Smart home thermostats - Worth it?

I'm thinking my older semi programable thermostat is dying.     Do the new smart thermostats pay for themselves in a decent amount of time?

Consumers Energy here in Michigan is giving $50 rebates on WiFi enabled units.      I like the idea of programming through a laptop or phone app.

Does anyone here any experience with Nest or Ecobee devices?

In reply to Grtechguy :

Do you have electric heat?

I bought an ecobee as a replacement to the Honeywell thermostat my kids managed to destroy. I enjoy being able to program it from my phone, adjust the temp from my phone, and so on. The thermostat itself displays the weather forecast and you can set it to adjust the temp in the house based on that (and to your liking). I haven't necessarily noticed a difference in my energy bill because FPL seems to change their rate per kw/h on an hourly basis; but, from a usability perspective it's nice. 

It also sends me reminders to change the filter, check the drip pan, etc. Which I need in my life. 

The only real issue is that if the service they connect to goes down, you could be hosed.  Make sure they work offline.  This happened in the past when a smaller IoT product company was bought by a larger company and they shut the original service down.

We have a thermostat that is connected to our alarm system (also includes a camera, etc.) and its handy to monitor is you're away from home via the app, etc. You can set a schedle for the days/holidays what have you.  I really don't find the need to adjust it all that often.  Its set to 65 during the winter and 68/70 during the summer.  If we're away its set to vacation mode (so 60 in the winter, 75 in the summer) otherwise I think it costs more to adjust the temp than it does to leave it alone.

We don't really use our thermostats the way that they are supposed to be used. We use them more like switches: when we are cold, we turn it on. When we warm up, we turn it off.

I'd kind of like to get a wifi enabled programmable thermostat because I know that my wife always turns it off when I am at work, and I'd like my dog to be comfy.

In reply to Woody :

Natural Gas

Just installed a nest. Like 5 min ago. Kind of neat that it is working and I now have two more to install. (Three zones in my house).

My takeaway is. The instructions suck!!!!  If you go the nest rout pm me and I can save you a ton of time.  
 

Edit:  reason I got them is my gas provider was offering them for something like $89 each. They are normally $249 each. It is the Nest learning thermostat not the other much cheaper one nest also sells. 

I have the nest from when my gas company was running a promo on it. 

Likes:
No batteries to change
Change temp or monitor from my phone

Dislikes:
Sometimes randomly changes temp to something I never selected

Overall it is fine. I don't know if it has really saved me any money but I like the convenience of setting it through the phone app. 

In reply to EvanB :

The changing of the temps is the "smart" bit. You can turn it off by disabling the Autoschedule option.

I'm my case it's usually my 3 year old touching it which adjusts the temp to either the high or low end of the locked adjustment range.

 I've used a Nest for the last 7 years. It's pretty handy simply for the auto away feature.

I cannot understand the appeal of these things. My programmable thermostats have been set the same way for a decade and only get touched when the batteries need changing. Who keeps changing the thermostat instead of putting on another layer or getting a cup of tea or whatever? And as for the "smart" component, I don't need Amazon or Google feeding me ads for sweaters just because I keep the house at a temperature below the national average.

DirtyBird222 said:

I bought an ecobee as a replacement to the Honeywell thermostat my kids managed to destroy. I enjoy being able to program it from my phone, adjust the temp from my phone, and so on. The thermostat itself displays the weather forecast and you can set it to adjust the temp in the house based on that (and to your liking). I haven't necessarily noticed a difference in my energy bill because FPL seems to change their rate per kw/h on an hourly basis; but, from a usability perspective it's nice. 

It also sends me reminders to change the filter, check the drip pan, etc. Which I need in my life. 

Same. 2 Ecobee t-stats in my house. Nice also to turn it to vacation mode after you left the house and forgot.

We've had a Nest for about a year. The away mode is s life saver, let's me save a lot of energy by not heating or cooling a house that no one is in. It's really cut down on our electric bill (electric heat) but to be fair we replaced the entire unit at the same time.

I also like the ability to add sensors to rooms and to set the thermostat to that room. My wife is a cosmetologist and she has a salon in the basement. We can set it to that basement sensor and it will use those readings to adjust the temperature. When she's done we switch it back to the living room.

We laugh that me and my wife can fight over the thermostat and I'm not even in the house.

We've had a Nest for 7 years now, and love it. Saves a ton of money because unlike a normal thermostat, the Nest can say "hey they seem to have left the house, I'll turn the A/C off until they're headed home"

02Pilot said:

I cannot understand the appeal of these things. My programmable thermostats have been set the same way for a decade and only get touched when the batteries need changing. Who keeps changing the thermostat instead of putting on another layer or getting a cup of tea or whatever? And as for the "smart" component, I don't need Amazon or Google feeding me ads for sweaters just because I keep the house at a temperature below the national average.

Unpopular opinion, but I would like to subscribe to your newsletter as soon as I get all these whippersnappers off my lawn.

I installed a Nest for a friend in her pole studio.  It hasn't really been able to do much auto-learning as far as I've been told, but she does like that she can have it start turning up the heat or turning on the A/C when she leaves her house so that it's at the right temperature when she gets there.  It was easy enough to install, although it's a little bit more picky about voltage than the old school programmables.  My brother and I have contemplated installing something like that at the workshop, but I'd rather not have to buy into the internet of (rented) things.

I have had a Nest for over a year now and I love it.  Super easy to program with your phone, unlike a programmable stat which takes a graduate degree to program correctly.

Plus, schedules change (at least in my house).

I have mine set to be a decent temperature when it knows my phone location is close and set it to 60 when I'm gone.  You set a Home temp and an Away temp which can be different for heating and cooling.  It also checks the weather online and anticipates heat loads and cold loads and can "soak" the house ahead of major changes in weather.  That saves money as opposed to waiting to play catch up.

It's hard to say how much I've really saved because this is a really mild winter, and I have a house-sitter in the summer while I travel.  I will say that it is lower. Significantly.  I'm quite certain it has paid for itself already.

We've had a Nest for about 5 or 6 years and we love it.  We have a programed / learned routine that includes setbacks for typical weekdays and weekends.  It does all the normal programmable thermostat things like set in back at bedtime or during the workday, but with the added flexibility that if DW works from home one day or we go out on a Saturday it notices the change of occupancy status and adjusts accordingly.  It can also learn and adjust if your actual use pattern regularly differs from what you've programed it to.

The benefit of being able to adjust temperature from outside the house is just an added feature.  It's also nice to be able to adjust the temperature from upstairs in bed via smartphone or tablet rather than getting up and running downstairs naked and freezing to bump it up.

I don't know if it's a matter of "paying for itself" over any cheapo $35 programmable stat, but it is much nicer to use and interact with, and has more capability.

We have ours integrated with a Nest doorbell (which we got for nominal $ as a promotion) and, more recently, a Google Home setup.  We're not using all that to its full capability yet, but it's handy.

02Pilot said:

I cannot understand the appeal of these things. My programmable thermostats have been set the same way for a decade and only get touched when the batteries need changing. Who keeps changing the thermostat instead of putting on another layer or getting a cup of tea or whatever? And as for the "smart" component, I don't need Amazon or Google feeding me ads for sweaters just because I keep the house at a temperature below the national average.

I don't know what model you have, but traditional programmable thermostats seem to only be programmable in 6-hour windows.  My ecobee 'resolution' is 30 minutes.

I have the 'smart' component of mine disabled.  I almost never touch it with my phone, unless I am on vacation*

*A couple of years ago I was on vacation when I got a notification that the house had dropped below 50F even though the thermostat was requesting heat.  I was able to call a buddy and have him go over and check things out/plug in an oil heater.  (combustion blower had failed on my heater)  That could've been bad if pipes froze.

Follow on question, are there any smart setups specifically for multizone systems or is the answer always just multiples of the same thermostat? Do any of the brand's ecosystems work better for multiples in the same house?

We had a Honeywell smart thermostat at our rental unit -- it was awesome to be able to remotely manage the HVAC without having to visit the property in person.  

Tom Suddard said:

We've had a Nest for 7 years now, and love it. Saves a ton of money because unlike a normal thermostat, the Nest can say "hey they seem to have left the house, I'll turn the A/C off until they're headed home"

This, combined with it learning when people tend to get home, so it can start heating/cooling the house in time for when you get home.

I also like that you can set temperature boundaries both for heating and cooling in away mode so you don't come up to frozen plants or cooked pets.

GhiaMonster said:

Follow on question, are there any smart setups specifically for multizone systems or is the answer always just multiples of the same thermostat? Do any of the brand's ecosystems work better for multiples in the same house?

I haven't seen one like that. The Ecobee t-stat I bought came with an additional sensor to place in another part of the house. You can scale up as well however I doubt that would be a resolution to your question. 

My thermostat is simple, if I want to change temps all I do is walk up to it and push a button. It even tells me what the setting is.  No other devices needed.

Negatory from me. I love my programmable units that cost a small fraction of the nest price. I don't need nor would I benefit from any intelligence beyond that. Two hilarious Nest fails are:

1: A friends home, where his wife goes through weird temperature swings and she asks him to change it from work because she can't figure it out

2: An airBNB we used, where it kept insisting we were the owner and wanted to A/C set at 68. I must have changed the stupid thing a dozen times.

tuna55 said:

Two hilarious Nest fails are:

1: A friends home, where his wife goes through weird temperature swings and she asks him to change it from work because she can't figure it out

I find this very difficult to believe.  You literally grab the thermostat like a knob and twist it one way to make it hotter and the other way to make it colder while a giant number on the display gets higher or lower.  If you can turn your radio louder or softer you can operate the Nest instinctively.

Well, I ended up grabbing a Nest today.   a semi local lowes had it on a clearance.  That matched with the Gas/Electric co rebates, it should end up cheaper than dummy unit.    

As for installing it?   I believe I spent a total of 10 minutes.  including connecting a "c" wire that wasn't connected on the old unit (But in the wire bundle leading to the furnance). 

Let's see if the wife notices the temp dropping to 55 between 12:30am and 5am