'Nest' Product Review

What is it? 

I expect you are wondering what a 'Nest' is.  Well...put simply it is the next generation of heating thermostat that replaces your current thermostat.

My gadget loving partner discovered the Nest about 3 years ago when it was only available in the US and has patiently waited for it to be put on sale in the UK.  As soon as it was announced for UK release he put his order in.  It cost £179 direct from the Nest website and included free professional fitting (normally £79).

The fitter had a spot of trouble connecting it to our heating system as apparently it is wired up strangely but he got there in the end.

Appearance

Now our old room thermostat was, to be fair to it, butt ugly! It was a mix of brown and beige and stuck out like a sore thumb on our cream walls.  The new nest has a ring made from aluminium which reflects the colour of the walls to help it blend in...a definite step up!  It lights up as you walk past it so you can see the temperature at a glance.

The Clever Bit

The Nest learns your normal household routine, so if you get up at 5:10am Mon-Fri (like I do!) then the Nest will ensure your house is heated to the temperature you like it (18.5c in my case).  It won't heat an empty home, it switches to away mode when you have not entered the room for a long period of time.
Each month Nest automatically send you a Energy Report that tracks how your heating use changes over time.

The Nest knows when the sun is shining on it and goes into 'sun block' mode so the temperatute reading inside the house is not incorrectly affected.

'True radiant' works out how the house gets heated and can turn heating off earlier and use the residual heat from radiators to get to the required temperature so that it is not on for a minute longer than necessary.

The 'time to temp' feature works out how long it takes to heat the house and tells you how long it will take for the house to get to the desired temp.

It also has a leaf icon that shows up when you are apparently being energy efficient with your heating, not really sure it is hugely useful. 

The App

I can use the Nest app at any time (and place) to see how warm my house is or turn the heating on so I have a warm house to come home to.  This is handy when you are out for the day at the weekend or have been away on holiday and you want a nice warm home to greet you on your return.  I have included a couple of screen shots of the app from my iPhone below.

     

Extras

Nest also sell another product called Nest Protect, a smoke and carbon dioxide alarm which, when triggered, tells you (literally, it talks to you!) what room it was triggered in...although you need 1 in each room make best use of it. It is something we may add in the future but at present we have a carbon dioxide alarm (in the kitchen) a smoke alarm in the dining room and a smoke alarm on the landing so it seems unnecessary.


This is a pretty cool gadget right?!

This is my own personal opinion and not a sponsored post.