. Again, great for the utility bills. But, the further a room is away from the thermostat, especially if it is a guest room or some room where the door is often closed, the temperature can get QUITE a lot colder than the room where the thermostat is.
Our guest room happens to be on the top floor, as far from the Nest as possible in a corner room. So, 2 walls are outside walls, at night there is no "free" warming from the sun, and the door is closed 24/7 so very little benefit from the temperature of the rest of the air mass in the house. I have no clue how cold it actually gets in there. But I wouldn't be surprised to find if, at night, it was 5 degrees C or more different from the main floor. My daughter's room is beside his and similar and her room does get quite cold at night.
Anyway, the problem, a little more specifically is this. The rooms upstairs, in the colder months, aren't really affected by the temperature set on the thermostat. It almost doesn't matter what the temperature is. It matters when it last turned on. All of the bedrooms are small enough that they heat up quickly. But, when the doors are closed they can also cool down more quickly than the rest of the house.
My daughter is a four year old. She sleeps with a small army of fuzzy blankets and my wife and I don't seem to mind the cold most nights. But, it is easy enough to admit that we haven't really been able to control the temperatures in the rooms upstairs all that efficiently.
And this is the longest lead up to a new smart device ever. But, that is where the temperature sensor comes in. Understanding how home heating works, and consequently doesn't work lead to the answer. The effect in a bedroom is very different if the furnace runs for a long time early in the night and then rarely or perhaps even never, turns on in the night than if it runs in short bursts throughout the night.
It could end up running for the exact same amount of time over a 24hr period, but have a totally different impact on the residents. In fact, the long burst is a double whammy. When the furnace cuts out, the closed bedrooms will be even warmer than the overall house temperature, which will make the drop in temperature even more pronounced while waiting for the overall house temperature to either rise or get low enough to turn the furnace on.
The temperature sensor will, in theory, let me get those short bursts. By moving the temperature readings to one of the smaller, outlier rooms during the period in which we are generally all in those rooms, the furnace shouldn't have to run as long just to get the temperatures up in those rooms. And it should be more responsive to the temperatures dropping there as well.
The hope is that this will A) allow me to keep the house at a temperature that won't incinerate me in my sleep B) keep the energy bills similar, if not cheaper than before and C) make everyone in the house a little more comfortable at night.
I'll probably write up another review some time down the road on how this all turns out. But, if nothing else, it will give me a chance to compare the temperatures between the main floor and bedrooms rather easily. And, it is an option I didn't have with the old thermostat. So, another win for the smart home.
It isn't a perfect solution though. As other reviews have no doubt pointed out, I can only set it to automatically switch between thermostats on a hardcoded schedule. There are four slots and the times are predetermined. Honestly, 4 time slots is probably enough, but I work from home and we go to bed late, whereas our daughter goes to bed early. If I could control those boundaries I'd both find it more useful AND be more likely to buy more sensors.
The next problem is the lack of overrides. It is great in theory to switch automatically based on predetermined time slots, but there really needs to be some overrides or fail safes. For instance, just because I'm using the main thermostat, if the temperature in one of the rooms gets too cold or too hot, I'd like the heating or cooling to kick in anyway.
Easy example, if you have a baby and you're at home. Babies are up and down sporadically. You can't use 4 predefined times or even predefined times at all. What really makes the most sense is to let the main thermostat drive the household temperature, but being able to make sure that the babies room doesn't go too far in either direction just in case they need a nap.
Similarly, I may only want my bedroom so warm and so I want to use the thermostat in the bedroom. But, my bedroom is upstairs and has two vents and so temperature adjustments are rather rapid. If a cold snap hits, I don't want the pipes to burst just my bedroom is warm enough for me.
I don't have a baby and I'm not super worried about those kinds of extremes. But, I think most people can fabricate examples of their own. Our cold renter for instance. It would be great to just leave the main thermostat set the way we always have, and then simply set a min and max temperature which MUST be maintained on that other sensor.
Another great add would be smart vents to work with the system. When I'm sleeping, as long as the main floor doesn't get too cold, I'd be perfectly happy to shut or partially shut the vents on the other levels of the house to maximize the heating and cooling in the rooms I'm actually using.
But, as I said, bigger/better review will be for later.
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