Thursday, April 12, 2012

it's so cool... and hot...



i'm normally not a fan of really techie upgrades, i generally think they're totally unnecessary and a waste of  money because they can't be that much better than what we already have but, i tolerate them because jhubs is a geek and it makes him happy when i get excited about his kind of toys.  but this time, i'm totally sold... it started last year before christmas when i stumbled across the nest learning thermostat, i watched the videos on their website because it seemed like something he would love, that i would poke a bit of fun at, and then we'd laugh and move on.  only this time, i was quickly sucked in by how cool it is which means that this "little joke" quickly stole my heart...

i know what you're thinking: seriously? why would a thermostat need to learn (and how can it be that much better that i've fallen for it)? normally, you just adjust them as needed or, better yet, get a programmable thermostat and tell it what time you want it to adjust and what to adjust to right? except that most thermostats don't know about daylight savings time and that jhubs gets up way before i do generally, my work schedule changes every week, we're sometimes gone for 10-12 hours at a time and, since we live in the midwest, the weather outside changes from warm to cold to rain to hot sometimes all in the same day so we generally come home to a house that's totally the wrong temperature.  besides those fun facts, i'm pretty cheap when it comes to paying utility bills, so cheap in fact that i won't turn the heat up past 65 in the house during the winter unless we're having people over, and even then those people are wearing sweat shirts or fleece jackets because they know we don't crank the heat. (best.friends.ever).

for me to stumble upon a thermostat that i don't have to program because it 'learns' what we're comfortable with just by the way we adjust it, we can check on the temp and adjust it from our phones or any computer, there's an app for that, and it saves energy with several cool features? SOLD!  even better, from what i understand, it's from the creator of the iphone (the guy, not apple co.) so it's got very clean lines, it's user friendly, is super easy to install, came with everything we needed to install it, and it downloads its own software upgrades so that we don't have to buy a new one every two years which means that it's a techie toy that keeps on giving!

have i over-explained it enough? i'm stupidly in love with a thermostat!!  here's some install pics, it was super simple, you can check out the full how-to video on their website.

cut the power then remove the thermostat front (we did this step backwards):


label the wires with the provided stickers:



disconnect the wires and remove the back plate:


make sure the inspector is watching all steps:


screw the back plate to the wall to cover old holes (we had a bunch, yikes), feed the wires through the new backplate:

make sure everything is level (yep, built in level!) before securing to the wall and then hook up the wires:



turn the power back on and follow the on-screen instructions:


connect it to your home wifi and enter your zipcode, preferences, etc:



then log-in to their site and set up your account so you can control it from anywhere:


during the account set-up process it detected the thermostat on our network, which made me a little giddy. easy technology that will save me money and playing with it just got the jhubs a little geeked out, i love it!!  plus, when we patch and paint the walls in the living room that back plate can be painted to match or be removed for a super sleek, we just stuck it there, kind of look.

btw, of course they didn't pay me to write this and i'm not getting (or expecting) any extra love from the nest people for loving their product, i'm sharing just to share! and yes, it's kind of pricey for this fairly simple upgrade so we did our research on the energy savings and made sure to check that our existing wiring was compatible for the thermostat before shelling out the cash., what can i say, i'm cheapskate that likes to shop!