Smart Thermostats

[Mike69]

Been thinking of upgrading my cheap builder grade thermostat for one of those new fancy smart thermostats. Top two I keep hearing about are the Nest and Ecobee3. Any of you fellas have any experience with these in your homes?

[ELVIS]

what all do they do? I don't guess I understand the draw....

god bless.

[SVTNorthTexas]

What makes most smart thermostats so "smart" is that they learn from your behaviors, allow you to control the climate in your home remotely, show you energy consumption in real-time, and can even adjust themselves based on ambient conditions like humidity.

Plus you can manage your thermostat settings from your phone remotely. From the remote interface, you can always see how much you're spending on heating or cooling costs, tweak the programming to you save money, and see the results immediately.

[Mike69]

Honestly I don't know a whole lot about them. My buddy installed A Nest in his home a little over a year ago and said that his energy bill went down more than 20% compared to the years before where it was always around the same energy consumption. Was hoping that some of you fellas have used them to give me some feedback.

[Unicorn Jeff]

I just had a new Lennox system out in and at the same time they put in a nest thermostat upstairs and downstairs. I haven't had it for a whole billing period yet so idk how much it will help out, but I do feel that the system doesn't have to run as much.

[mstng86]

$200-250 is steep IMO, but if it paid itself back over time I can understand the appeal.

For those that switched to these smart thermostats, have you saved a significant amount to make up for that price tag?

[Baron Von Crowder]

Green mountain sent me a nest when I signed up with them, it's sitting in the box on the shelf. I should go ahead and install it on one of my units I guess.

[Silverback]

we use the Nest, and the best part about it is the scheduling and the auto away feature.

Overall though, the cost savings is ehhh at best. when auto away sets in, it typically has to run the A/C longer to get back to a cooler temperature, so there's that. It is nice to turn the temp up/down from bed via a smart phone tho

[jakesford]

I think they save money for three types:
Homes that don't have a programmable thermostat.
Homes that had a programmable thermostat that they never bothered to keep programmed.
People that don't have a fixed schedule.

I have the ecobee3 and love it. The remote sensors are awesome for us as you can have it include or ignore the temps from multiple locations based on schedule and or occupancy. So at night, only the remote thermostat in our bedroom is used which is nice because that room tends to be over cooled or heated. The office has the opposite problem, so if I'm working from home it know that I'm there so it doesn't switch to an away setting and it gives a higher weighting to that thermostat.

[71chevellejohn]

I've got a Honeywell Lyric. I'm not sure about the savings, but the convenience of adjusting from the phone is nice.

It's a definite upgrade over the old mercury switch thermostat I had.

[Chili]

we use the Nest, and the best part about it is the scheduling and the auto away feature.

Overall though, the cost savings is ehhh at best. when auto away sets in, it typically has to run the A/C longer to get back to a cooler temperature, so there's that. It is nice to turn the temp up/down from bed via a smart phone tho

Same here.. The ability to change the temp from my phone, alone, is worth the money to me. lol

We got ours used off 5 mile or Craigslist or something (Lea found it for next to nothing). Some people had installed it a couple months earlier, then replaced their whole system and it came with a newer version.

[RJDCobra]

For what it's worth I just bought my first house back in June and the first thing I bought was a Nest. I like the home and away features how I can turn it up or down on my phone and the AC unit on/off history. They say these things will pay themselves off in 2 years.

[Craizie]

They also keep the fan blowing over the coils after they turn the condenser off. The coils are still cold for a bit after it shuts off, so it runs the fan for X amount of time. This is one of the main ways it saves energy.

[Tx Redneck]

I'll just leave this right here. http://thehackernews.com/2016/08/hac...hermostat.html

[hxbernal]

I've had the ecobee for about 2-3 years and love it. If I leave home and realize I won't be back for a while I'll just shut the AC system off via the phone app. When I do head back I just turn it on 30 minutes prior to my arrival.

I've also had the ecobee 3 since inception but can't tell you about it since it's still in the box.