You know when you’re planning on doing some traveling, and it’s going to be a hot weekend. You don’t want to turn your air conditioning off, because it will take way too long to reach a comfortable temperature when you get home, but you don’t want to air condition when you won’t be home either. For most people I know, the strategy is to raise the temperature so that you are somewhere in-between. It won’t be totally uncomfortable when you get home, but you won’t be wasting as much money as if you left it set to a comfortable temperature. What if I told you that you could have the best of both worlds? Let me present you with the Nest.

It’s a pretty snazzy looking little thermostat — and you can adjust it from your phone or computer! It keeps track of how long your heat/air is on everyday, and rewards you by giving you a leaf if you have it set in an energy efficient manner (yay for gamification!) and it will learn your settings over time too. One of my favorite features, is that is has an away mode; using a motion sensor, it senses activity, and after a certain amount of time without any, it will turn to away mode, where it will either raise or lower the temperature that it is set at. This thermostat is even good for me when I’m not traveling, because I can set it to away mode during the day while I’m at work. I don’t have an exact calculation on how much money it has saved, since I had my old thermostat at the place I currently live from May – January, and I have had the nest installed from January until now, but I think that the away feature is helping me save a little bit, especially when I am gone for longer trips. Is it ‘worth it’ to buy a thermostat that costs $179 (Nest Gen 1 – Amazon) – $249 (Nest Gen 2 – Amazon)? You’ll have to determine that for yourself. Unfortunately, I’ll be gone from my apartment this summer, so I won’t be able to compare data until the fall!

 

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