Google Nest Thermostat – Smart Thermostat for Home – Programmable Wifi Thermostat – Snow

Very good and sleek thermostat
I used to have a Nest E for 5 years and was very happy with it.When I moved out from my old apartment, I could not bother to take it with me, so I decided to buy a new one.Since I do not like the “look at me” of the version of the Nest Learning thermostat, and I have experienced that the “learning” capability are just a gimmick on the Nest E, I decided to go for this one which is in my opinion and the best looking of them all.It just takes a few days to get accustomed of just touching and sliding your finger on the side of the thermostat instead of turning the wheel, but once you are past that you are going to be fine. The thermostat is precise and with one tough it displays also outside temp and indoor humidity. It can be programmed to have a schedule, and the “gone away” feature turn it off as needed.It just does the job perfectly, looks better and cost half the money than the “learning one” which has nothing to learn.

Fancy Set Back Thermometer w/ Horrible Instructions – And Not Expandable
UPDATE: Nest AccuracyJust spent 40 minutes chatting with some at the Google store regarding the accuracy of their Nest thermostat product.Asked what I thought was a pretty straightforward question – how accurate is the temperature and humidity data shown in my Nest app? Just installed a new AprilAire whole house humidifier and wanted to quantify the change.Well, it seems there isn’t much documentation available… Was told that they thought the temperature was accurate to 1% – and the same applied to its humidity setting. Pointed out that 1% was probably not an issue at 50% humidity, but would be miles off at a 10% environment.They did offer to sell me another one, I guess to benchmark it to my existing Nest (which might or might not be refurbished), but I declined.Shame consumer products not getting the support they deserve – especially one that directly impacts household environmental quality.Bottom line: Is this thermostat accurate – don’t know.If you’re like me, and would like to know what you’re getting into before you start a project, Nest thermostat installation will be frustrating.Picking one out to begin with is confusing – C wire, no C wire, etc – hooking up fairly straight forward, the tough part is getting the thing to eventually work…There is literally nothing in the box that helps sort any of this out – you will learn/fail as you go along with the on line set up and thousands of YouTube tutorials. Google saves $1 per unit by not including directions and leaves it up to the Nest “community” to walk you through it. Hopefully.After diagnosing we had a wiring issue (wire broke trying to jockeying it into the baseplate) we ended up with a persistent E294 error code. Again, Google saves money by not having any on line live chat or call center and we ended up getting by with one of the YouTube “experts” advice (disconnect and set up again) which finally worked after a couple hours effort.The most telling sign that Google underplays how easy this is to install is how quickly they route you to an installation company to make your headaches go away.The end result is a fancy set back thermometer (which we already had) that connects to your phone, spies on your activity, and encourages you to let your power company decide how comfortable you are going to be.The only benefit I see in this device is potentially easier programming – and seeing and adjusting comfort levels away from home. Spouse works from home, so setback features fairly minimal during the day, but knowing that system was not running properly (which recently happened when out of town) is nice.UPDATE: Much like the Ring doorbell we recently installed, Nest makes it impossible (so far) to easily add a second user to their account. Trying to add myself as a second user, the Nest said there was something wrong with the thermostat and would require yet another factory reset – which I am not ready to do as it has already taken over two hours just to get it working in the first place.Signing in as my spouse, can finally see the pretty basic control panel for the Nest thermostat. Don’t see any system health features (like battery life) or any programming suggestions (like eco mode) that would add value to this product.Without a sizable rebate from our electric utility, probably would have never purchased this product and waste several hours installing and troubleshooting. Support is nearly nonexistent and/or unreliable sourced.UPDATE 2: After battling with the Nest for a week, decided we had to invest more $$$ in a remote temperature sensor. Our Nest is stationed in corner of dining room and therefore sees little traffic to activate it. Having a warm Summer, was getting tired of Nest going Eco on us and letting house get into the 77-78 degree range, especially since it was set to 74.After fiddling around with the remote sensor, it eventually dawned on us that we had just purchased an early generation Nest, built several years ago, which would not recognize any sensor we tried to pair it with. We, wrongly assumed in this case, a brand new Google Nest would be, brand new (latest generation).Had the pleasure of paying $6 to return this useless accessory.

Installation thermostat itself was straightforward. The only problem was no c-wire which means the battery will be used up while thermostat working. Therefore, I bought the c-wire power connector with thermostat together, and it seems easy to install connector as YouTube videos. But my boiler is not the same circuit board like YouTube. It doesn’t even have c-terminals. Luckily, after researching all night. I figured out the way to find the c-wire from existing wiring and where to connect the connector. The nest is working perfectly with power connector now.The installation of connector might be a bit difficult for some boiler. If you are not 100% sure doing it right, perhaps better find a pro or your friend.

The Nest thermostat only lasted one winter season. The HVAC repair guys confirmed the issue was the thermostat. After an hour on the phone with Google support, they also confirmed the Nest thermostat was defective. The warranty is only a year and unfortunately for me it was expired by 2 weeks. No refund, no replacement. There’s nothing Google can do for me. Strongly recommend buying another brand.