Nest thermostat is the first step you can take to reduce your energy consumption

Guess what is the most energy consuming apparatus in your home ? You guess it right, its your HVAC system or any other devices that you might have to heat and cool. It is the single most energy guzzling system in residential buildings. Why, because we don’t live in vacuum and to build a house that is completely air sealed is impossible. Its air that we are dealing with and it will find a way to escape. The thermostat plays a major role in how we heat and cool out space inside the home and that was the problem that a few of Apples engineers set out to solve and created Nest.

It latest is a 2nd generation Nest that comes with a price tag of $250. Now, why pay such a high price for a simple thermostat ? Ask yourself if you are driving a Prius makes sense to you , if it does yes you want to get one of these. Like everything else, if the number of units sold goes up the price comes down and you will be one of those early adopters who will do good by putting upfront that premium price for the greater good , that it will bring the price down and affordable for more of the masses to afford it and as a whole we are all contributing to the idea of conscious energy consumption. Now, the real question is how does Nest reduce your consumption?

There are a few things that Nest does that your conventional thermostat does not do. Nest is software based and can be undated over time and so adapted to take on newer versions of software into its daily functioning with ease. Secondly Nest will try to learn your life style and try to adapt and serve for your specific needs. For instance, Nest will keep track of the changes you make to the temperature settings at night and during the day to personally learn your comfort zone and make those changes take effect after a few weeks on its own. It also has a presence detection sensor that detects if a person is inside the home or not and set the temperature setting based that to eliminate unnecessary heating or cooling of an empty room. Now, this also means that your dog can be mistaken for a person and Nest will set the temperature to match that of a human. Again, its just a software and as it gets better in deciphering between humans and animals it can adapt for efficiently.

Next thing the Nest does is based on its history and how long it takes to bring a particular home to preferred heating or cooling requirements can predict how long it would take for the system to reach a set temperature. For example lets say you just got back from a long day of riding your bicycle out in sub 50 degree temperatures and want the room temperature to raise rapidly and set the Nest to go from 66 degrees to 90 degrees even thou you only want the temperature to raise to 70 degrees, but thought that by setting the thermostat to 90 degrees will jolt your HVAC to go into high gear and achieve your desired 70 degrees faster, which most of us do. Nest displays an estimated time to educate you on how long this will take and discourages you to change such type of brute force thinking and helps you make sensible expectations.

Now, the Nest system is not something that will revolutionize the way we heat and cool our homes. If you are someone who add a layer of clothing to keep you from getting cold or you someone who has the time or discipline to turn down your heating before you leave the house or some one who can endure cold or heat longer then 15 minutes before the HVAC systems bring your living space to a desired temperature then this $250 Nest is not going to impress you. However, if you are someone who appreciates the convenience of home automation and appreciate the convenience to control your home environment from a remote location by controlling the Nest via WiFi and apps out there for both Android and iPhone devices then you will love this Nest.