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"Up to this point, installation was so complicated that it required a professional. " Not even remotely true. The Nest wires the same as any other thermostat.

"Up to this point, installation was so complicated that it required a professional. " Not even remotely true. The Nest wires the same as any other thermostat. Prior to the Nest there were plenty of inexpensive to high end devices with simple instructions included .

mmastrac 4y ago
And funny enough, it probably caused more issues because installations without a common wire would trigger short-cycling of the HVAC as it tried to draw power from the furnace wires.
- crmd 4y ago
  Can you elaborate? I installed my nest years ago without a common wire and it…seems to work but I have horrendous gas bills and the system cycles often, but I attributed both of these to the poor insulation of my 120 year old building.
  - roperj 4y ago
    If you have no common wire you have no return path for current so that you can power a consuming device. Original thermostats were entirely electromechanical switches with no power requirements. The Nest gets around the common requirement by cheating - it charges a rechargeable battery by leeching current into the signal wires. If the endpoint is a coil on a relay or solenoid, this usually causes no problem, it often causes no problem if the relay is solid state, but on some equipment that return current will switch on the equipment when it tries to charge its own battery. In other cases it won’t charge at all. Usually it’s quite clear if this happening as the equipment will be cycling even with no call for heat.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Yes, what happens is that the power draw is large enough to cause the heater to see that as a demand for heat. There are little converters for this that ensure that the thermostat has enough power to run and the heater only sees a potential free switch when there is actual demand. Google 'Nest Thermostat C-wire adapter'. This is especially convenient if you'd otherwise have to run new wiring which can require a lot of work.
  - JamisonM 4y ago
    I had a frequent cycling problem and the issue was that the air conditioning A-frame in my furnace was plugged.. it was causing a constriction that caused the natural gas furnace to overheat when it went into the second stage and cycle. (I thought it was a shortage of return but once I eliminated that I cut open the furnace and found the problem)
mfer 4y ago
Sounds like this piece was written by someone who doesn't really know the space and follows along with Nest marketing. > These leaf springs allowed for the self-configuration of the unit, saving the time and troubleshooting that would have prevented a regular person from tackling installation. And it worked! It was so simple that grandparents were making YouTube videos of themselves installing it. Did Nest sponsor this article? It's a Google property and they managed to reference another Google property.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > Did Nest sponsor this article? It's a Google property and they managed to reference another Google property. YouTube is ubiquitous. It’s not like they referenced someone’s blogger account or something.
- burnished 4y ago
  I saw a lot of presentations in engineering school that were effectively distilled marketing copy, wouldn’t surprise me if some people never outgrew that behavior.
jandrese 4y ago
It wasn't hard, but it did ask a lot of questions that your average homeowner may or may not know. Do you have a humidifier on your furnace? A dehumidifier? How is the emergency heat configured? Is the fan DC or AC coupled? Questions like that. I self installed mine no problem, but I can see how people could be intimidated. For what it is worth, I think the Nest has been generally worse than a dumber programmable thermostat, especially after Google took it over. The App only allows a single phone to be connected now which is a problem when both me and my wife want access. There is also no way to run the fans without switching it on heat or cool. The fans can also only run for a maximum of 12 hours before it needs manual intervention to restart. All of which are a problem if you have say a pellet stove providing heat in one part of the house and want to circulate the air to the rest of the house using the furnace fan. On my old thermostat I could even switch the fan to low speed mode when the heat pump wasn't running, which is something the Nest seems to have no concept of. There is an API, but it's all Googlefied and requires a subscription and kind of assumes you're already a full stack Google developer.
- jdeibele 4y ago
  I had actually bought a Nest but never installed it. I sold it on eBay when it was announced that Google was requiring people to use Google accounts with Nest products. What I installed instead (myself) was an Ecobee 3+. I've been very happy with it. I have it set to run the fans 10 minutes of every hour to move air around a little bit. With a previous dumb thermostat, using the fan more often caused a noticeable spike in the electric bill. We live in a 1914 house with multiple levels and minimal air returns so there tends to be variations in temperature (top hot in summer, cool in winter; basement coldest in summer even with vents closed but exposed pipes are full of cold air, etc.) that aren't easily fixable. Ecobee has started selling security cameras, which I haven't looked into. I really do like the idea of having a best-of-breed thermostat and I hope that Amazon doesn't buy them. I'm a little surprised that they haven't.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    > I hope that Amazon doesn't buy them. I'm a little surprised that they haven't. Amazon had their own thermostat so they don’t need it. Their own thermostat locks people into Alexa, ecobee doesn’t.
m463 4y ago
My parents had a nest and I will say that there are failure modes that are not found on a normal standalone thermostat. I remember my very cold mother calling me because there was a message about a wifi problem and she didn't know she could somehow bypass it and turn up the thermostat.

mmastrac 4y ago

And funny enough, it probably caused more issues because installations without a common wire would trigger short-cycling of the HVAC as it tried to draw power from the furnace wires.

crmd 4y ago
Can you elaborate? I installed my nest years ago without a common wire and it…seems to work but I have horrendous gas bills and the system cycles often, but I attributed both of these to the poor insulation of my 120 year old building.
- roperj 4y ago
  If you have no common wire you have no return path for current so that you can power a consuming device. Original thermostats were entirely electromechanical switches with no power requirements. The Nest gets around the common requirement by cheating - it charges a rechargeable battery by leeching current into the signal wires. If the endpoint is a coil on a relay or solenoid, this usually causes no problem, it often causes no problem if the relay is solid state, but on some equipment that return current will switch on the equipment when it tries to charge its own battery. In other cases it won’t charge at all. Usually it’s quite clear if this happening as the equipment will be cycling even with no call for heat.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Yes, what happens is that the power draw is large enough to cause the heater to see that as a demand for heat. There are little converters for this that ensure that the thermostat has enough power to run and the heater only sees a potential free switch when there is actual demand. Google 'Nest Thermostat C-wire adapter'. This is especially convenient if you'd otherwise have to run new wiring which can require a lot of work.
- JamisonM 4y ago
  I had a frequent cycling problem and the issue was that the air conditioning A-frame in my furnace was plugged.. it was causing a constriction that caused the natural gas furnace to overheat when it went into the second stage and cycle. (I thought it was a shortage of return but once I eliminated that I cut open the furnace and found the problem)

mfer 4y ago

Sounds like this piece was written by someone who doesn't really know the space and follows along with Nest marketing. > These leaf springs allowed for the self-configuration of the unit, saving the time and troubleshooting that would have prevented a regular person from tackling installation. And it worked! It was so simple that grandparents were making YouTube videos of themselves installing it. Did Nest sponsor this article? It's a Google property and they managed to reference another Google property.

vineyardmike 4y ago
> Did Nest sponsor this article? It's a Google property and they managed to reference another Google property. YouTube is ubiquitous. It’s not like they referenced someone’s blogger account or something.
burnished 4y ago
I saw a lot of presentations in engineering school that were effectively distilled marketing copy, wouldn’t surprise me if some people never outgrew that behavior.

jandrese 4y ago

It wasn't hard, but it did ask a lot of questions that your average homeowner may or may not know. Do you have a humidifier on your furnace? A dehumidifier? How is the emergency heat configured? Is the fan DC or AC coupled? Questions like that. I self installed mine no problem, but I can see how people could be intimidated. For what it is worth, I think the Nest has been generally worse than a dumber programmable thermostat, especially after Google took it over. The App only allows a single phone to be connected now which is a problem when both me and my wife want access. There is also no way to run the fans without switching it on heat or cool. The fans can also only run for a maximum of 12 hours before it needs manual intervention to restart. All of which are a problem if you have say a pellet stove providing heat in one part of the house and want to circulate the air to the rest of the house using the furnace fan. On my old thermostat I could even switch the fan to low speed mode when the heat pump wasn't running, which is something the Nest seems to have no concept of. There is an API, but it's all Googlefied and requires a subscription and kind of assumes you're already a full stack Google developer.

jdeibele 4y ago
I had actually bought a Nest but never installed it. I sold it on eBay when it was announced that Google was requiring people to use Google accounts with Nest products. What I installed instead (myself) was an Ecobee 3+. I've been very happy with it. I have it set to run the fans 10 minutes of every hour to move air around a little bit. With a previous dumb thermostat, using the fan more often caused a noticeable spike in the electric bill. We live in a 1914 house with multiple levels and minimal air returns so there tends to be variations in temperature (top hot in summer, cool in winter; basement coldest in summer even with vents closed but exposed pipes are full of cold air, etc.) that aren't easily fixable. Ecobee has started selling security cameras, which I haven't looked into. I really do like the idea of having a best-of-breed thermostat and I hope that Amazon doesn't buy them. I'm a little surprised that they haven't.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > I hope that Amazon doesn't buy them. I'm a little surprised that they haven't. Amazon had their own thermostat so they don’t need it. Their own thermostat locks people into Alexa, ecobee doesn’t.

m463 4y ago

My parents had a nest and I will say that there are failure modes that are not found on a normal standalone thermostat. I remember my very cold mother calling me because there was a message about a wifi problem and she didn't know she could somehow bypass it and turn up the thermostat.