9 ms·

Is a Nest worth the money?

95 points by benackles 13y ago

corresation 13y ago
It is very unlikely that this is accurate, or there are substantial externals that are not being accounted for (e.g. stopping using a desktop as much as a tablet gets heavy usage) -- the difference between 2012-01-01 and 2013-01-01 is just way beyond what even the biggest Nest hyper claims. Outside of savings that grossly exceed even the best expectations, when questioned whether they used a programmable thermostat already (the absolute bog standard $20 variety automatically dropping the temperature in a manner that is close to optimal for about 95% of people), the author gave a very wishy-washy answer that didn't actually answer the question.
- mjn 13y ago
  Heck, I didn't have a programmable thermostat for three years, in Atlanta, and would be surprised to see anywhere near these savings. I had a thermostat with a manual lever, which was mechanically coupled to a mercury-glass switch that controlled the A/C (this was a new apartment building built in 1999, strangely enough, not some ancient relic). I turned the thermostat way up (i.e. reduced the intensity of the A/C) when I would leave, and turned it back down when I got home. This by itself was enough to reduce almost to zero the operation of the A/C when I wasn't home, which was a pretty good approximation of the desired outcome.
- smoyer 13y ago
  I agree ... And the thing I noticed is that during the cold snap (which wasn't nearly as long but was just as cold), they hardly used any power compared to the previous year. Perhaps they wer on vacation? I think "occupied hours" would be pretty important for these measurements. And if you multiplied occupied hours times the inside-outside temperature differential, you'd (maybe) start to see some patterns.
- ars 13y ago
  Is this nest controlling an A/C or a heater? Or both? Do they really use electric heat? The graph doesn't make sense.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Some people use electric heat in the south. Mine is gas, but I wouldn't mind electric since I use it only a few weeks per year.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - willyt 13y ago
    It's a convention of building physics to convert all energy useage to kW (sometimes BTU in the US) regardless of whether its gas, electric, oil, biomass etc. For example, Passivhaus calcs are done this way.
- MrFoof 13y ago
  I've been a Nest user since nearly Day 1, and about 19 months now overall. At this point I've probably recouped about 80% of the price of the thermostat, with my electric bill reduced by about $10-11/month ($55-65/mo to $45-55/mo) for a 725 sqft luxury apartment. I should probably write a blog post with all the details, but here's my take: * I have a south-facing apartment with about 110-square feet of window glass. It heats up like a sonofa in the morning. I was able to counter this by setting a warmer limit for cooling in the summer. The blinds were always correctly set every evening to minimize summer cooling and winter heating. * The leaf stuck out at me. I always wondered "why can't I get the leaf with my setting -- what do I have to adjust it to to get the leaf to appear?" This resulted in behavioral changes such as wearing different clothes, and taking better advantage of the windows to make getting the leaf to appear achievable. * Once I hit the leaf, I then looked into other ways to maintain comfort, particularly in the summer. I've since invested in a fan to eliminate the envelope of heat that surrounds my body. Running the fan 20 hours a day is equivalent to running the A/C for 20-25 minutes, which is a big savings if I can eliminate 2.5 to 3 hours of A/C usage a day (at 18.5 cents/kWh). With the addition of the fan, and finally finding some LED light bulbs with the right lens type and color temp (to replace some halogens in the track lighting), my electric bill was $42 for July, despite the ridiculous northeast heat wave. Despite constant 90+ degree temperatures and high humidity, I was able to get by with about 1 hour and 15 minutes of A/C a day, and didn't feel bad about it.
  - TylerE 13y ago
    Yes, that's kinda the thing though. If you're going to lifehack your way out of it, that's an externality.
    - Corrado 13y ago
      I'm not sure I agree. If the Nest helps to change your habits then I would consider it a net win. It doesn't really matter how you saved the money, just that the Nest is paying for itself. Sort of like paying Weight Watchers to help you stick to your diet. :)
      - 13y ago
- Steko 13y ago
  "the difference between 2012-01-01 and 2013-01-01 is just way beyond what even the biggest Nest hyper claims" Doesn't the temperature chart explain most of the savings? A colder winter and hotter summer for the first year (pre-Nest). The simple total of net degrees by month disguises the fact that the second year is much milder. What you want to look at is KWH from months (days if possible) with nearly identical avg temperatures, come up with composite "savings" for different month types and project that on a year.
  - ics 13y ago
    Below are the charts for each period. My attention isn't here but if someone with some statistical know-how wants to give even a casual analysis it would be interesting. Pre-Nest: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2011/7/1/CustomHistory.html?dayend=1&monthend=7&yearend=2012&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2011/7/1/Cu... Nest: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2012/7/1/CustomHistory.html?dayend=1&monthend=7&yearend=2013&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2012/7/1/Cu...
jfb 13y ago
If it prevented me from punching the wall next to the godawful current Carrier thermostat, it would be cheap at twice the price.
- Zimahl 13y ago
  It will. I bought a house 3 months ago and it had a terrible thermostat that was difficult to program and even programmed it would reset itself occasionally. We bought and installed a Nest and it programs itself by learning your patterns. I don't know if it's saving us money because I have no baseline to compare it to (other than the previous year's electrical usage comparison on our electric bill), but the device is a breeze to use. The app is nice as well when you are laying in bed and it's too hot or cold in the house - just grab your phone and change the temperature. I wouldn't hesitate buying one again.
- flomo 13y ago
  Meanwhile, my father had mastered the old VCR-style programmable thermostats, but he doesn't really 'get' the Nest I gave him. Too high-tech and automatic for him. But, Mom likes changing the temperature from her iPad.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    I see a vision of all our futures. Cranky old tech guy and hot-flashing old woman spend retirement in hacking war to set the indoor temperature with their phones/tablets/whatever we're using in a decade or two.
    - at-fates-hands 13y ago
      Thank you for the wonderful visual. This is the funniest thing I've read today and made me laugh pretty hard.
fsckin 13y ago
In Texas, companies give away Nests [0][1] to lure customers, thanks to the deregulated market. Competition is so healthy, they are even trying to capture 'green' customers who use less. [0] http://www.greenmountain.com/nest http://www.greenmountain.com/nest [1] http://www.reliant.com/nest‎ http://www.reliant.com/nest‎
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  If I was to guess, I'd say they are most interested in the idea of smoothing demand. The more base load and the less peak load, the more profitable you can be.
  - jellicle 13y ago
    If I were to guess, I'd say that buying electricity at 3 cents/kWh and selling it at 12 cents/kWh is profitable enough that you can afford to give away a thermostat to attract new customers. There's a $300 cancellation fee so they'll get their money back if you depart early.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    I suspect there may be a little federal grant money floating around for the Nest thermostats. Some providers are offering free nights, they have so much fluctuation in demand. Having a fairly hot, but not record-setting day today (61,340 MW). http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCu... http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_condi... Note: Our peak capacity is ~68,000 MW. There are some peaking-plants that may be brought online if we exceed that, or we'll begin having rolling-blackouts like last summer.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Yup. Along those lines. Has anyone had any luck with these incentives and grants for various improvements? http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=TX54F&State=federal&currentpageid=1&ee=1&re=1 http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=...
conductr 13y ago
This needs to be correlated to the weather/temperature pattern of the two years since the nest is on your HVAC. Much of the US has had a milder summer and winter than the previous year; it may be the same for you.
JesseObrien 13y ago
For me, it made a larger difference in my awareness of how much energy I actually use. Before nest I simply programmed my thermostat once and never touched it again because of the pain. Now I consciously adjust the temperature throughout the day from my desktop or phone. Just being able to walk out the door and turn the temp down from my phone if I'm suddenly not going to be home for a while is savings enough for me. I'm sure there are other thermostats that do the same thing but nest has done their advertising right and their interface/product design is top notch.
Jack000 13y ago
The real selling point is the aesthetics. That's why I bought it anyways. The self-learning scheduler is nice, but I could easily program a manual one in a few minutes.
dsr_ 13y ago
Oy. The unit of heating/cooling temperature comparison is the degree-day, not the average temperature of the month. For each time period, take the difference from your desired temperature. If you have an acceptable range, take the difference from the near edge of that range. e.g. with a desired range 65-75, a 40 degree day counts as negative 25 and a 90 degree day counts as positive 15. Keep track separately of positive and negative. Now you have a record of how much you needed to cool or heat. Local newspapers -- remember those? -- will usually keep track for you on their weather page. That's a suitable basis for comparison. Not monthly average temperature, not average high, not average low.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  >Now you have a record of how much you needed to cool or heat. Local newspapers -- remember those? -- will usually keep track for you on their weather page Yahoo! has a great free weather API with historical data, as does NOAA.
  - adestefan 13y ago
    And Weather Underground
    - SEJeff 13y ago
      Yeah WU is def not free!
robomartin 13y ago
Nope, it's not worth it. And this data does not prove it is. I need to know everything about the conditions prior to installing a Nest. In particular, I need to know about the thermostat and, if programmable, how it was programmed. I also need to know about living patterns. Did anything change? Was the programmed temperature higher in the summer and lower in the winter with Nest or was it set to about the same conditions? In terms of energy efficiency. How is the house insulated? Can you add insulation to the walls or attic? Are the windows double-insulated? Do you use a whole house fan in the summer to cool the house at night? Do you have a multiple zone system so you don't have to heat or cool the entire house when you spend all day in, let's say, an office or the kitchen? Is it a two story home? Do you push hot air down in the winter in order to equalize the temperature? Do you have attic ventilators? I see Nest as more of a neat gizmo with lots of marketing behind it than a real solution to a real problem. To be sure, the real solution requires a lot more work than bolting a piece of slick looking electronics to a wall. The payoff from a real solution would almost certainly be far greater and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money. For example, I use a $200 fan to cool my home at night (taking advantage of my local conditions). We have probably used the air conditioner a grand total of four weeks in the last three years. The savings in three years are already in the thousands and the investment was $200.
- mikeash 13y ago
  If you're comparing against an ideal savings regime, I imagine it's not worth it. However, in my case, I was always putting off figuring out how to program my thermostats, deciding it was too much trouble to adjust them, etc. Against that, I expect the Nest to pay off fairly quickly.
  - rschmitty 13y ago
    Programming a $15 thermostat from Lowes/HD is not hard, even remotely. Definitely not hard for HN readership.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      And yet I still managed to put off learning how for months.
rainsford 13y ago
I'm not sure looking at the pure money saving in terms of lower energy is the way to go, since a lot of the benefits are more intangible than that. The ability to detect when you're away, automatic scheduling and easy control from a smartphone are pretty big benefits for me but they'd be hard to quantify in terms of being "worth it". As others have pointed out, you can achieve a lot of that with other (cheaper) products. But to be honest, I think Nest's main strength is making the features easy and fun to use rather than having totally revolutionary new features. But that's the Android and Iphone claim to fame in the smartphone world, and they did OK ;)
AaronBBrown 13y ago
He's confusing kilowatts with kilowatt hours? They mean very different things. kW is a rate (kilojoules/sec) of usage (power). kWh a stackable amount (in the sense that you can stack money) of energy and is what the electric company charges you for. A basic mistake like this makes me question the validity of the results. I'm in the market for 3 new thermostats and was hoping this article would help me with my decision. Presently, I'm leaning toward an Ecobees (https://www.ecobee.com/ https://www.ecobee.com/) thermostat which has a lot more features than the Nest and even has an API. It seems to be the Android of the thermostat world where Nest is the iPhone. Features vs polish.
- acchow 13y ago
  Yeah, he probably doesn't understand the difference between kW vs. kWh, but it's not necessary to figure out how much money you've saved.
trimbo 13y ago
I think it would be worth looking at this using "degree days". (Degree day stats from Wunderground, I eyeballed his KW since no firm numbers are provided). * August 2011 vs. August 2012: 809 cooling degree days vs. 594 (1.36x). 2100 KW vs. 1500 (1.4x) * January 2012 vs. January 2013: 544 heating degree days vs. 595 (0.91). 3000 KW vs. 2000 (1.5x) So accounting for the weather with "degree days", with A/C it looks like there was no savings, but with heat it made a massive difference.
saddino 13y ago
If, worth = "love the convenience of a wi-fi enabled device that can be controlled by my phone and looks hella cool" then, yes...yes it is.
shanselman 13y ago
No, it's not. It's fun, and a great experience, and it's a joy, but it's not saved me any money.
Terretta 13y ago
Depends on the property. In a oil burning boiler property with 8 baseboard zones and 8 Nest units, it saved me a thousand dollars a month all winter. Paid for itself the first winter. Previous thermostats were programmable "eco" models that I kept programmed and used away/vacation modes on. Savings was from being able to see on/off cycles for all 8 zones to better balance them, so boiler was on less overall. I've recommended them to others and use one in a loft as well. Every installation is saving at least 10%.
brandon272 13y ago
I believe the "auto away" detection feature on our Nest has made the biggest impact on our energy bill. Nowhere close to what the OP is saving, but I'd bet it's in the $50/year range.
beachstartup 13y ago
i'm sorry, am i missing something here...? what exactly is wrong with paying $250 for a very nice piece of technology with a great user interface? is this just a symptom of their chosen marketing strategy (saves you money!)?
matthew-wegner 13y ago
I live alone in a house, in Phoenix. I use pynest to set my Nest to "Away" when my iPhone leaves the network (I just ping it constantly from a script). My power bill is a lot less than it was pre-Nest, and it requires no effort. Accessing the Nest when I'm about to head home is a nice benefit, too, to get the house cool before my iPhone is detected again. (I have a sporadic schedule so the auto-away feature wouldn't work for me).
mrtron 13y ago
Feels like a tipping point for Nest. Someone like this could be the next Apple. I feel strongly a few of these Internet enabled devices will pave the way for a new industry. Imagine Nest being purchased by every household (like the iPod) and then moving on to other products. At some point it feels like they could charge a subscription. Would you take a free device and pay them 10$ of your 30$/month savings?
- aguest 13y ago
  You should take a look and see who the founder of Nest is. You may have hit the nail on the head without knowing it.
eyeareque 13y ago
I live in an area where you rarely need air conditioning. Many homes around me do not even have them. However we do need heating from about November to about April, but it rarely does get below freezing. With that said my power bill is about 50/month for gas and electricity. I really didn't need a Nest, but it is certainly a fun tech toy to have. Being able to remotely turn on my heat or AC remotely is pretty nice when you want you're on your way home. So even if I don't make back the $249 that I spent, I still feel that it is worth the money.
jeffwidman 13y ago
There is also the "poor man's nest" - the Filtrete 3M 50 which is $89 on Ebay and fully wifi supported with a well-documented API and fantastic Android app: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R1.TR11.TRC1.A0.Xfiltret&_nkw=filtrete+3m50&_sacat=0&_from=R40 http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R...
SpikeDad 13y ago
I had a Nest early since I preordered it. Unfortunately it just died so I'm not the happiest person. But, over the 1.5 years I had it I saved about 3% from previous years with a dumb thermostat. This doesn't recoup the cost at all. One reason the savings was so low was that the firmware on the Nest was very inadequate during the 1st year. It didn't even do automatic heating/cooling on a schedule. All that was resolved last year. The other reason is that the Home/Away detection is worthless for me (and I suspect many folks) because the thermostat location isn't in the traffic pattern of the house. I've pleaded with them to do a remote sensor but so far they don't care. Most of the new modern wireless system have the ability to add remote sensors so they're being left behind quickly. Even so I'm not disappointed in the Nest. It's cool and I am very pleased to have wireless access via my smartphone to the temperature settings. But they need to do a lot a work to get back to the level of companies like Honeywell and their distributed system.
astangl 13y ago
The failure stories I have heard convince me these are not fail-safe devices. If the thing shuts down in the winter and doesn't restart correctly, and you are away, you could come back to frozen/burst pipes. (Probably hasn't happened yet, but the failures have happened, so it's likely just a matter of time.) So I would only use one of these paired with a conventional thermostat serving as a safety net, in case the Nest fails. But then I resent having to compensate for a manufacturer that cannot be bothered to build the failsafe into their own product in the first place.

95 points by benackles 13y ago

It is very unlikely that this is accurate, or there are substantial externals that are not being accounted for (e.g. stopping using a desktop as much as a tablet gets heavy usage) -- the difference between 2012-01-01 and 2013-01-01 is just way beyond what even the biggest Nest hyper claims. Outside of savings that grossly exceed even the best expectations, when questioned whether they used a programmable thermostat already (the absolute bog standard $20 variety automatically dropping the temperature in a manner that is close to optimal for about 95% of people), the author gave a very wishy-washy answer that didn't actually answer the question.

mjn 13y ago
Heck, I didn't have a programmable thermostat for three years, in Atlanta, and would be surprised to see anywhere near these savings. I had a thermostat with a manual lever, which was mechanically coupled to a mercury-glass switch that controlled the A/C (this was a new apartment building built in 1999, strangely enough, not some ancient relic). I turned the thermostat way up (i.e. reduced the intensity of the A/C) when I would leave, and turned it back down when I got home. This by itself was enough to reduce almost to zero the operation of the A/C when I wasn't home, which was a pretty good approximation of the desired outcome.
smoyer 13y ago
I agree ... And the thing I noticed is that during the cold snap (which wasn't nearly as long but was just as cold), they hardly used any power compared to the previous year. Perhaps they wer on vacation? I think "occupied hours" would be pretty important for these measurements. And if you multiplied occupied hours times the inside-outside temperature differential, you'd (maybe) start to see some patterns.
ars 13y ago
Is this nest controlling an A/C or a heater? Or both? Do they really use electric heat? The graph doesn't make sense.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Some people use electric heat in the south. Mine is gas, but I wouldn't mind electric since I use it only a few weeks per year.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- willyt 13y ago
  It's a convention of building physics to convert all energy useage to kW (sometimes BTU in the US) regardless of whether its gas, electric, oil, biomass etc. For example, Passivhaus calcs are done this way.
MrFoof 13y ago
I've been a Nest user since nearly Day 1, and about 19 months now overall. At this point I've probably recouped about 80% of the price of the thermostat, with my electric bill reduced by about $10-11/month ($55-65/mo to $45-55/mo) for a 725 sqft luxury apartment. I should probably write a blog post with all the details, but here's my take: * I have a south-facing apartment with about 110-square feet of window glass. It heats up like a sonofa in the morning. I was able to counter this by setting a warmer limit for cooling in the summer. The blinds were always correctly set every evening to minimize summer cooling and winter heating. * The leaf stuck out at me. I always wondered "why can't I get the leaf with my setting -- what do I have to adjust it to to get the leaf to appear?" This resulted in behavioral changes such as wearing different clothes, and taking better advantage of the windows to make getting the leaf to appear achievable. * Once I hit the leaf, I then looked into other ways to maintain comfort, particularly in the summer. I've since invested in a fan to eliminate the envelope of heat that surrounds my body. Running the fan 20 hours a day is equivalent to running the A/C for 20-25 minutes, which is a big savings if I can eliminate 2.5 to 3 hours of A/C usage a day (at 18.5 cents/kWh). With the addition of the fan, and finally finding some LED light bulbs with the right lens type and color temp (to replace some halogens in the track lighting), my electric bill was $42 for July, despite the ridiculous northeast heat wave. Despite constant 90+ degree temperatures and high humidity, I was able to get by with about 1 hour and 15 minutes of A/C a day, and didn't feel bad about it.
- TylerE 13y ago
  Yes, that's kinda the thing though. If you're going to lifehack your way out of it, that's an externality.
  - Corrado 13y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. If the Nest helps to change your habits then I would consider it a net win. It doesn't really matter how you saved the money, just that the Nest is paying for itself. Sort of like paying Weight Watchers to help you stick to your diet. :)
    - 13y ago
Steko 13y ago
"the difference between 2012-01-01 and 2013-01-01 is just way beyond what even the biggest Nest hyper claims" Doesn't the temperature chart explain most of the savings? A colder winter and hotter summer for the first year (pre-Nest). The simple total of net degrees by month disguises the fact that the second year is much milder. What you want to look at is KWH from months (days if possible) with nearly identical avg temperatures, come up with composite "savings" for different month types and project that on a year.
- ics 13y ago
  Below are the charts for each period. My attention isn't here but if someone with some statistical know-how wants to give even a casual analysis it would be interesting. Pre-Nest: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2011/7/1/CustomHistory.html?dayend=1&monthend=7&yearend=2012&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2011/7/1/Cu... Nest: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2012/7/1/CustomHistory.html?dayend=1&monthend=7&yearend=2013&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDTO/2012/7/1/Cu...

jfb 13y ago

If it prevented me from punching the wall next to the godawful current Carrier thermostat, it would be cheap at twice the price.

Zimahl 13y ago
It will. I bought a house 3 months ago and it had a terrible thermostat that was difficult to program and even programmed it would reset itself occasionally. We bought and installed a Nest and it programs itself by learning your patterns. I don't know if it's saving us money because I have no baseline to compare it to (other than the previous year's electrical usage comparison on our electric bill), but the device is a breeze to use. The app is nice as well when you are laying in bed and it's too hot or cold in the house - just grab your phone and change the temperature. I wouldn't hesitate buying one again.
flomo 13y ago
Meanwhile, my father had mastered the old VCR-style programmable thermostats, but he doesn't really 'get' the Nest I gave him. Too high-tech and automatic for him. But, Mom likes changing the temperature from her iPad.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  I see a vision of all our futures. Cranky old tech guy and hot-flashing old woman spend retirement in hacking war to set the indoor temperature with their phones/tablets/whatever we're using in a decade or two.
  - at-fates-hands 13y ago
    Thank you for the wonderful visual. This is the funniest thing I've read today and made me laugh pretty hard.

fsckin 13y ago

In Texas, companies give away Nests [0][1] to lure customers, thanks to the deregulated market. Competition is so healthy, they are even trying to capture 'green' customers who use less. [0] http://www.greenmountain.com/nest http://www.greenmountain.com/nest [1] http://www.reliant.com/nest‎ http://www.reliant.com/nest‎

sliverstorm 13y ago
If I was to guess, I'd say they are most interested in the idea of smoothing demand. The more base load and the less peak load, the more profitable you can be.
- jellicle 13y ago
  If I were to guess, I'd say that buying electricity at 3 cents/kWh and selling it at 12 cents/kWh is profitable enough that you can afford to give away a thermostat to attract new customers. There's a $300 cancellation fee so they'll get their money back if you depart early.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  I suspect there may be a little federal grant money floating around for the Nest thermostats. Some providers are offering free nights, they have so much fluctuation in demand. Having a fairly hot, but not record-setting day today (61,340 MW). http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCu... http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_condi... Note: Our peak capacity is ~68,000 MW. There are some peaking-plants that may be brought online if we exceed that, or we'll begin having rolling-blackouts like last summer.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Yup. Along those lines. Has anyone had any luck with these incentives and grants for various improvements? http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=TX54F&State=federal&currentpageid=1&ee=1&re=1 http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=...

conductr 13y ago

This needs to be correlated to the weather/temperature pattern of the two years since the nest is on your HVAC. Much of the US has had a milder summer and winter than the previous year; it may be the same for you.

JesseObrien 13y ago

For me, it made a larger difference in my awareness of how much energy I actually use. Before nest I simply programmed my thermostat once and never touched it again because of the pain. Now I consciously adjust the temperature throughout the day from my desktop or phone. Just being able to walk out the door and turn the temp down from my phone if I'm suddenly not going to be home for a while is savings enough for me. I'm sure there are other thermostats that do the same thing but nest has done their advertising right and their interface/product design is top notch.

Jack000 13y ago

The real selling point is the aesthetics. That's why I bought it anyways. The self-learning scheduler is nice, but I could easily program a manual one in a few minutes.

dsr_ 13y ago

Oy. The unit of heating/cooling temperature comparison is the degree-day, not the average temperature of the month. For each time period, take the difference from your desired temperature. If you have an acceptable range, take the difference from the near edge of that range. e.g. with a desired range 65-75, a 40 degree day counts as negative 25 and a 90 degree day counts as positive 15. Keep track separately of positive and negative. Now you have a record of how much you needed to cool or heat. Local newspapers -- remember those? -- will usually keep track for you on their weather page. That's a suitable basis for comparison. Not monthly average temperature, not average high, not average low.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>Now you have a record of how much you needed to cool or heat. Local newspapers -- remember those? -- will usually keep track for you on their weather page Yahoo! has a great free weather API with historical data, as does NOAA.
- adestefan 13y ago
  And Weather Underground
  - SEJeff 13y ago
    Yeah WU is def not free!

robomartin 13y ago

Nope, it's not worth it. And this data does not prove it is. I need to know everything about the conditions prior to installing a Nest. In particular, I need to know about the thermostat and, if programmable, how it was programmed. I also need to know about living patterns. Did anything change? Was the programmed temperature higher in the summer and lower in the winter with Nest or was it set to about the same conditions? In terms of energy efficiency. How is the house insulated? Can you add insulation to the walls or attic? Are the windows double-insulated? Do you use a whole house fan in the summer to cool the house at night? Do you have a multiple zone system so you don't have to heat or cool the entire house when you spend all day in, let's say, an office or the kitchen? Is it a two story home? Do you push hot air down in the winter in order to equalize the temperature? Do you have attic ventilators? I see Nest as more of a neat gizmo with lots of marketing behind it than a real solution to a real problem. To be sure, the real solution requires a lot more work than bolting a piece of slick looking electronics to a wall. The payoff from a real solution would almost certainly be far greater and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money. For example, I use a $200 fan to cool my home at night (taking advantage of my local conditions). We have probably used the air conditioner a grand total of four weeks in the last three years. The savings in three years are already in the thousands and the investment was $200.

mikeash 13y ago
If you're comparing against an ideal savings regime, I imagine it's not worth it. However, in my case, I was always putting off figuring out how to program my thermostats, deciding it was too much trouble to adjust them, etc. Against that, I expect the Nest to pay off fairly quickly.
- rschmitty 13y ago
  Programming a $15 thermostat from Lowes/HD is not hard, even remotely. Definitely not hard for HN readership.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    And yet I still managed to put off learning how for months.

rainsford 13y ago

I'm not sure looking at the pure money saving in terms of lower energy is the way to go, since a lot of the benefits are more intangible than that. The ability to detect when you're away, automatic scheduling and easy control from a smartphone are pretty big benefits for me but they'd be hard to quantify in terms of being "worth it". As others have pointed out, you can achieve a lot of that with other (cheaper) products. But to be honest, I think Nest's main strength is making the features easy and fun to use rather than having totally revolutionary new features. But that's the Android and Iphone claim to fame in the smartphone world, and they did OK ;)

AaronBBrown 13y ago

He's confusing kilowatts with kilowatt hours? They mean very different things. kW is a rate (kilojoules/sec) of usage (power). kWh a stackable amount (in the sense that you can stack money) of energy and is what the electric company charges you for. A basic mistake like this makes me question the validity of the results. I'm in the market for 3 new thermostats and was hoping this article would help me with my decision. Presently, I'm leaning toward an Ecobees (https://www.ecobee.com/ https://www.ecobee.com/) thermostat which has a lot more features than the Nest and even has an API. It seems to be the Android of the thermostat world where Nest is the iPhone. Features vs polish.

acchow 13y ago
Yeah, he probably doesn't understand the difference between kW vs. kWh, but it's not necessary to figure out how much money you've saved.

trimbo 13y ago

I think it would be worth looking at this using "degree days". (Degree day stats from Wunderground, I eyeballed his KW since no firm numbers are provided). * August 2011 vs. August 2012: 809 cooling degree days vs. 594 (1.36x). 2100 KW vs. 1500 (1.4x) * January 2012 vs. January 2013: 544 heating degree days vs. 595 (0.91). 3000 KW vs. 2000 (1.5x) So accounting for the weather with "degree days", with A/C it looks like there was no savings, but with heat it made a massive difference.

saddino 13y ago

If, worth = "love the convenience of a wi-fi enabled device that can be controlled by my phone and looks hella cool" then, yes...yes it is.

shanselman 13y ago

No, it's not. It's fun, and a great experience, and it's a joy, but it's not saved me any money.

Terretta 13y ago

Depends on the property. In a oil burning boiler property with 8 baseboard zones and 8 Nest units, it saved me a thousand dollars a month all winter. Paid for itself the first winter. Previous thermostats were programmable "eco" models that I kept programmed and used away/vacation modes on. Savings was from being able to see on/off cycles for all 8 zones to better balance them, so boiler was on less overall. I've recommended them to others and use one in a loft as well. Every installation is saving at least 10%.

brandon272 13y ago

I believe the "auto away" detection feature on our Nest has made the biggest impact on our energy bill. Nowhere close to what the OP is saving, but I'd bet it's in the $50/year range.

beachstartup 13y ago

i'm sorry, am i missing something here...? what exactly is wrong with paying $250 for a very nice piece of technology with a great user interface? is this just a symptom of their chosen marketing strategy (saves you money!)?

matthew-wegner 13y ago

I live alone in a house, in Phoenix. I use pynest to set my Nest to "Away" when my iPhone leaves the network (I just ping it constantly from a script). My power bill is a lot less than it was pre-Nest, and it requires no effort. Accessing the Nest when I'm about to head home is a nice benefit, too, to get the house cool before my iPhone is detected again. (I have a sporadic schedule so the auto-away feature wouldn't work for me).

mrtron 13y ago

Feels like a tipping point for Nest. Someone like this could be the next Apple. I feel strongly a few of these Internet enabled devices will pave the way for a new industry. Imagine Nest being purchased by every household (like the iPod) and then moving on to other products. At some point it feels like they could charge a subscription. Would you take a free device and pay them 10$ of your 30$/month savings?

aguest 13y ago
You should take a look and see who the founder of Nest is. You may have hit the nail on the head without knowing it.

eyeareque 13y ago

I live in an area where you rarely need air conditioning. Many homes around me do not even have them. However we do need heating from about November to about April, but it rarely does get below freezing. With that said my power bill is about 50/month for gas and electricity. I really didn't need a Nest, but it is certainly a fun tech toy to have. Being able to remotely turn on my heat or AC remotely is pretty nice when you want you're on your way home. So even if I don't make back the $249 that I spent, I still feel that it is worth the money.

jeffwidman 13y ago

There is also the "poor man's nest" - the Filtrete 3M 50 which is $89 on Ebay and fully wifi supported with a well-documented API and fantastic Android app: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R1.TR11.TRC1.A0.Xfiltret&_nkw=filtrete+3m50&_sacat=0&_from=R40 http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R...

SpikeDad 13y ago

I had a Nest early since I preordered it. Unfortunately it just died so I'm not the happiest person. But, over the 1.5 years I had it I saved about 3% from previous years with a dumb thermostat. This doesn't recoup the cost at all. One reason the savings was so low was that the firmware on the Nest was very inadequate during the 1st year. It didn't even do automatic heating/cooling on a schedule. All that was resolved last year. The other reason is that the Home/Away detection is worthless for me (and I suspect many folks) because the thermostat location isn't in the traffic pattern of the house. I've pleaded with them to do a remote sensor but so far they don't care. Most of the new modern wireless system have the ability to add remote sensors so they're being left behind quickly. Even so I'm not disappointed in the Nest. It's cool and I am very pleased to have wireless access via my smartphone to the temperature settings. But they need to do a lot a work to get back to the level of companies like Honeywell and their distributed system.

astangl 13y ago

The failure stories I have heard convince me these are not fail-safe devices. If the thing shuts down in the winter and doesn't restart correctly, and you are away, you could come back to frozen/burst pipes. (Probably hasn't happened yet, but the failures have happened, so it's likely just a matter of time.) So I would only use one of these paired with a conventional thermostat serving as a safety net, in case the Nest fails. But then I resent having to compensate for a manufacturer that cannot be bothered to build the failsafe into their own product in the first place.