What can you tell me about Nest, or other similar home products?

[lalasmama]

We've made Home Depot our new home lately. After buying a home 2 years ago, we're making it "ours" which seems to mean the folks at Home Depot know us by name. And if not by name, by face. :bag We don't even need to show them our military IDs anymore, since they all seem to remember us.

Of course, I've seen the commercials for Nest. While DH was busy investigating tool boxes at HD (seriously, a 10 drawer tool box to hold the contents of his little tool box? sigh, whatever, dear, go for it), I saw the end cap for Nest, with several other home automation type things. I'm intrigued.

DH says he wants a thermostat that will learn how we like it, and keep it adjusted appropriately. I explained that Nest can do that, and that we can also turn it on/off if our routine changes for some reason (out of town, longer at work, etc) from our phone. So, he's game for that. Yay! Questions: Is there a "better" product out there that would do something similar (better=cheaper, or same price point with better features)? I assume there's an iphone app for the controlling? Can several phones control it (DH's, mine, multiple DD's phones)?

Then I saw the smoke/carbon monoxide monitors from Nest. They talk. Seriously, one of my big fears is that in a fire, I would become disoriented from the buzzing, and not know what to do. Now, I know, in my rational state, I grab the grandbabies if they are here, and DH and I throw DD and the grandbabies out of the house by any means necessary. But, with buzzing, and smoke, and screaming, crying grandkids and teenager, I won't necessarily be in my right mind ;) So, the idea of a smoke alarm that talks to me is HUGE anxiety-calmer. (Also seems much less scary for the kids.) Questions: Same app for the Nest thermostat as for the smoke alarm/monitors? Does it really talk like it shows in the online advertising? How many would a home need? I realize that's a general question--our state requires one in each sleeping room and one in common areas on each floor for rental properties, but that seems steep when we're talking $100 a pop, and it's our own home, not a rental. For what it's worth, we have forced air with a gas furnace, if it matters--no wall-heaters or heat lamps, etc. Is there a point where it's going to do the shrill alarm like regular smoke detectors?

Beyond that, DH doesn't care about being able to turn lights on/off, however, I would LOVE something that turns exterior lights on and off, so that we don't have them on from 7am when we leave the house to 10pm when we go to bed. I'd love the ability to turn them on from wherever I am when it's getting dusk out, so I don't have to worry about if anyone remembered to turn the lights on. Suggestions/product for this?

[Mermanaid]

We've made Home Depot our new home lately. After buying a home 2 years ago, we're making it "ours" which seems to mean the folks at Home Depot know us by name. And if not by name, by face. :bag We don't even need to show them our military IDs anymore, since they all seem to remember us.

Of course, I've seen the commercials for Nest. While DH was busy investigating tool boxes at HD (seriously, a 10 drawer tool box to hold the contents of his little tool box? sigh, whatever, dear, go for it), I saw the end cap for Nest, with several other home automation type things. I'm intrigued.

DH says he wants a thermostat that will learn how we like it, and keep it adjusted appropriately. I explained that Nest can do that, and that we can also turn it on/off if our routine changes for some reason (out of town, longer at work, etc) from our phone. So, he's game for that. Yay! Questions: Is there a "better" product out there that would do something similar (better=cheaper, or same price point with better features)? I assume there's an iphone app for the controlling? Can several phones control it (DH's, mine, multiple DD's phones)?

Then I saw the smoke/carbon monoxide monitors from Nest. They talk. Seriously, one of my big fears is that in a fire, I would become disoriented from the buzzing, and not know what to do. Now, I know, in my rational state, I grab the grandbabies if they are here, and DH and I throw DD and the grandbabies out of the house by any means necessary. But, with buzzing, and smoke, and screaming, crying grandkids and teenager, I won't necessarily be in my right mind ;) So, the idea of a smoke alarm that talks to me is HUGE anxiety-calmer. (Also seems much less scary for the kids.) Questions: Same app for the Nest thermostat as for the smoke alarm/monitors? Does it really talk like it shows in the online advertising? How many would a home need? I realize that's a general question--our state requires one in each sleeping room and one in common areas on each floor for rental properties, but that seems steep when we're talking $100 a pop, and it's our own home, not a rental. For what it's worth, we have forced air with a gas furnace, if it matters--no wall-heaters or heat lamps, etc. Is there a point where it's going to do the shrill alarm like regular smoke detectors?

Beyond that, DH doesn't care about being able to turn lights on/off, however, I would LOVE something that turns exterior lights on and off, so that we don't have them on from 7am when we leave the house to 10pm when we go to bed. I'd love the ability to turn them on from wherever I am when it's getting dusk out, so I don't have to worry about if anyone remembered to turn the lights on. Suggestions/product for this?

We have a nest and the smoke detector so I can answer a few of your questions. I'm not sure if there is a better product so I will focus on how our two products interact.

1. There is an iPhone app to control the nest and it can be installed on multiple phones. I just log into DH's account and we've never had a problem setting it up like that. They now offer a family account where you can "invite" people to it. Too late for us though. Best thing about the app: when you are tired, don't want to get out of bed but you are hot/cold. Fixed!

2. Smoke alarm. DH had trouble getting the thermostat and smoke alarm to talk to each other when he was installing. There were a few choice words! That could have just been our experience. Ours has only gone off once or twice after it was first installed and I honestly just remember it being as annoying as a regular smoke alarm. It only went off because it was super dusty up by where it is installed and it interpreted that as smoke. I've since gotten better about cleaning the ac return that is in the ceiling right by the alarm. [emoji11]

3. Number of alarms. We thought about getting multiples but because of price and the fact that we just didn't want a lot more items on the wifi, only chose one. Works for us though because all of our bedrooms are on one hallway and it's installed at the door opening. Our house is 2,500 sq ft so not huge either.

4. Nest learning your preferences. It takes several weeks of you adjusting to get the nest to remember your preferences. After that it's been great. There have been a few times when I could tell there was a software upgrade because it messed up a little but that's a small trade off for being able to set it and forget it.

5. Eco mode. I love that if we don't walk past it for a period of time it goes into eco mode, meaning the units don't run. A few upgrades ago they added a fan feature so the unit fan will run which costs so much less. We also get a monthly email that tells us how many hours of eco mode we had, etc. It's a game for me to see how we stacked up from the previous month and how we compared to other nest users in our area. That said, I assume based on the content of that email they definitely collect data about usage.

Overall, really glad we got both of the products.

[essnce629]

We have one Nest smoke alarm and the Nest thermostat. They are great. I plan to get another smoke alarm for our office as the smoke alarm in there is old. We also have an Amazon Echo (and a Tap and 3 Dots) that are synced with our Nest so I can turn the thermostat up or down by voice from any room by saying "Alexa, turn Nest to 68, etc." We also have Phillips Hue smart bulbs (the colored ones) in every room of the house and they can be synced with the Nest to turn on if a fire is detected. I love my Hue smart bulbs! I have them all on schedules so they come on automatically with our favorite color scenes.

Sent from my SM-J700P using Tapatalk

[candaceb]

We have the Ecobee and love it. The primary reason for choosing it over Nest was the possibility of adding extra sensors. DH's office in particular is hot in the summer and cold in the winter and that helps balance it out. Also, the thermostat is in the dining room and we can go days without walking past it, so we need the extra sensors in more heavily occupied parts of the house so it can sense whether or not we are home.

[pastrygirl]

We don't have "learning" thermostats, but we do have Honeywell wi-fi enabled ones. We can adjust the temp with our phones. We also have z-wave controlled light switches, so we can turn on/off lights with our Amazon Echo. We can also do it through our phones, so we do that when we're away (turn the lights on/off randomly throughout the day). We also have a Harmony remote control, which I just found out that Alexa can control, so I sometimes have her turn on the TV.

I'd love to get our outside lights on a timer, but we haven't done it yet. At our old house, we had a spotlight that came on a dusk and turned off in the morning. The smoke detectors in our old house spoke, but only said "Fire, fire" in a very annoying tone.