Lazy Man and Money

NEST Thermostats Do NOT Save You Money

by 10 Comments

… at least for me they didn’t.

Two years ago, I asked whether I could really save money with Nest Thermostats? Yesterday, I learned the hard way that the answer to that question is no.

When I ask the question, I had convinced myself the auto-away feature and the ability to turn it off by my phone saved me around $25 a year vs. a regular programmable thermostat. After all, that’s only $2 a month, right? In reality, I almost never used my phone to shut off my Nest. The auto-away feature doesn’t do too much because my schedule is typical and I could program it with a regular programmable thermostat.

The Nest itself starts off as a fairly expensive device. The 3rd generation retails at ~$250. I was able to get two of the 2nd generation ones at $120 after rebates from my energy company and cash back on my credit card. I was lucky, I haven’t seen any generation at that price since.

Last March my Nest downstairs started behaving really weird. After a call to the cooling company that set them up along with the central air in our house, it was determined that the base was defective. Nests come with a base that attaches to the wall and a “head” that goes on top which works as the screen and dial/input device. After the technician explained it to Nest, they sent out a new base. It was a relatively easy fix and I was back rocking the world of Nest thermostats again.

A couple of days ago, my Nest upstairs started behaving really weird. On the coldest day of the year, the A/C kicked on and wouldn’t shut off. We had a problem with the A/C kicking on before and it was actually the cooling unit, not the thermostat. This time, I figured it was the same problem, one year later. Yesterday, the day the technician is coming out, I notice that the Nest is registering that it is 81 degrees and it’s no where near that. The Nest also isn’t showing that it’s cooling, but it’s running the A/C non-stop.

The technician looks at it and explains that the base is busted. I figure, “No problem, I’ll call up Nest and they’ll ship me out a new one like they did 7 months ago.”

Nope. The 2-year warranty expired in February. They shouldn’t have technically sent out the base on the one that broke in March.

I can’t even buy a replacement base. Nest isn’t allowed to sell them. The only option was to buy a new Nest. This is despite the fact that I have a working head unit.

At this point I’m frustrated on so many levels. I almost felt bad for Michelle P, the Nest Senior Technical Support, who took my call.

I’m frustrated because:

  1. The whole point of Nest is to save people money. That’s the sales pitch.
  2. I spent $159 on the house visit to find out that it was my Nest going crazy. Michelle said I should have called them first. Well, my experience told me it was likely the cooling unit itself. Also, I find it odd that they’d suggest, “Well, you should just assume that our product is just junk and we’re the problem.”
  3. They actually think I’d be interested in buying another Nest. That’s after the two previous Nests were defective. And after they refused to allow me to buy the $10-15 part to make it work again.

Michelle tried to explain the 2-year warranty is like an iPhone. I might have cut her off early, because that’s so far off-base. The expectation of a thermostat is that it lasts for years and years. In my parent’s house we had the old dial ones for at least 25 years before switching to the programmable ones. Those programmable ones have lasted another 15 years. I don’t know how much they cost back then, but they probably were around $39 or less.

So my expectation was that a $250 thermostat designed to save me money would last at least 15 years. After all it has no moving parts like my washing machine or dryer. Unlike a computer, it isn’t going to go obsolete because the software doesn’t need to change. Unlike an iPhone, I’m not bringing it around with me subjecting it to drops or any kind of stress. If anything should break, one would think it would be the head part that has the guts of the computerized thermostat, not the base.

Michelle tried to be helpful in offering a 20% voucher off a new Nest from the Nest.com website. Even if I was interested in buy another lemon from Nest, the Amazon is selling the same Nest for 24% off. Nest’s very limited “olive branch” to make me happy backfired as I would lose money by taking advantage of it.

I’m so frustrated by this experience that I can’t think of a good way to finish this article. I think you should beware of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On one hand there’s the marketing pitch that a product may save you money. On the other, there’s the policies that end up costing you a lot more.

Saving Money with Nest Thermostats?

by 6 Comments

Last winter, I purchased two Nest Learning Thermostats for our house. At $250 a piece, they are not cheap. Fortunately, each of them qualify for a $100 rebate from my electric company (rebates vary by company and by state). At $150, they are a lot more affordable. Even better, I got an extremely rare discounted price of $229 on Amazon, which combined with 5% rewards on my Chase Freedom card for that quarter. When all was said and done, they cost me around $120 a piece.

At that $120 price, I could justify adding a little design, especially if was going to save me money over my previous non-programmable thermostat. (What were the previous owners thinking?)

I recently read a study that said you should get the bad news out first and finish with the good news. I’m going to give that a shot here, because the bad news is fairly mild.

The Disadvantage with NEST

Last winter we were renovating our home to add air conditioning, when I saw the deal on the NEST and jumped on it. (Side rant: I have no idea what the “genius” building our house was thinking 20 years ago when he decided not to include central air. New England summers can get extremely hot and humid.) Because our house lacks the ducts used for central air, the renovation was a bit of interesting mixture of technologies.

In the attic we have a typical central air system that blows the cool air down to the second floor. On the first floor we have ductless mini-split air conditioning (they go by many names, I’m not sure what it is officially called). This Frankenstein monster of an air condition system has its advantages… different cooling zones. We mostly spend our time upstairs sleeping, so we only have to cool it down some of the time. When we are downstairs, we can cool the room we are in through the ductless mini-splits.

It’s perfect, except for the fact, that mini-splits don’t work with a thermostat. Every brand of ductless air condition has it’s own proprietary technology. So while they come with fancy remote controls that can seemingly do everything… they can’t talk with my NEST. Only the upstairs, the “real” central air (for lack of a better term), can do that.

In practice this limitation isn’t actually that bad. With the upstairs on NEST it knows to cool down at night. The fancy remotes with our mini-splits downstairs are in the room with us making that easy to control. It’s just disappointing that it isn’t all tied together.

The Big Advantages with NEST

I was tempted to write about how awesome NEST is after the first month. I stopped myself realizing that the review would be better if I’ve used it for months. Not coincidentally, October is a good time to thinking about programmable thermostats. Winter is coming (I couldn’t resist).

The first thing that most people will say is that a simple programmable thermostat will give you 80% of the advantages at 20% of the cost. I would completely agree with that. I’d just say that some programmable thermostats are very complex and their screens aren’t terrible user interfaces. Setting different schedules for a weekend vs. a weekday does get difficult. I also don’t need another device that doesn’t understand daylight savings time.

The NEST is different in that it observes how you control it over time and programs itself based on your actions. If you don’t like how it sets itself up, the web interface for adjusting it is far more user friendly than the cheap characters on most programmable thermostats.

The programming itself is one of the biggest draws, but there are some other useful features. The NEST realizes when you are not home (I’m scared to learn out how) and puts itself it in Auto-Away mode, conserving energy. There is of course the obligatory NEST application for most smart phones. It gives you all the features on the thermostat itself, but for the most part you’d use it to raise and lower the temperature remotely.

Finally, NEST gives you monthly reports that allow you to compare your use against others in your state and the United States overall. It might not seem like much, but I set it as a goal to be in the top 80 percentile… and most months I’ve been able to do it.

Quality Control Problems Slip In?

One of NEST’s selling points is that the average person can install it themselves in a few minutes. However, since I had the aforementioned air conditioning system renovation, it was easy to say, “Can you put these NEST thermostats in too?” Upon installation, the installer told me that one of them was defective.

I took his word for it and got a replacement from Amazon, with zero hassle. They even paid for shipping both ways. The installer had no problem with the replacement.

I’m hesitant to say that there’s a quality control problem. Thousands of reviewers on Amazon don’t seem to think so. It may be a case where I got the one bad one in a million, or maybe my installer did something wrong. In any case, I mention it more for how Amazon took care of the issue quick and easy, than to point out a problem with NEST.

Does the NEST Save You Money?

According to Energy Star, programmable thermostats will likely save you $180 per year. The question is whether a NEST will save you more to offset the cost of the product itself. I can see a NEST saving an extra $25 a year through it’s features such as Auto-Away and smart phone access. That’s just my estimate. If you don’t live in a state with a rebate, it may take a 6 years for it to pay for itself. When you add in the convenience of programming, the monthly reports, and the aesthetics, I think the NEST adds a lot of intangibles that provide a lot of value.

I wish I could say that NEST saved me $X, but with the addition of the air conditioning system, I knew my expenses were going to go up in the summer. Also the switch from a non-programmable to a programmable thermostat was going to yield some savings, but savings that aren’t unique to NESTs features in general. I don’t feel I could make an apples-to-apples comparison, so I’ll simply avoid a comparison altogether.

There are cheaper Wifi thermostats out there, but I stand by the value of NEST. You can price-compare to try to find a bargain on NEST, but like the pricing of Apple products, it will be a long time coming… if ever. They simply stick at their price. Yes, at the beginning I mentioned that I got a discount, but I hadn’t seen one before or since… a span of a few years now.

Given my experience with the return, I highly recommend buying the Nest Learning Thermostats at Amazon, if you decide it is right for you.

Ask the Readers: What’s Your Favorite Deal Site?

by 8 Comments

It’s a little late for this as Cyber Monday is coming to a close, but we know there will be deal all through the holiday season right?

Today as I was looking through the deals, it occurred to me that it’s been years since I shared my favorite deals site. Years ago, when I started this blog, it was Ben Bargains. If I needed some part for a computer, say a new printer or something, it was easy to go there and see what the latest applicable deal was and grab it. However, over the last few years, I slowed down my technology purchases (my wife will most likely take issue with that statement). Ben Bargains wasn’t only technology, but it seemed like it was dominated by the tech gadgets.

Nowadays, my site of choice is Slick Deals. I find it well-organized with a picture and a little description in a grid format, not unlike Pinterest. There’s a voting aspect to the site as well as people vote up the good deals. Anything with a +50 gets my attention. You still have to make sure that you need the product. You also have to be a little lucky that it isn’t sold out by the time you find it. I try to visit it a few times a day.

I shouldn’t have to say it, but I will, visiting deal sites is not a key to frugal living. However, when it works, it’s a thing of beauty. Today was one such example.

My Cyber Monday shopping today was limited to one deal that I saw on Slick Deals. I was able to pick up a Nest thermostat and a $40 Amazon gift card for $249. I consider an Amazon gift card to be about as good as cash, because they always have something that I need. Combine that with a $100 rebate from my local energy company and I’m getting a $250 for about $110. (Actually my credit card, Chase Freedom, is giving 5% rebates on Amazon this quarter, so it’s under $100.)

I had been wanting to get a Nest for 8 months and decided I would get it by the end of the year due because the rebate might not be around next year. It’s great feeling when a deal site gives you exactly what you were looking for.

So is Slick Deals the best deal site? I don’t know and that’s why I’m asking you, what do you use?