The Nest Learning Thermostat

There has probably never been as much widespread excitement about a thermostat, or almost any energy efficiency product, as there currently is about the Nest Learning Thermostat.  People appear to actually be salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on one, and the media hype machine is almost as frothy as it was about the iPhone 4S.  

I’ll admit that the Nest excites me too – I mean, a motion sensor equipped, Wifi-enabled, weather aware, mobile app connected, self-programming thermostat that looks more elegant than an iPhone and works with most residential HVAC systems? Sounds pretty freaking awesome to this efficiency gadget nerd.

The Nest promises to learn your heating and cooling needs over the course of a week, and continue to tune them over time based on your actual behavior. It has a motion sensor driven auto-away feature that kicks in if it doesn’t detect any activity for two hours, so that you don’t spend your money heating an empty house.  The savings come from the programming schedule that it develops, the auto-away feature and by shaving just a tiny bit off your ideal temperatures.   Nest Labs projects that their thermostat will have an average annual savings of $173, putting the payback period for this $249 device somewhere in the 18 month range (heavily depending on seasonality, climate, and how much you paid for shipping).  That is notably longer than a typical programmable thermostat ($50-75), which could pay for itself over a single heating or cooling season, but in line with a number of other Wifi enabled and mobile app connected models.

Here at Energy Circle we are big fans of programmable thermostats and most of the folks at EC-HQ are as excited about the Nest as I am (except for Alex who is holding out till it can play Angry Birds).  That said, we also know that programmable thermostats only deliver savings if they are programmed, and in most cases reprogrammed seasonally.  Sadly, the history of utility and community programs promoting the use of programmable thermostats has shown that people treat their thermostat with the same lack of respect they gave their VCR’s clock.  Worse still, this is archetypal of the wide spread UI problem that has hindered adoption of far too many energy efficiency gadgets –a mix of complexity, limited design investment, and (perhaps appropriately) limited consumer willingness to adapt their behavior to maximize the technology.

The Nest’s learning/self-programming and elegant UI promises to overcome this hurdle.  However, the proof will be in the learning algorithms’ actual performance over the course of a year, and we are as excited as anyone to find out if it delivers.