Nest (T3007ES) Learning Thermostat, Easy Temperature Control for Every Room in Your House, Stainless Steel (Third Generation), Works with Alexa

Purchase Date: 27NOV15
Purchase Price: $211.44
ComEd Utility Company Rebate: $100.00

After purchasing a new home and watching our utility bills rise for a while I vowed to change all of that in 2015. I began to purchase LED light bulbs as a start, new energy efficient appliances, and then September 2015 the Nest 3rd Generation was released which caught my attention. I asked my father in-law who had the Nest 2nd Generation for information and he had nothing negative to say about it so I was sold. After comparing it to other competitors I was hooked on this one due to the ease of installation, good reviews, and $100 electric company rebate (ask your local energy company).

Do not be intimidated to install this on your own it’s not hard. The instructions it comes with and YouTube to be on the safe side did it for me. Before installing please make sure to shut your homes power panel breaker prior to uninstalling the old thermostat and installing the Nest (be safe). Take a picture of the way the wires were installed on your old thermostat prior to uninstalling. In doing so this will ensure that your connections are connected correctly. Test your wires one more time prior to uninstalling to make sure no power is running (avoid being shocked or damaging anything). I did not use/install the base-plate (pictures shown) because I wanted a modern, sleek, and clean look. The body and display (40% increase) of the 3rd generation is slightly larger then that of the 2nd generation. If you have children you can lock it so that a child touching it can not change or disrupt your temperature or any of your settings. The stainless steel dial is very smooth and allows you to navigate through the settings with ease.

It takes the Nest a couple of days to remember what temperatures you like when you are home and at what times you are home. After a couple of days Nest will ask you if you want it to automatically go into “Away Mode” when it senses you are not home (you decide opt in or opt out – I opted in). I recommend opting in to “Away Mode” for better energy savings. You can control when you are home and when you are away during those few days or if you opt out of “Away Mode” then you control it all. Smartphone application is free and easy to use.

The new “Far-Sight” feature is awesome and can catch me at approximately 10 feet away even in the dark. When Nest detects any motion it will illuminate with what the current temperature is. This is how it can tell if you are home or not and can automatically place itself in “Away Mode” for energy savings.

Being able to control everything from the application on my smartphone itself is so awesome (fan, cooling/heating mode, humidity level, away/home mode, set a schedule, history, etc.). Nest will remind you when you should change your air filters on your furnace because it can base it upon how many times it turns on and off.

Significant drop in energy consumption can be seen on my gas bill after month 1. Due to this my father purchased the item as well and has no complaints thus far.

UPDATE: 15FEB17 Still own the item with no problems.

If you are doing research and thinking of purchasing it – just do it! It is paying for itself in savings thus far. Highly recommended! (PICTURES ATTACHED) “Was this review helpful to you?” if it was please select “YES” below. Thank you! 🙂

I was initially impressed with my nest. The more time I spent exploring it, I found nice capabilities. Then problems started after two months. My home is in the colder climate of northern Michigan. While in Florida I checked my nest status. The nest was not calling for heat and temperature was dropping fast. I called the nest techs which were polite and helpful. They said my nest was wired for a heat pump which I do not have. Just impossible. The nest was actually calling my ac to cool down the house. Luckily I got a heating contractor to resolve it that was very familiar with nest. The nest was properly wired, but when wiring was check via the wi if it said it was erroneously wired for a heat pump. The nest was removed and reset. Now functions properly. The tech said they have never seen this malfunction before, but it’s noted in their website. I asked for a replacement which they promptly sent. I’m now requesting reimbursement for my very expensive contractor services. This will be a good test if they stand behind their products. We will see.

A month later Nest did reimburse me for the furnace tech visit. They have integrity. Nice to see today.

So I live in the southeast, where the summers are brutal and the winters are colder than you’d think. We get wild temperature swings which keeps energy usage quite high during peak months of the summer and winter seasons. Thinking this could help save some costs, I decided to try it. While others have explained a lot about what this system does, let me tell you what is does NOT do.

I was under the impression it would “learn” my schedule (as it advertises it does) and basically figure out that during the week, I work regular hours, as does my spouse. We leave the house within 15 minutes of each other, and arrive home pretty close together soon. So if I leave at 7am, and come home at 5 pm, I want the temperature a comfy 75-76 degrees in my home. The interim? Don’t care, which is what I hoped the Nest would work on for me. Ideally, When I leave at 7 or so, it would start to dial back the AC/heat to a decent level, let’s say the low 80s, so I could save money, then when it knows I’ll be home around 5, it aims for heating/cooling the house back down to an acceptable level for me for when I walk in the door. This thing should be working at my house when I’m away to save me money by not heating or cooling an empty house for a few hours while I’m away, then kicking back on 30/60 minutes or so before I arrive so I walk in to a comfy house.

However, it doesn’t quiiiiite do that, you see. I have to do all the heavy lifting as far as keeping it saving me money through the app while I’m away. It has a motion sensor, and a phone proximity sensor, and uses those two things to determine if you’re home or not. If your phone leaves a 1 mile radius, or you don’t pass by the motion sensor for a period of time, it starts an invisible countdown (anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, though it doesn’t tell you how much time, and its not programmable!). After that time, it will starts to let the AC/heat slide in the house to a temperature threshold you set to save energy. Then, it waits until it senses motion or sees your phone again to fire back up. This is a significant issue if you’ve been away for an extended period, as your house might actually be quite warm/cold when you arrive, but the Nest won’t fire up until it “sees” you, meaning you don’t walk into a comfy house, you walk into your threshold temperature and have to wait for the Nest to catch up. The motion sensor is also a big issue if you have an older home like mine, and the thermostat is tucked away at the end of a hall, instead of by the front door. Might be a non-issue to some, but be warned if your thermostat is in an out of the way location.

There IS an “early on” feature which lets you set a temperature and time (“I want it to be 75 degrees at 4:30pm”), and let it start heating or cooling your home a bit before that time depending on the ambient temperature. This is a good feature….except somebody HAS TO BE IN THE HOUSE? That makes zero sense to me. Why would I want to have the early on setting on….if I’m already home? Why, if I leave for work, should my wife sit through uncomfortable temperatures if she stays home, only to have it kick on a few minutes before I arrive? This is the feature that is missing from the home/away assist that is absolutely crucial to this being a REAL learning thermostat. This feature DOES NOT work if your home/away assist is on AND sees nobody home, so you’re back to walking into a furnace during the summer, when it should realize that every Monday through Friday, I’m home at 5 (give or take a few minutes), and aim to have the temperature at my desired level at that time WITHOUT programming. As it is, you have to turn the main selling feature OFF (the learning schedule, home/away assist) to make it work right.This means manually changing everything if your schedule changes, instead of letting the cool parts of this work, like phone proximity etc. If it turns out I have to call in sick, now I have to go into the Nest software/app, and remove any settings I have for the day, and remember to set them back up so the next Thursday (or whichever day I deleted), I’m not blasted out by extreme heat/cold.

So you CAN program this thing to set the temp throughout the house at specific times…..but that defeats the purpose of spending $200-250 on this thing. It sure looks cool, but I can get a programmable thermostat for a fraction of the cost of this. Why won’t the Nest ACTUALLY learn like it says it will? This is a sorely missed feature for those of us who live in areas that get quite warm and cold throughout the year. If they could set it to where the Nest could actually learn the fact I like the temp at 75 degrees, about the time I get home, AND keep the home/away assist stuff on, I’d change my review, but for now, I’m sorely disappointed.