Hellobee Boards

We’re getting two new hvac units, so this is something I’ve been wondering, also. Right now, we are heating with our fireplace and one small space heater—it feels like I’m living the pioneer life! Which means it’s cold (it gets down to 55 at night, since we can’t safely have an open fire while we sleep) and it’s a lot of work. DH chops the wood, thankfully, but since I’m home all day, I’m the one making a hundred trips to the porch to bring in more wood and making sure the fire doesn’t go out. Anyway, not what you asked, but I have to rant about it whenever I can.

I like the Ecobee 4 because it doubles as an Alexa hub, so you can get it to play music (not sync between rooms though) and ask it all the usual Alexa things. But I’ve read that the microphone is so terrible you basically have to shout at it, and some people seem to have trouble with it connecting properly. Its ability to sense if people are in a room is great. You can use it with Apple HomeKit if you wire it correctly.

The Nest has better user interface reviews from pretty much every site I’ve seen do a comparison. It has temperature sensors for rooms, too, but they can’t tell if the rooms are unoccupied like Ecobee. The app is better than Ecobee, but a Nest doesn’t support HomeKit (and never will, because it’s owned by Google). So if you use iPhones, you’ll have to use the app instead of HomeKit. You can control it with Alexa, though.

I like the look of the Nest more. But having thermostats that essentially double as Echo Dots might be neat. I don’t know. I’ll be interested to hear other prople’s experiences.

@Hypatia: the location services have to be on on your phone, but when you cross because into the perimeter you set (mine is about 3,000 meters) the "home" setting kicks on and gets to within your auto range or whichever setting you have on heat or air.

We have the white nest thermostat. It’s the cheapest version. It is not the “learning” one. We hated the learning feature so when we moved, we were happy to get the lesser expensive version. I also liked it because it was white. We are so happy with it. We also have nest cameras in lit house. My husband installed it himself, soooo it might to be too hard.

We have the nest. It knows when we aren’t home and switches over to eco mode. That’s a big cost savings for us but it’s about the only learning it does since we don’t fiddle with it much. I’ve installed 3 at this point. One in our old house which I left when we moved and one in two apartments which I’ve taken with me when we’ve left.

Also, nest works with out Alexa so we can control by voice.

@CatchAFallingStar: We have the Honeywell version and really like it! It's helpful to have it programmed and be able to change it when we go on vacation and forget to turn it down or up. Check your gas or electric company to see what incentives they have - I think I paid $100 for ours through them and they installed it for free.

We had the Nest and loved it as well. I never got around to downloading the app, but dh liked it. I installed it myself and it was really easy. We got it through our utility company for around $75-100, I think?
We've since upgraded our furnace and that came with a smart thermostat that is basically a small tablet on the wall-it's so big! It works well, but I miss the look of the nest.

We have the nest and love it! I don't deal with it much, I'm not really a techy person, but DH installed them twice (once in our old house, once in the new) without any problems. I love that we can change the ac/heat from our phones so if the nanny says she's cold (she doesn't like to mess with our thermostat), we can change it for her, or if we are coming back home from being away, we can turn on the ac/heat so the temperature is at our preference by the time we got home. I hated as a kid coming home to a cold house and having to wait forever for the heat to kick in! We have it set to a schedule and have the learning feature turned off as well. Eco mode is great, too.