The Nest Learning Thermostat is an attractive and user-friendly way to reduce the energy costs in your house.  You can find them here.

Technology offers savings

While energy costs continue to climb, technology finds new and better ways to lower our electrical usage. Case in point: the Nest Thermostat. It’s a round, disk-shaped dial which looks like a hockey puck attached to the wall.

The basics

The Nest Thermostat comes in four colors in a circular digital design (black, white, copper and stainless steel options are available).    Instead of having your thermostat reading always visible, the device goes into sleep mode until you wave your hand or pass by to activate it.  While Nest is easy enough for a child to use, one of the best parts about Nest is the smart features, which makes it possible to adjust it anywhere you have service for your phone.

How it works

For example, suppose you went to Disneyland and when you got there, you realized you left the air conditioning set to 65.  Assuming you don’t have pets that wouldn’t enjoy the Phoenix heat, you can take control of your home’s temperature with your phone,  by tapping the buttons which will set the air conditioning to a higher temperature.  Is it a colder night than normal weather?  Instead of climbing out of bed to adjust the thermostat, tap and you can turn the air conditioner off from your cell phone and sleep with the comfort of just your blanket. This will work even if you happen to find yourself across the country and hear there is a big weather change at home. Open the Nest app, and you can adjust the temperature to a more economical setting.

Intuitive

Nest also keeps a log of your heating/cooling patterns and suggests little things to make it more eco-friendly.  It can see you like to keep your house at a comfortable temperature, but notices during the afternoon when the sun shines brighter into the house your heating and cooling system works harder.  It might suggest that you adjust the temperature by a degree or two to reduce cost.  You can also utilize the schedule function to vary your thermostat hour by hour.  If you are gone during the work day you can schedule Nest to begin lowering the thermostat at 2 pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and at 3:30 on Tuesday and Thursday.  Even if If you don’t manually schedule this, Nest will learn to predict your pattern and recommend the patterns that can make your energy use more efficient.

Summary

Nest also takes into consideration the weather and loves to tell you when you have been energy efficient.  At the end of the month, you can review the celebratory email and see how Nest has saved you enough to pay for a dinner out at your favorite restaurant.  And who doesn’t enjoy hearing from your thermostat that you saved three hours of energy this past month?

If you need a highly-reviewed, licensed electrician in the Phoenix Valley area, call Efficient Electric at 623-900-1461.