That doesn't seem all that unbalanced to me. First off, Nest is a business, they're looking for revenue out of this. Secondly, $85 = $25 + 4 years @$15/yr. S

That doesn't seem all that unbalanced to me. First off, Nest is a business, they're looking for revenue out of this. Secondly, $85 = $25 + 4 years @$15/yr. So in essence Nest only makes money on this after 4 years. As cool as Nest is, it's not unreasonable to assume that if this catches on other companies might pursue similar programs. Which means that Nest user might be swapping out their thermostat in 4 or 5 years for the then-newest thing. $85 to the customer doesn't seem like such a bad deal in the grand scheme of things, and as others have said, the customer gets other significant benefits out of the Nest thermostat all along the way.