Google Nest Learning Thermostat 3rd Generation, Stainless Steel – Smart Thermostat – A Brighter Way To Save Energy
The brighter way to save energy.
The 3rd-generation Nest Thermostat learns the temperatures that you like, turns itself down when you’re away and connects to your phone. It has a big, sharp display. It controls your hot water tank. And it helps save energy. That’s the most beautiful part.
Saving energy starts with your thermostat.
Your thermostat controls 60% of your energy bill. So shouldn’t it help you save energy? The Nest Thermostat does. Since 2011, it’s saved over 4 billion kWh of energy in millions of homes worldwide. Because it learns from you. It gets to know the temperature that you like while you’re at home.
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Remote control.
Change the temperature and control your hot water tank from anywhere using your mobile, tablet or laptop.
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Home/Away Assist.
It automatically adjusts the temperature after you’ve left. It can even turn off your hot water if you’re away for a few days.[1]
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Farsight.
When the Nest Thermostat spots you across the room, it lights up beautifully to show you the time, temperature or weather.
*Energy savings are not guaranteed and depend on energy usage, weather and other factors.Learn more at nest.com/eu/savings
1 Requires a compatible smart phone with location enabled
| Weight: | 220 g |
| Size: | No Installation |
| Dimensions: | 8.4 x 3.2 x 8.4 cm; 220 Grams |
| Model: | T3028GB |
| Colour: | Stainless Steel |
| Manufacture: | |
| Colour: | Stainless Steel |
| Size: | No Installation |
The nest thermostat is remotely controllable and therefore has the potential to cut heating bills significantly.
It is however not as easy to instal as the manufacturers claim, definitely not a diy job, and took our experienced plumber an hour and a half to fit.
Unfortunately the Nest stopped working completely after 20 months. There is a 2 year guarantee but I had lost the original receipt, so had to buy a new one and have it professionally installed again.
When it works, it’s excellent. When it doesn’t, there’s no heating or hot water.
I have a traditional boiler with gravity fed CH system with immersion tank, typical of older homes. So this Nest does work with older systems as well as newer boilers and CH systems.
I needed to upgrade the old mechanical thermostat and so I chose this over the Hive and others because I already have many Google products and was sure the Nest would be compatible, plus the design of the Nest is neat, tidy and is more appealing than the others, where others are plastic and look cheap. The Nest has a metal bezel (I chose copper but there are other colours) and the user interface is easy to use too and rotating the bezel is used to select the menu options.
As a thermostat its operation is no more efficient or effective than a mechanical thermostat. The sensitivity to temperature change is very very low and does take a long time to accurately show current room temperature, and also takes some time to switch on or off depending on temperature setting. Obviously you can control the Nest using the dedicated Nest app installed on your mobile device and also from a Google Home device and from the Google app too.
There are options to program the Nest to timetable your heating but for me that defeats it’s purpose. The Nest also has learning capability so attempts to turn on heat based on your previous habits but again defeats the purpose of having a thermostat. There’s also a setting to consider outside temperature to control the A/C in your home but I’ve not tried that setting.
To manually adjust the temperature just rotate the bezel, naturally clockwise for up and anticlockwise for down. The display will indicate the current room temperature and the proposed temperature you want to achieve. Another nice feature estimates how long it will take to reach the desired temperature (based on settings you have to enter when configuring the unit).
The water setting is useful because I can now control when and for how long the water is heated and I can create as many events as needed, it has a multiple event timer for 7 days and each day can be independent or all the same.
Easy to fit, replaces the old 3 event/7 day timers using the same wires, all instructions are provided to cover the different possible systems in a home.
Nice to have but not brilliant and a lot of money for what it actually does unless you use the features other than just as a thermostat.
I used to have a silly little dial on the wall. It’s minimum temp was 17 which was quite annoying as it would always fire up. I installed this myself on a WB boiler and all is well. Little internet gatweway sits in the airing cupboard and the nest dial is downstairs and of course on an app on my phone. I can control when it’s on, it knows when i am out of the house and not to come on and i can remotely fire the boiler so the house it nice and warm for my arrival. If you are into automation, this is for you!
Some resourse online on how to install, but consult a sparky or boiler man if you are not sure how to install.
I used to have a silly little dial on the wall. It’s minimum temp was 17 which was quite annoying as it would always fire up. I installed this myself on a WB boiler and all is well. Little internet gatweway sits in the airing cupboard and the nest dial is downstairs and of course on an app on my phone. I can control when it’s on, it knows when i am out of the house and not to come on and i can remotely fire the boiler so the house it nice and warm for my arrival. If you are into automation, this is for you!
Some resourse online on how to install, but consult a sparky or boiler man if you are not sure how to install.
It’s ok but mine was faulty and to be honest a bit overpriced.
It’s ok but mine was faulty and to be honest a bit overpriced.
It’s ok but mine was faulty and to be honest a bit overpriced.
Can not fault the thermostat or boiler controller. Main concern is additional costs for the extra flexibility purchasing the stand & power lead separately.
Can not fault the thermostat or boiler controller. Main concern is additional costs for the extra flexibility purchasing the stand & power lead separately.
Can not fault the thermostat or boiler controller. Main concern is additional costs for the extra flexibility purchasing the stand & power lead separately.
I have installed this in my boat to manage the Eberspacher heating system. The control system installed was such a fiddle to manage – if you didn’t press the right button in a few seconds it defaulted back. So, the Nest system is simple and highly efficient and I can control it remotely through my phone or iPad. Such a time saving unit and worth every penny.
Pretty good but expensive to get someone to instal it. If was to buy again I’d get the cheaper version.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like the product but probably more for the fact I can pick up my phone to either turn up or down the temperature. But as for it saving money, well in my experience it doesn’t, but one year’s usage is very different from another’s, so it’s tricky to be certain. The previous combination of a timer and thermostat were actually cheaper probably because I wasn’t heating the house as much. My main disappointment has been with the going out bit. I thought it would immediately know I was out of the house and not be heating the house, but for short trips of less than four hours, it still continues to ignore the fact I’m not there as still heats the place, so that’s not as good as expected. It links well with my smoke and carbon dioxide detectors and integrates well on Google. I like the look but its a toy rather than being as smart as they pretend.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like the product but probably more for the fact I can pick up my phone to either turn up or down the temperature. But as for it saving money, well in my experience it doesn’t, but one year’s usage is very different from another’s, so it’s tricky to be certain. The previous combination of a timer and thermostat were actually cheaper probably because I wasn’t heating the house as much. My main disappointment has been with the going out bit. I thought it would immediately know I was out of the house and not be heating the house, but for short trips of less than four hours, it still continues to ignore the fact I’m not there as still heats the place, so that’s not as good as expected. It links well with my smoke and carbon dioxide detectors and integrates well on Google. I like the look but its a toy rather than being as smart as they pretend.
In addition ‘Home and away assist’ is buggy and doesn’t work most of the time. If you want to use it freestanding a separate stand and micro USB charger and cable need to be used which aren’t included, disappointing for the price.
PROS:
That said, the thermostat looks and feels amazing to use. The communication with the heatlink is excellent even through 3 brick walls. Controlling it from the app is brilliant as well as you can warm the home up before you arrive.
Hopefully the supposedly “smart” features will improve in future firmware updates.
i have been looking at the nest for some time but had no reason to replace my thermostat until the wireless sender started playing up. the nest arrived next day and was very easy to fit it was done in ten minuets if your going to have the nest on a table stand you will need to buy a power lead and of course a stand the sender unit needs just 4 wires which are clearly marked .once you download the nest app put the alexa skill on your alexa you can run the nest from anywhere i will have see now if it learns the routines of the house
I gave this thermostat 5 stars because after a lot of research I got it right.
I had Passiv System which controlled heating and hot water very well and also monitored my solar panels. I could see everything from anywhere in the world.
Sadly after 9 years the Passiv hub failed and there was no way to get a replacement or equivalent. I could only control heating and hot water with manual override.
Research guided me to Google Nest. I already had nest products so was familiar with the products. Even with the previous knowledge of Nest products there are pitfalls.
1. Make sure you get the right one. There is one which doubles as heat sensor. This means your thermostat has to be there and for me it would be the utility room which has a washing machine and tumble dryer producing heat and upsetting the thermostat.
Most people need the one with the separate heat sensing plate so that you can choose anywhere within 30 M to put the thermostat.
2. Get the stand!! To my mind this is vital. It is not just something to sit it on. It means you can put it anywhere near a power plug, you don’t have to bore holes in your wall and it is easily powered by USB. It does come with a USB lead and plug contrary to a lot of reviews
Perhaps they didn’t get the stand. The stand uses USB so there is no chance to fry your new appliance by attaching 230v mains leads. The pro. who fitted mine told me fryed thermostats are a common call-out.
3. Get it fitted by a professional. The man who did mine was in the house for half an hour. He explained my S plan heating which I had feared might make my system incompatible. Wired everything up very quickly, tested all functions and spent 15 minutes explaining everything and showing me how to get the best out of the system. He also left me card to get in contact if there were any problems.
So far it is faultless. Also works well with voice controls on Google devices.
We moved I to a new house recently and stop bickering over the heating we decided to purchase a nest.
We paid a nest installer which we found via the nest website to get it installed (80). I’m clued up with tech and what not, but would highly recommend getting it installed professionally.
It’s been about a month now and being able to track our heating along with changing it on our phones has been fun, helpful and hopefully cost saving.
for the price your paying you expect it to do bit more – not sure what but something extra other then being a thermostar
it’s does what it’s supposed to well
USE AT OWN RISK – IF IN DOUBT GET A PROFESSIONAL – TURN OFF AT MAINS / CONSUMER UNIT / ISOLATOR BEFORE STARTING – THIS IS 240V!!!!
Wiring this up was a bit of a challenge as I had not installed a hot water option before. I needed to consult YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFT1AJsbMfo&ab_channel=JohnWard @ 13:34).
I replaced a Honeywell ST699B with this on a system with a system boiler and hot water system.
Nest connected as follows:
Power
Live and Neutral – L & N to respective terminals
Bridge Live to common for heat (terminal 2) and hot water (terminal 5) using small additional cable loops
Heating
Call for heat (Normally open) to terminal 3
Terminal 1 (Satisfied – normally closed) NOT REQUIRED as thermostat decides when to turn off
Hot Water
Call for heat (Normally open) to terminal 6
Terminal 4 (Satisfied – normally closed) REQUIRED as thermostat in tank decides when to turn off
Wiring mapping was as follows:
Honeywell (Left to right) / Nest
8 / 5 (Hot Water – Common)
7 / 4 (Hot Water)
6 / 6 (Hot Water)
5 / 2 (Heating – Common)
4 (not connected)/ 1 not connected (Heating)
3 / 3 (Heating)
N / N
L / L
L to 5 to 8 / L to 2 to 5
Works great as usual!
I would give this 5 stars if the purchase had been a bit more transparent – didn’t realise until the installer opened the box that someone had already tried to fit this thermostat previously so not technically brand new. But works fine
I would give this 5 stars if the purchase had been a bit more transparent – didn’t realise until the installer opened the box that someone had already tried to fit this thermostat previously so not technically brand new. But works fine
I would give this 5 stars if the purchase had been a bit more transparent – didn’t realise until the installer opened the box that someone had already tried to fit this thermostat previously so not technically brand new. But works fine
This is a great device, easy to use and the app is great. One problem the actual thermostat needs to be plugged in to a 12v power supply via a cable (older android mobile phone charger cable is compatible) THIS IS NOT IN THE BOX. A stand and charging cable is available separately for 30!
All installed by electrician and does what it says on the tin, at which it is pretty slick. But, not wanting a lot to do with smart auto ot home/away I just need a manual schedule. Which can be done (switch off auto).
BUT – what no one tells you until you find Youtube videos by smart fellas – is that you do not set simple on off points. The first night I thought I was and then wondered why the heating came on at 1am. Having read so many ‘why does my heating come on in the night?’ complaints/questions I have discovered the answer. Which may be useful for future buyers.
Unless you have ‘heat off’ your heating is not switched off, there is no off point. When you set a heating point, say 20 degrees at 8am, it will stay at 20 until it gets told to do something else. So when I thought I was setting an off point at 9pm for 20 degrees, what I was actually doing was telling it to maintain that temperature. Hence the heating comes on periodically.
SO – what we need to do in manual mode is to set a point when you go to work and when you will go to bed that is low enough not to actvate the heating, say 12 degrees. It will then keep quiet until it gets your next point – be it early morning or as you come home from work.
Before anyone tries to set your own manual schedule from Google instructions- watch a couple of Youtube videos by experts. It will save you hours
A great product for convenience and design. It was very easy to swap out the old and somewhat buggy 1st generation Nest. Quick 15 minutes to switch out the old heat link and thermostat. The heat link box was a little bigger than the 1st generation one but that only meant a need screw plug but the thermostat fixed securely into the old screw plugs without any hassle. Always worth taking a photo of the old wiring if you’re confident, competent and upgrading.
purchased to make expensive boiler replacement a little more exciting. really easy to set up and using it day to day could not be easier. have it wall mounted and looks really smart. love the smart learning features and a quick switch to eco mode for the past summer was easy. you get a monthly email with a report on how much the heating was on and how many eco green leaves you earn’t which i like. Only negative is does not come with a power cable but don’t let that put you off as they are really easy to come by. would definitely recommend.
Love my gadgets. Because I have a combi boiler I decided to get an electrician to fix this device which cost 90 but well worth getting a professional doing it rather than resorting to utube. A few hours later it was all set up and absolutely love it located in the Entryway. I also have the Nest app installed onto my Samsung Note 8 and it’s a breeze to control. Walking past the nest thermostat in the hallway will automatically come on and you can set it to the weather, digital or analogue clock (amongst other options) which is pretty cool.
The Nest is fab, works like a charm. However, even after all my research I didn’t discover I needed a stand and power cord until the guy came to fit it. I thought I was paying 95 to have an electrical wire to the unit on the wall, using an engineer recommended by Nest. What work he did to took him around 20 minutes, (took the old unit off the wall in the airing cupboard, wired-in the new unit) the equivalent of changing a plug and I could have easily done myself. Check what you need. I’m not suggesting it’s a scam, just misleading.
I’ve had to pay an extra 24 for a stand and a power cord (they come separately).
The Nest is fab, works like a charm. However, even after all my research I didn’t discover I needed a stand and power cord until the guy came to fit it. I thought I was paying 95 to have an electrical wire to the unit on the wall, using an engineer recommended by Nest. What work he did to took him around 20 minutes, (took the old unit off the wall in the airing cupboard, wired-in the new unit) the equivalent of changing a plug and I could have easily done myself. Check what you need. I’m not suggesting it’s a scam, just misleading.
I’ve had to pay an extra 24 for a stand and a power cord (they come separately).
The Nest is fab, works like a charm. However, even after all my research I didn’t discover I needed a stand and power cord until the guy came to fit it. I thought I was paying 95 to have an electrical wire to the unit on the wall, using an engineer recommended by Nest. What work he did to took him around 20 minutes, (took the old unit off the wall in the airing cupboard, wired-in the new unit) the equivalent of changing a plug and I could have easily done myself. Check what you need. I’m not suggesting it’s a scam, just misleading.
I’ve had to pay an extra 24 for a stand and a power cord (they come separately).
The Nest is fab, works like a charm. However, even after all my research I didn’t discover I needed a stand and power cord until the guy came to fit it. I thought I was paying 95 to have an electrical wire to the unit on the wall, using an engineer recommended by Nest. What work he did to took him around 20 minutes, (took the old unit off the wall in the airing cupboard, wired-in the new unit) the equivalent of changing a plug and I could have easily done myself. Check what you need. I’m not suggesting it’s a scam, just misleading.
I’ve had to pay an extra 24 for a stand and a power cord (they come separately).
The Nest is fab, works like a charm. However, even after all my research I didn’t discover I needed a stand and power cord until the guy came to fit it. I thought I was paying 95 to have an electrical wire to the unit on the wall, using an engineer recommended by Nest. What work he did to took him around 20 minutes, (took the old unit off the wall in the airing cupboard, wired-in the new unit) the equivalent of changing a plug and I could have easily done myself. Check what you need. I’m not suggesting it’s a scam, just misleading.
I’ve had to pay an extra 24 for a stand and a power cord (they come separately).
Although took a bit of fiddling to set up, I found that even without any previous plumbing or electronic knowledge I was able to install this myself. I’d recommend YouTube tutorials to help with your current setup but once I got it working, found Nest to be really good.
Wasn’t sure whether to choose this or hive but actually I’m glad I went for Nest. Very user friendly and good support available. Looks neat on my wall and everything I needed for set up came in the box.
Went on holiday recently and loved how easy it was to turn everything off remotely at a click of a button on the app. Really pleased overall.
Although took a bit of fiddling to set up, I found that even without any previous plumbing or electronic knowledge I was able to install this myself. I’d recommend YouTube tutorials to help with your current setup but once I got it working, found Nest to be really good.
Wasn’t sure whether to choose this or hive but actually I’m glad I went for Nest. Very user friendly and good support available. Looks neat on my wall and everything I needed for set up came in the box.
Went on holiday recently and loved how easy it was to turn everything off remotely at a click of a button on the app. Really pleased overall.
Although took a bit of fiddling to set up, I found that even without any previous plumbing or electronic knowledge I was able to install this myself. I’d recommend YouTube tutorials to help with your current setup but once I got it working, found Nest to be really good.
Wasn’t sure whether to choose this or hive but actually I’m glad I went for Nest. Very user friendly and good support available. Looks neat on my wall and everything I needed for set up came in the box.
Went on holiday recently and loved how easy it was to turn everything off remotely at a click of a button on the app. Really pleased overall.
Installation asks you to mount the heatlink to the wall after installing the wiring I strongly suggest you do it this way otherwise its a right c*** to do it on the wall. The clamps for holding the cable in place were not to my liking they certainly were not designed for round cable in mind! That being said I carefully flattened a section of the outer casing on the cable so it would fit better. Then I had to tighten the screws very carefully because I think if id been a bit over zealous I would have snapped it. This plastic isnt designed for this task! See photo’s
The outer cover on the heatlink is a bit poorly designed the clip piece on the top that holds it in position to keep it on after the screw in the bottom is done up is useless and this is the main reason this product lost a star for me. You can see in the photo’s how I can easily pull the top part away from the heatlink.
Now the thermostat unit is very solid its so heavy I think there is a metal block inside it lol. Setup was fairly easy however there were no instructions on how to use the learning thermostat I had to look online to learn how t o use it. I thought it was a touch screen but its not.
I initially used a phone charger to power the learning thermostat although there must be a battery inside as it works without it plugged in. so maybe that explains the weight of it. After this I dug into my plug drawer and found a suitable 12v transformer plug those ones you typically get what I call black plug transformers. So I wired this upto the learning thermostat’s base doesnt matter which way the wires go. Im glad the base has a spirit level in it that is a nice touch it makes mounting it to a wall easy although I just screwed mine into the bottom of my staircase (wood) about 1.5m off the ground.
The app is a bit fiddly especially trying to make a schedule that was a royal pain in the a** but if you want to set the same for every day of the week you can copy monday and paste it to the rest of the days of the week.
I havent had time to look into the app in depth but it seems comprehensive. Lets hope it lasts longer than my salus did. That lasted about 5 years although I cant complain too much 5 years is pretty good. But the salus was 1st generation so it wasnt as good as this I needed an extra device powered and plugged into the router. Having said that, now I power the thermostat so I guess swings and roundabouts.
This is an early review I may change in the future but hopefully I dont need to.
Purchased this to replace a honeywell wireless thermostat that was very temperamental.
Installation was easy enough after a little research, if you know how to change a plug socks or light switch then you can do it. (At least for outset up that already had a relay (heatlink as google call it)
Once installed the heat link, easy to pair with thermostat and ready to go.
I’ve linked ours with Google home, I can just tell it to turn on or set temperature.
As many have mentioned it doesn’t come with a plug for the thermostat, and it needs to be plugged in all time its not wireless, not providing a plug for a device that needs it to work is pretty ridiculous, currently plugged ours in to an old phone charger and seems to be fine, but still this should be included.
Really happy with the look of the nest, and ease of use.
Purchased this to replace a honeywell wireless thermostat that was very temperamental.
Installation was easy enough after a little research, if you know how to change a plug socks or light switch then you can do it. (At least for outset up that already had a relay (heatlink as google call it)
Once installed the heat link, easy to pair with thermostat and ready to go.
I’ve linked ours with Google home, I can just tell it to turn on or set temperature.
As many have mentioned it doesn’t come with a plug for the thermostat, and it needs to be plugged in all time its not wireless, not providing a plug for a device that needs it to work is pretty ridiculous, currently plugged ours in to an old phone charger and seems to be fine, but still this should be included.
Really happy with the look of the nest, and ease of use.
Really nice, high-quality product. Very accurate with the temperature reading and management. Easy to integrate with Alexa. I got it on Black Friday and it was well worth the money, but I am not sure I would be buying it if I was paying full price. Took one star off cause they still don’t support Cyprus as a location, so I have to have it pretend it is in the UK.
Updated: a few weeks down the line it stops connecting to the internet again with the message WiFi may be hidden or too far away. Turns out a faulty chip and needs replacing. Common fault looking at other comments online.
A brilliant bit of kit, but had a few difficulties. The first issue was wiring, the screw heads were weak and started to chew very easily, they are not replaceable and the holes for the wires very small so getting more than one wire in was difficult. The second issue was to use the nest wirelessly, you need a usb cable to charge it, guess what.. it doesn’t come with one! It cost another 30+ for the stand with plug and charger cable. Everything seem to work except for the app! It was driving me up the wall. The thermostat was connected to the WiFi router but the app said it was offline as not receiving power, when it was! Eventually with the help of next customer service, I ended up replacing the TP link router with a Huawei router and it resolved the issue straight away. Everything now works brilliantly, using Alexa to control is simple, so is the app. Overall it’s worth buying but be prepared for some issues if installing yourself.
Updated: a few weeks down the line it stops connecting to the internet again with the message WiFi may be hidden or too far away. Turns out a faulty chip and needs replacing. Common fault looking at other comments online.
A brilliant bit of kit, but had a few difficulties. The first issue was wiring, the screw heads were weak and started to chew very easily, they are not replaceable and the holes for the wires very small so getting more than one wire in was difficult. The second issue was to use the nest wirelessly, you need a usb cable to charge it, guess what.. it doesn’t come with one! It cost another 30+ for the stand with plug and charger cable. Everything seem to work except for the app! It was driving me up the wall. The thermostat was connected to the WiFi router but the app said it was offline as not receiving power, when it was! Eventually with the help of next customer service, I ended up replacing the TP link router with a Huawei router and it resolved the issue straight away. Everything now works brilliantly, using Alexa to control is simple, so is the app. Overall it’s worth buying but be prepared for some issues if installing yourself.
I recently had my boiler moved and decided to upgrade my thermostat to the Google Nest one to modernise things.
Firstly the fitting – I had a plumber fit this thermostat and he was surprised that it still needed a hard wire from the thermostat back to the boiler …as was I. What i found strange was that you need a receiver at the boiler end before connecting the cable into the boiler so it can receive details from the thermostat, so if anyone else is going to buy one of these make sure you can place the receiver near your boiler.
Secondly the use. Functionality of the unit is really good. Setting up with my Alexa was simple and i can operate it via voice. I did however turn off the learning facility as it seemed to have a bit of a mind of it’s own and i just use the standard way with the smart features.
Overall it is a nice thermostat but could do with simplifying a little
I recently had my boiler moved and decided to upgrade my thermostat to the Google Nest one to modernise things.
Firstly the fitting – I had a plumber fit this thermostat and he was surprised that it still needed a hard wire from the thermostat back to the boiler …as was I. What i found strange was that you need a receiver at the boiler end before connecting the cable into the boiler so it can receive details from the thermostat, so if anyone else is going to buy one of these make sure you can place the receiver near your boiler.
Secondly the use. Functionality of the unit is really good. Setting up with my Alexa was simple and i can operate it via voice. I did however turn off the learning facility as it seemed to have a bit of a mind of it’s own and i just use the standard way with the smart features.
Overall it is a nice thermostat but could do with simplifying a little
I recently had my boiler moved and decided to upgrade my thermostat to the Google Nest one to modernise things.
Firstly the fitting – I had a plumber fit this thermostat and he was surprised that it still needed a hard wire from the thermostat back to the boiler …as was I. What i found strange was that you need a receiver at the boiler end before connecting the cable into the boiler so it can receive details from the thermostat, so if anyone else is going to buy one of these make sure you can place the receiver near your boiler.
Secondly the use. Functionality of the unit is really good. Setting up with my Alexa was simple and i can operate it via voice. I did however turn off the learning facility as it seemed to have a bit of a mind of it’s own and i just use the standard way with the smart features.
Overall it is a nice thermostat but could do with simplifying a little
Really great device but the home/away function doesn’t work in colder climates where it takes an hour to heat the house up. What you find is that the heating comes on as you walk in the door and you then have to wait in the cold. We reverted to using a schedule and Google home integration to turn it on/off instead.
It’s really handy to be able to turn the heat on and off from a work, on the way home and even from the airport and abroad. During the icy weather I was concerned about the low temperatures and using the app I was able to turn the heat on for an hour whenever I needed to when in Spain. I couldn’t do without it now! It’s also great that you get an email every month showing your usage and how you compare against others in your area. I have been told that this doesn’t work well with gas on Valliant boilers so might be best to check it out first before buying!
Super easy to use and very smart thermostat!
Within a first week of using it, Nest learned the daily schedule and automatically adjust the temperature now, no need to manually setup (but you can still do this).
Very elegant design and great mobile app!
UPDATE AFTER USING FOR 12MONTHS:
Still very impressed, we had no issues so far.
We can only use it for heating as our boiler has a water tank, it cannot be used for water.
Great quality, would definitely recommend!
Hope you find this helpful 🙂
Absolutely love this device, since installing it not only do no longer have that annoying clicking that my old thermostat had when turning on and off but I also have a warmer home as it seems much more accurate at reading the actual room themps. I also have a much more energy efficient home proven by my last few months worth of energy bills. I love the functionality, the ability to control remotely and its intelligence to learn our habits and adjust accordingly and also know when we are home or away.
I fitted it myself and found it much easier than I expected and I may add I’ve never install and kind of thermostat before.
I bought this thinking we could easily set it up. THINK AGAIN. Not only did we have to pay for a stand that cost another 50, but we also had to pay an electrician 80 to set it up. He had to change wiring in our boiler, which was certainly not something we could have done ourselves.
It’s good now it’s in. But a lot of unexpected expense to get it to work.
This is the best thing I think I’ve purchased for my home. Can manually schedule when heating comes on and off with the timer in the app and everyday can be different times and temperatures.
Can turn on the heating when I’m on my way home from work etc so the house is warm.
Works great with Alexa too. Lying in bed telling her to turn the heating on to 25 degrees is alot easier than going downstairs!
In terms of installation you would need to hire someone which is the only downside but well worth it 10x over when it’s up and running.
Does its job well but very unfortunate that Google have removed all its IFTTT support for it meaning far less powerful smart home integration. Sadly this means that whilst Alexa can control it, it’s nothing like as powerful as it would have been if I’d had a pre-google Nest account. It’s clear Google are just keen for us to buy Google Assistant rather than Alexa. Which is disappointing.
Well this is my 3rd smart stat, started with a netatmo, that lasted 3 years, then tado that broke in ten months.
Decided it was time to go for a best. The build quality is totally different to the others. Much more premium.
Was wired up by a spark as I have a more comprehensive mokexed heating system.
I did the set up on app and system. One thing to note is that after installation your hot water will probably be on for 2 hours no matter what your settings are, this is due to the legionnaires setting on the nest.
Has worked great since installation.
Recently bought this nest had it for a few weeks have to say first week we hated it didn’t go well at all the learning thing didn’t learn what we wanted.
But now after two I think we have it just fine the app works really says it is a diy job I disagree!
But the nest works well it’s sleek Morden and looks good also the screen is bright to!
Overall 4.0/5
Make sure to get it on offer to
It took me some time to figure out what to do to install it especially with the connection between the boiler and the primary controller. I would advise anyone that is unsure of what they are doing to get an electrician to install it for you. Other than that, I set up the thermostat to control wirelessly from the living room. Our existing thermostat was upstairs and it always seemed keep upstairs warm and downstairs freezing. This thermostat has now made the whole house a lot more comfortable to live in. I used the self learning option and the home away assist function both of which are working very well. I would highly recommend it to anyone considering a smart thermostat.
You’ll likely need a professional for this. It doesn’t come with a stand or power cable.
Be prepared for your professional to say you need boiler adaptions if it’s not 100% compatible. Not nests fault. But nothing on their site about my boiler needing a relay switch because it’s itialian :S. Approved installer said it was absolutely necessary. So bang on 30quid for that and another 30quid for a plastic stand and cable plus his installation fee.
But let’s face it if you’re buying one of these for your own home you’ll manage the extra cost, it’s just a pain and takes away from the nice new experience.
You’ll likely need a professional for this. It doesn’t come with a stand or power cable.
Be prepared for your professional to say you need boiler adaptions if it’s not 100% compatible. Not nests fault. But nothing on their site about my boiler needing a relay switch because it’s itialian :S. Approved installer said it was absolutely necessary. So bang on 30quid for that and another 30quid for a plastic stand and cable plus his installation fee.
But let’s face it if you’re buying one of these for your own home you’ll manage the extra cost, it’s just a pain and takes away from the nice new experience.
You’ll likely need a professional for this. It doesn’t come with a stand or power cable.
Be prepared for your professional to say you need boiler adaptions if it’s not 100% compatible. Not nests fault. But nothing on their site about my boiler needing a relay switch because it’s itialian :S. Approved installer said it was absolutely necessary. So bang on 30quid for that and another 30quid for a plastic stand and cable plus his installation fee.
But let’s face it if you’re buying one of these for your own home you’ll manage the extra cost, it’s just a pain and takes away from the nice new experience.
When our old Heatmiser Thermostat started to experience issues after we upgraded our Wi-Fi to a mesh network it was time to upgrade our ageing thermostat.
After carrying out extensive research and also taking the recommendation of a friend that works in home automation I settled on the Nest Thermostat.
PROS
– Amazing build quality
– Bundled back plate provides great coverage when fitting over previous thermostat recess
– So far I have experienced no connection issues either to the unit from my phone or between thermostat and boiler (thermostat is in the hallway and the boiler is in the loft)
– Despite reviews of the app I’ve not experienced any Alexa integration issues
– Auto screen wake (turns on when you walk past it) is a nice feature
– Accurate temperature readings (our previous thermostat needed calibrating)
CONS
– Painful Wi-Fi set-up if you have a long and secure Wi-Fi key
– No holiday mode
– No charger or micro USB cable in the box
– The app needs so work, trying to set a weekly scheduled (I have turned off auto-away and learning features) is clunky and time consuming.
– Schedule copy and paste feature does not work on the iPhone X version of the app
– White finish might pick up dirt from hands (should have gone for the stainless steel version) although I’ll more than likely use Alex voice control or the app to manually turn it on/off
This is a great item, but for the price paid it should have a much smaller list of cons in my opinion.
This did require a bit of faff to get it installed but I was lucky… my friend is an electrician and he told me what to do (sadly he lives 100 miles away so I had to do it myself, or pay a fee). It works really well and the lock feature means I can stop the kids turning it up and costing me money. I bought them each a dressing gown as that was cheaper. 😉
Alexa works well. The humidity doesn’t work with Alexa though. The reply to “what is the temperature inside” (you need to say inside) is just “20 degrees” or whatever the Temperature is… it’s a bit abrupt. But I don’t mind that really. It looks great and it’s already paying for itself. I’d say it’s a good investment which I think will save us money in the long run.
I rent out a lodge which is 160 miles from where I live. When guests leave, they often forget to lower the thermostat temperature and if I don’t have another guest for a few weeks, I waste a lot of gas…and it’s propane so very expensive!
Since I installed this I have been very pleased. Not only can I check the heat setting from 160 miles away, but I can see if anyone is in the lodge because if people leave, the Nest thermostat detects this and turns on eco mode, which sets the temperature to 7 degrees. I can also see how long the boiler has been on for. This will save me lots and be better for the environment. Plus it is easier for my guests to control. They can just turn the ring rather than have to fiddle with a digital programmer. I love it!
Defintely up there with some of the things I would say are a must. This thing has made life so much better. It literally is a set and forget or not even a set its just a forget item. Its installed and it just goes and does its thing in the background. I mean you don’t even hardly ever need to think about it. It just keeps your place nice and toasty for you as you like it all the time. Its one of those things that you buy and forget and it just makes your life so much more comfortable and better and you forget what it was like to ever live without one. I dread to even think what it would be like without it now, the best thing, a total must buy I would recommend to everyone.
As expected. It needs to be customised, and search for its options, but it is by far, superior to conventional thermostats. The only hitch back is that i also bought a Nest sensor, only to realise later, that it does not work with the Nest thermostats outside USA. I hope that this will change in the future, since most of the people in Europe that made the same mistake are furious. Nevertheless, their fury is highly correlated with the amount spend for the sensor(s) they bought, with many of them to be in the purchasing category of more than one….. Seems that Nest regards the thermostat owners outside USA as second rate buyers… Too bad…
As expected. It needs to be customised, and search for its options, but it is by far, superior to conventional thermostats. The only hitch back is that i also bought a Nest sensor, only to realise later, that it does not work with the Nest thermostats outside USA. I hope that this will change in the future, since most of the people in Europe that made the same mistake are furious. Nevertheless, their fury is highly correlated with the amount spend for the sensor(s) they bought, with many of them to be in the purchasing category of more than one….. Seems that Nest regards the thermostat owners outside USA as second rate buyers… Too bad…
Luckily my dad is an electrician so I didn’t have to worry about paying someone to install this- I would definitely not have tried it by myself.
I’ve had it just over a week, every morning my alarm goes off at 7.15 and I immediately set the nest app on my phone to heat. In 10 minutes I get out of bed to a cosy house, sorted. This morning I woke up and my nest had learned what I do and did it itself- what a glorious moment.
I use eco mode while I’m away and it’s also learned that I like to keep my house around 15 degrees.
19 /20 when I get home from work.
It’s honestly ridiculous how clever this thing is!
The fact it works with my Amazon echo is just the cherry on the top. I feel very much in the future and it’s all good.
Luckily my dad is an electrician so I didn’t have to worry about paying someone to install this- I would definitely not have tried it by myself.
I’ve had it just over a week, every morning my alarm goes off at 7.15 and I immediately set the nest app on my phone to heat. In 10 minutes I get out of bed to a cosy house, sorted. This morning I woke up and my nest had learned what I do and did it itself- what a glorious moment.
I use eco mode while I’m away and it’s also learned that I like to keep my house around 15 degrees.
19 /20 when I get home from work.
It’s honestly ridiculous how clever this thing is!
The fact it works with my Amazon echo is just the cherry on the top. I feel very much in the future and it’s all good.
Luckily my dad is an electrician so I didn’t have to worry about paying someone to install this- I would definitely not have tried it by myself.
I’ve had it just over a week, every morning my alarm goes off at 7.15 and I immediately set the nest app on my phone to heat. In 10 minutes I get out of bed to a cosy house, sorted. This morning I woke up and my nest had learned what I do and did it itself- what a glorious moment.
I use eco mode while I’m away and it’s also learned that I like to keep my house around 15 degrees.
19 /20 when I get home from work.
It’s honestly ridiculous how clever this thing is!
The fact it works with my Amazon echo is just the cherry on the top. I feel very much in the future and it’s all good.
I live in a small 2 bed semi, with thermostatically controlled radiators. I work unsocial shift hours and my shifts are never the same from one week to the next and the clock on the boiler would only accept a single timed programme and I’d use the standard boiler thermostat in manual mode. I also have a school age child living with me and I was desperate for a more flexible heating control.
Although I do most of my own home projects, I paid for the optional installation service after reading the reviews.
The electrician completed the job in about an hour. I’d asked for the Nest to be located in the living room (rather than in the hallway, where the original ‘stat was located) and there was some additional wiring to run.
Setup was fairly simple (although it took me a few minutes to find the location of the QR code – it’s on the back of the Nest!) and everything worked first time.
I’m very happy with the simplicity and flexibility of the Nest!
Update after 8 months use:
After monitoring the Nest against a laboratory thermometer, the Nest reads between 2 to 2.5 degrees high. When you’re paying almost 200 for a thermostat, this inaccuracy is unacceptable.
If you’re planning DIY installation, get familiar with your current system as, depending on its set up (eg: wired thermostat) you’ll probably need a 12 volt transformer to power the Nest thermostat.
This model does NOT come with plug and cable as advertised, although these are widely available and would need to be purchased along with a stand if putting the thermostat on a side table for example. In short – you’ll need some extra parts to complete the installation.
As far as the product goes, initial impressions are that it’s well built and very intuitive to set-up and run. It took only a few minutes after switching on to be controlling both heating and hot water on my ageing oil fired system boiler from the app.
If you’re planning DIY installation, get familiar with your current system as, depending on its set up (eg: wired thermostat) you’ll probably need a 12 volt transformer to power the Nest thermostat.
This model does NOT come with plug and cable as advertised, although these are widely available and would need to be purchased along with a stand if putting the thermostat on a side table for example. In short – you’ll need some extra parts to complete the installation.
As far as the product goes, initial impressions are that it’s well built and very intuitive to set-up and run. It took only a few minutes after switching on to be controlling both heating and hot water on my ageing oil fired system boiler from the app.
If you’re planning DIY installation, get familiar with your current system as, depending on its set up (eg: wired thermostat) you’ll probably need a 12 volt transformer to power the Nest thermostat.
This model does NOT come with plug and cable as advertised, although these are widely available and would need to be purchased along with a stand if putting the thermostat on a side table for example. In short – you’ll need some extra parts to complete the installation.
As far as the product goes, initial impressions are that it’s well built and very intuitive to set-up and run. It took only a few minutes after switching on to be controlling both heating and hot water on my ageing oil fired system boiler from the app.
We love our learning thermostat. Admittedly we chose Nest over Hive in part due to Hive’s irritating tv advert but we’re very happy with our choice nonetheless! We’ve paired this with our Amazon Echo so we can change the temperature in the flat by voice control alone. Handy when you can’t be bothered to get off the sofa! We have an unusual boiler setup and were lucky that we had a handyman round for another task who’d happened to have installed one before – he still had quite a bit of trouble getting it up and running. We’d originally planned to do this ourselves but we wouldn’t have stood a chance! Love that we can also turn the temperature up from our mobiles so the flat will be warm when we get home! The learning element seems to work well and it’s picked up our heating habits pretty quickly.
It took a little while to connect the heatlink, but that was mostly because the original wiring was shocking – no pun intended! Its pretty easy to wire up & the booklet gives you good diagrams for several wiring plans. If you are fairly competent at wiring things a little more complex than a plug, you should be fine with this.
Once connected everything else was intuitive. The app was easy to install and easy to use, there were no issues connecting to the thermostat.
It took about 2 days for it to figure out how long it takes to heat up the house, now the thermostat can predict what time to switch on & get the temperature to the desired setting when we get up in the morning. This must save some gas as the mornings get warmer.
The evening temperature settings is a little less accurate, I suspect its still getting used to our patterns. There may be some settings in the schedule I can tinker with when I get time, I’ve only had this for 4 days so I’m sure both the thermostat and myself have more to learn about each other.
It took a little while to connect the heatlink, but that was mostly because the original wiring was shocking – no pun intended! Its pretty easy to wire up & the booklet gives you good diagrams for several wiring plans. If you are fairly competent at wiring things a little more complex than a plug, you should be fine with this.
Once connected everything else was intuitive. The app was easy to install and easy to use, there were no issues connecting to the thermostat.
It took about 2 days for it to figure out how long it takes to heat up the house, now the thermostat can predict what time to switch on & get the temperature to the desired setting when we get up in the morning. This must save some gas as the mornings get warmer.
The evening temperature settings is a little less accurate, I suspect its still getting used to our patterns. There may be some settings in the schedule I can tinker with when I get time, I’ve only had this for 4 days so I’m sure both the thermostat and myself have more to learn about each other.
It took a little while to connect the heatlink, but that was mostly because the original wiring was shocking – no pun intended! Its pretty easy to wire up & the booklet gives you good diagrams for several wiring plans. If you are fairly competent at wiring things a little more complex than a plug, you should be fine with this.
Once connected everything else was intuitive. The app was easy to install and easy to use, there were no issues connecting to the thermostat.
It took about 2 days for it to figure out how long it takes to heat up the house, now the thermostat can predict what time to switch on & get the temperature to the desired setting when we get up in the morning. This must save some gas as the mornings get warmer.
The evening temperature settings is a little less accurate, I suspect its still getting used to our patterns. There may be some settings in the schedule I can tinker with when I get time, I’ve only had this for 4 days so I’m sure both the thermostat and myself have more to learn about each other.
Unfortunaetlty, I was lucky enough to have one of the boilers you can’t self install – but after getting it hooked up, was so easy to get configured and hooked into my smart systems.
This is easy to use and responsive.
Screen wakes up correctly and I’ve yet to have it woken up by a “ghost”.
I’m still not sure if I trust it’s internal thermometer, but I’ve integrated it with SmartThings and sensors all round the house, so they tell it when to come off and on.
If does give interesting stats and estimates as to when it thinks it’ll reach the temperature, which is good.
Def helps manage energy a bit better.
It takes a couple of weeks to start and understand how the Nest works but it is definately worthwhile spending the time. I would definately recommend have a qualified Engineer check and balance your system especially if you have radiators installed as this will help make everything more efficient and economical.
I am very happy with my purchase and look forward to adding the extras that are available.
It takes a couple of weeks to start and understand how the Nest works but it is definately worthwhile spending the time. I would definately recommend have a qualified Engineer check and balance your system especially if you have radiators installed as this will help make everything more efficient and economical.
I am very happy with my purchase and look forward to adding the extras that are available.
It takes a couple of weeks to start and understand how the Nest works but it is definately worthwhile spending the time. I would definately recommend have a qualified Engineer check and balance your system especially if you have radiators installed as this will help make everything more efficient and economical.
I am very happy with my purchase and look forward to adding the extras that are available.
I’m using the Nest thermostat for over a year now with gas fired central heating (hot water + rads). It was easy to setup – a ‘drop in’ replacement for my old wireless thermostat which had developed a fault. The only tricky bit was the heat link wiring as my existing wires were a bit big for the terminals.
Its a nice thermostat, easy to set and read. I haven’t made much use of the ‘smart’ learning feature – which I switched off when the Nest decided I needed heat during the night. I may try them again.
Overall I would recommend this as an easy to use stat – even if you don’t use the smart features. The colourful screen and proximity sensor makes it much better than older grey lcd screen devices.
Pros: relative to the cost of new boilers and the function offered etc the cost is really low. The interface to the boiler controls is excellent and although our boiler installer had never used them before they had no problems. The thermostats themselves look good and are simple to install and the functions are easy to use, both at home and remotely via my iPhone and iPad. The apps are excellent and the function has been enhanced during the time we have had the system. When we go away we simply tell the system to switch to “Away” mode and before we return we switch a day before to “Home” mode and the thermostats are all adjusted automatically.
Con: just one and it will probably not be a problem for most people. Retrofitting in an existing house was made so much easier by being able to link the room thermostats wirelessly to the boiler controls. But we discovered that the wireless signal did not reach from the boiler to all the rooms in the house. Nest have their own wireless link and there is no signal extender as there is for wifi. (With the Nest Protect smoke alarms each alarm “boosts” the signal so there is no apparent distance limitation, but this is not the case with the thermostats.) We happen to have a long narrow house. But this will not the a problem for most people.
Otherwise the Nest system is brilliantly simple to install and use.
In the previous 2 weeks i test the Nest against Tado thermostat.
Both are very good quality but Nest is a step up. In Setup Nest is 2 steps up. In operation both have plus and cons.
Tado is install and forget (geofencing is very good) and Nest is “i wanna play with you” sexy thing.
A big plus for me is the Nest Homelink who have 2 really discrete relays for CH and HW. In Tado the optional extension kit is somehow one and half relay.
In operation Nest is nice, the hot water access isn’t like Tado but more complicated. Farsight option very handful and in design is in the other hand from Tado, a minus for Nest is geofencing, isn’t so well operated but there is the presence sensor.
In Eedomus (Home Automation server), work well but sometimes doesn’t update frequently and you have some extra notifications.
Final for me Nest is working more comfortable (because i don’t like to schedule CH) than Tado and installation with setup is much easier. In Tado you must follow the online procedure and if your Boiler and previous thermostat is not included (like mine) in Tado site you will have some minor problems with setup.
In the previous 2 weeks i test the Nest against Tado thermostat.
Both are very good quality but Nest is a step up. In Setup Nest is 2 steps up. In operation both have plus and cons.
Tado is install and forget (geofencing is very good) and Nest is “i wanna play with you” sexy thing.
A big plus for me is the Nest Homelink who have 2 really discrete relays for CH and HW. In Tado the optional extension kit is somehow one and half relay.
In operation Nest is nice, the hot water access isn’t like Tado but more complicated. Farsight option very handful and in design is in the other hand from Tado, a minus for Nest is geofencing, isn’t so well operated but there is the presence sensor.
In Eedomus (Home Automation server), work well but sometimes doesn’t update frequently and you have some extra notifications.
Final for me Nest is working more comfortable (because i don’t like to schedule CH) than Tado and installation with setup is much easier. In Tado you must follow the online procedure and if your Boiler and previous thermostat is not included (like mine) in Tado site you will have some minor problems with setup.
In the previous 2 weeks i test the Nest against Tado thermostat.
Both are very good quality but Nest is a step up. In Setup Nest is 2 steps up. In operation both have plus and cons.
Tado is install and forget (geofencing is very good) and Nest is “i wanna play with you” sexy thing.
A big plus for me is the Nest Homelink who have 2 really discrete relays for CH and HW. In Tado the optional extension kit is somehow one and half relay.
In operation Nest is nice, the hot water access isn’t like Tado but more complicated. Farsight option very handful and in design is in the other hand from Tado, a minus for Nest is geofencing, isn’t so well operated but there is the presence sensor.
In Eedomus (Home Automation server), work well but sometimes doesn’t update frequently and you have some extra notifications.
Final for me Nest is working more comfortable (because i don’t like to schedule CH) than Tado and installation with setup is much easier. In Tado you must follow the online procedure and if your Boiler and previous thermostat is not included (like mine) in Tado site you will have some minor problems with setup.
Once installed the system just works. Have some fun tweaking it if you like but otherwise let it get on with it and just use it to turn the heating up and down as you wish. Over time the learning system will start to anticipate this more and more and while I won’t claim it will never need adjusting, it gets pretty good at guessing what you are going to want.
Oh and get used to your guests stopping to play with it as it lights up when they go past. The thing just invites you to turn it.
Beter looking than Hive and much easier and more efficient than Tado. What’s not to like…
Once installed the system just works. Have some fun tweaking it if you like but otherwise let it get on with it and just use it to turn the heating up and down as you wish. Over time the learning system will start to anticipate this more and more and while I won’t claim it will never need adjusting, it gets pretty good at guessing what you are going to want.
Oh and get used to your guests stopping to play with it as it lights up when they go past. The thing just invites you to turn it.
Beter looking than Hive and much easier and more efficient than Tado. What’s not to like…
Well I have now had the Nest Thermostat installed for a week now and I can only say I am completely sold on it. Okay it may have cost a bit and some people may say it is an unnecessary item but for sheer ease of use and control I honestly don’t think it can be beaten.
I chose to complete the installation with a friend who has done similar work before and let’s just say it wasn’t as straight forward as some may imply. This isn’t a criticism of the Nest but more a case of some confusing wiring in my house following some building work which resulted in wires of different colouring! After a lot of head scratching and cable testing the various wires were identified and the heat link and thermostat were installed. Seeing the screen light up was a relief I can tell you!
After the installation everything else went according to plan and was so straight forward. The only real pain was entering my network password which is over 26 characters long and therefore a little time consuming! Once setup the device synced with the account and applied an update and the Nest was ready to go. Over the course of the week we have tinkered with scheduling for both hot water and heating which is far more than we could ever do previously and checked on how it is working.
Early impressions of the Nest are very high as it is so easy to use and control whether it is at the thermostat itself or via the app. Even my wife who tends to roll here eyes when I purchase something like this has been sold on it and as a family we feel we have a far greater level of control than we ever did with the previous thermostat and timer we had. I like the daily reports of usage, the Farsight feature (displaying the weather forecast in our case) and above all else the ability to switch on/off wherever we are so that the house is heated as required rather than when empty. We know there is the geofencing function but we decided against this for the simple reason it doesn’t feel essential especially as we may appear to be heading home when really we are passing nearby. Maybe we will change our minds in the future but for now we are content with the control being by us as per schedule or when we are thinking about heading home.
In summary a great device which is real a pleasure to use, but on the strength of my experience I would recommend getting a professional to help with the install if you are at all uncertain. If you feel confident then it should be okay but take lots of photos as you complete the work!
Doesn’t come with cable for the Heat link, so you’ll need to get down to B&Q etc. Mine just needed a live/neutral wire, no earth for my set up, though check your needs before you buy the wire.
If replacing thermostat like for like, check the voltage of your existing one, chances are the power supply is too high. Nest very good at pointing this out.
Thermostat itself is great and looks fantastic. We have it in the living room where it is much more practical than our old one which was in a hallway without heating, so that would just remain on all the time.
It has scheduling which isn’t immediately obvious, you can set a start time/temp but not an end one, the workaround is to set the lowest temp of 9 degrees.
App for the phone is very easy to use and works on multiple peoples phone. One being the primary user who invites the others to use it.
No boost option (for CH) which is disappointing, but not end of the world.
Not used the auto learn facilities.
Doesn’t come with cable for the Heat link, so you’ll need to get down to B&Q etc. Mine just needed a live/neutral wire, no earth for my set up, though check your needs before you buy the wire.
If replacing thermostat like for like, check the voltage of your existing one, chances are the power supply is too high. Nest very good at pointing this out.
Thermostat itself is great and looks fantastic. We have it in the living room where it is much more practical than our old one which was in a hallway without heating, so that would just remain on all the time.
It has scheduling which isn’t immediately obvious, you can set a start time/temp but not an end one, the workaround is to set the lowest temp of 9 degrees.
App for the phone is very easy to use and works on multiple peoples phone. One being the primary user who invites the others to use it.
No boost option (for CH) which is disappointing, but not end of the world.
Not used the auto learn facilities.
Prior to installing Nest, for years my house has been either too hot or too cold and rarely at just the right temperature. Now, less than two days after installation, with Nest, I can accurately control the temperature inside my house so that it feels comfortable all the time.
I have no hesitation in recommending Nest as a new or replacement thermostat / timer. It has certainly given my old boiler a new lease of life, which in its last life was simply controlled by a programmable clock and the thermostatic valves on the radiators. For those interested, the boiler which I fitted Nest to, is the IMI / Range / Baxi / Potterton – Powermax 185 (yes, the boiler was sold and sold again from company to company like a hot potato!). This type of boiler has a chequered history due to a lack of knowledge amongst most heating engineers on the correct maintenance and repair but despite that, like Nest, I consider it to be a design classic!! If Nest can fit this old boiler and give it a new lease of life, then it will probably fit any boiler out there. But do your own research and check the compatibility for yourself. if you are not confident to fit Nest yourself then it is worthwhile getting a Nest installation professional to fit it for you.
The installation process took me approximately 2 hours. I prepared well by having my boiler installation manual to hand as well as lengths of power cable and a variety of tools such as a cable stripper, drill, tape measure, electrical screwdriver, pencil etc. I also watched a few YouTube videos on how to install. One important safety point to remember is to switch off the bolier and isolate it from the mains during installation.
Following installation, I can see, at a glance, the actual temperature inside the house and also when the boiler is due to be triggered to run and when it is not. When I walk past Nest, the built-in motion sensor wakens so that Nest displays the actual temperature and the temperature that the boiler has been set to come on at. This allows Nest to be setup and adjusted very accurately for each individuals requirements. Adjustment is made by either making adjustments on the Nest display itself or by using the Nest App on your phone.
I have setup Nest to operate to a pre-determined schedule because I have a pretty standard routine, however, Nest has been designed to learn your home life patters and adjusts to suit and save energy when you are out. You will need to research this a bit yourself to decide if you want to simply set a schedule or let nest learn and react to your movements.
When I am away from the house, I can check the Nest App on my phone to see how much the temperature is dropping throughout the day when the house is empty and Nest has been set to a low temperature, so as not to switch the boiler on unnecessarily. In my case this confirmed that the installation of the loft insulation which was upgraded a few years ago was actually worthwhile! There being a minimal drop in temperature throughout the day.
In its history file, Nest stores the boiler’s operation details which allows me to check how long the boiler has had to run for each day to maintain the desired temperatures throughout the day and night. This will prove to be helpful in adjusting the Nest settings so as to be as energy efficient as possible or for monitoring the benefits of other energy saving upgrades such as the installation of upgraded windows or loft insulation etc.
On researching the possibilities of Nest further, it is apparent that the integration of Nest with other household products will limited only by the ingenuity of Nest’s designers (which is obviously there in abundance) and the ingenuity and foresight of designers of other products.
It was a pleasant surprise to find that Nest was already able to seamlessly integrate with my Logitech Ultimate remote control. As soon as I realised that this was a possibility, it was done using the Nest App on my phone.
I would have never thought that a mere thermostat could be such a joy to use and into the bargain actually provide the very precise boiler control which is necessary to make the living environment as comfortable as possible. With Nest, the days of turning thermostats up and down to control the temperature or adjusting difficult to set time settings on wall mounted programmers are gone. Nest is an absolute pleasure to use and helps us to create a very comfortable living environment, which can only be a good thing.
There are not many products on the market that I would take the time to review as most are here today and gone tomorrow. However, Nest is one of those products that stands out and I have no doubt will be here to stay for a very long time. Nest has clearly been designed and brought to market by skilled and enthusiastic designers and others with a vision who are passionate and determined in their efforts. Nest has created a product which can actually help to improve our everyday lives in more ways than you could ever imagine that a thermostat could.
I did my research before purchasing and watched a few YouTube videos on the installation but I still felt uncertain about it whether Nest would work with my boiler. Having now bought, installed and used Nest, I would say its a no-brainer! I hope that this review helps a few people in their research prior to making their purchase.
Firstly it has to be said, I absolutely love it!
Now, I did have a little problem with first one I had delivered, I opened it, all excited for my new bit of kit, and all there was inside was 2 tins of marrowfat peas!! I was so shocked I just laughed! I think the fact that they were Marrowfat peas was actually funnier. Anyway, I knew I had bought it direct from Amazon and they would sort it quickly for me. Sure enough, one call and 2 days later a new one arrived.
So the gear itself is needed by anyone who is tech savvy and wants to use the best tech around.
The Nest has so many features, it’s brilliant, I’ll let you go and look at all the stuff about it. I will tell you the 2 things about this that, for me, takes it way above all other old skool thermostats.
1. you can set really complex timer patterns from your phone app, and it’s really easy. Not restricted to a couple off and ons.
2. you can operate it away from the house. So good for when you’ve forgotten to change the timer before you leave for the day or maybe you want to turn on the heating as you’re on the way home.
All in all, love it.
Firstly it has to be said, I absolutely love it!
Now, I did have a little problem with first one I had delivered, I opened it, all excited for my new bit of kit, and all there was inside was 2 tins of marrowfat peas!! I was so shocked I just laughed! I think the fact that they were Marrowfat peas was actually funnier. Anyway, I knew I had bought it direct from Amazon and they would sort it quickly for me. Sure enough, one call and 2 days later a new one arrived.
So the gear itself is needed by anyone who is tech savvy and wants to use the best tech around.
The Nest has so many features, it’s brilliant, I’ll let you go and look at all the stuff about it. I will tell you the 2 things about this that, for me, takes it way above all other old skool thermostats.
1. you can set really complex timer patterns from your phone app, and it’s really easy. Not restricted to a couple off and ons.
2. you can operate it away from the house. So good for when you’ve forgotten to change the timer before you leave for the day or maybe you want to turn on the heating as you’re on the way home.
All in all, love it.
Firstly it has to be said, I absolutely love it!
Now, I did have a little problem with first one I had delivered, I opened it, all excited for my new bit of kit, and all there was inside was 2 tins of marrowfat peas!! I was so shocked I just laughed! I think the fact that they were Marrowfat peas was actually funnier. Anyway, I knew I had bought it direct from Amazon and they would sort it quickly for me. Sure enough, one call and 2 days later a new one arrived.
So the gear itself is needed by anyone who is tech savvy and wants to use the best tech around.
The Nest has so many features, it’s brilliant, I’ll let you go and look at all the stuff about it. I will tell you the 2 things about this that, for me, takes it way above all other old skool thermostats.
1. you can set really complex timer patterns from your phone app, and it’s really easy. Not restricted to a couple off and ons.
2. you can operate it away from the house. So good for when you’ve forgotten to change the timer before you leave for the day or maybe you want to turn on the heating as you’re on the way home.
All in all, love it.
Product received next day in good packaging giving a good feel of quality at the start. we had an old Honeywell Y plan gravity fed system with a twenty year old Worcester boiler. The boiler is going well and works at about 90% according to the service engineer. I know modern boilers are better, but allowing for the claims on the thermostat, which essentially helps you to not heat an empty house, I can easily see how the money will be clawed back in a year. The thermostat is easy to use and understand and features a fail safe minimum temperature to avoid freezing when off, as well as a minimum temperature setting, which we set at 9 degrees to keep our dogs warmer in case we turn the thermostat right down.
The third generation links to the hot water system. There are really only two benefits for this compared with the old set up, that is the ability to set it remotely from a phone or tablet, and the fact that one unit now controls all. For us no more fiddling around in a dark airing cupboard messing with the timer. By the way the Nest timing is far easier to use and see than our old 7 day programmer.
I installed the heat link myself. I’m not an electrician or plumber but as someone who runs a building firm has a reasonable knowledge of heating systems and electrical systems. Our wiring centre was a mesh of wires linking to two sets of four connecting blocks. I did take the time to log things as I disconnected and was a little unsure of what supplied what on the cables which went into the wall, but after a little research found out which was the thermostat and which was the power back to the boiler. The nest wiring diagram I used was pretty good once you understood the rudiments and the only problem I had was that there was no indication of how the pump should be wired. Having found a Y plan on Google it all became clear and then relatively easy. I did have an issue with the tank stat as the wires were labelled 1, 2 and C which didn’t easily correspond with the Nest wiring diagram which did cause a problem at first in that it worked but I couldn’t turn it off.. But thanks to Google it too became clear and after swapping too wires all sorted. My advice, is that if you can identify the various heating parts of your system and are happy with a bit of DIY electricals (safely though) then as long as you have a wiring diagram of what you’ve got, most people should be able to install the heat link without the need of a “professional” so save yourself a little cash. But do your research first and don’t get to a point where you can’t revert to the old system.
I’m really pleased and the stat is working nicely, just as the weather warms up! However, my wife has an issue. The stat is a large round lit up screen with a shiny chrome surround so in fairness, does stand out in crowd so to speak and she isn’t too happy with having a modern piece of equipment on show in our stone built traditional style house with natural wood furniture and apart from the stat, not a piece of shiny chrome in sight, apart from the kitchen, which is a bad room to fit a learning thermostat. The screen times out to blank but the chrome is a bit obvious. Suggestion would be that the unit is offered with a wood effect dial which I am sure would have kept the good lady happy.
That aside, I would recommend the product.
We sold that house but I swore I’d install Nest in our next home as we were total converts. Last year we bought both a Nest Gen 2 and the new Nest Gen 3 for our current home. We needed a 2-zone heating system so the Gen-2 has been setup to control the upstairs zone, and downstairs a Nest Gen 3 controls that heating zone and hot water. For those not familiar with the Nest family the Nest 2 does not control the water heater, only the central heating or AC. Our home was built in 1897 so has odd heating requirements that are quite different upstairs and down, hence our need for a 2-zone system. Upstairs is poor at retaining heat whilst downstairs with its solid stone walls, is one big thermal store so only the upstairs zone needs frequent heating top-ups.
Our new heating system was installed just before Christmas and getting a Nest installer at short notice wasn’t possible. However, our plumber’s electrician was able to connect up the 2-zone Nest system in about 45 minutes and it worked fine from commissioning up until the bad software update. Happily for us only the Nest 2nd Generation was corrupted by the update and became unresponsive; the Nest 3 continued working correctly so half our system was still controllable. I was able to manually select the upstairs zone valve to permanently open and the Nest 3 temporarily took over controlling both zones and the hot water.
Fixing the Nest 2 software problem took a bit of trial and error. The fixes on the Nest website didn’t work so eventually I decided to remove the Nest 2 from our house Nest account. For some reason that did the trick and I was able to interact again with the Nest 2 so I set it up from scratch and re-connected it to our 2-zone Nest account and it’s all working brilliantly again. The point is that even the best companies occasionally have an issue with a software update so don’t be put off buying a Nest.
In over 3 years of owning a Nest the software glitch was our first negative issue, which I was able to resolve after a bit of experimentation. I’m sure Nest will be a lot more careful to debug software updates in future. For those left without heating it must have been a real pain but I’m sure they’ll fell back in love with their Nest once it was sorted out. If not and anyone has decided to give up on Nest I’m interested in setting up a zone controlling my workshop so I’m happy to take it off their hands!
Another benefit of the Nest system is that we’ve also bought some LIFX lights, which connect to the Nest via wi-fi to provide controllable lighting via a separate App. When the Nest is set to Away it tells the LIFX lights, which then turn off and on randomly to make it look as if someone is home and moving around the house.
Overall I’m extremely happy with my Nest setup and would definitely buy another when I extend my heating system into my workshop. The ability to independently control heating in multiple zones is very attractive and if enough people have given up on Nest due to the software glitch, hopefully I can cheaply set up zones for our bathroom and bedrooms as well so they’re always lovely and warm without chucking heat at the whole house. It really is a great system and I can forgive the 3-day outage whilst I sorted out the software glitch having had more than 3 years of faultless operation!
If you read anything, read this. At 72 years of age, it will take a hell of a lot to impress me. This thermostat has done just that. I have NEVER ammended an amazon review 4 times, and probably never will again. This thermostat will rank at the TOP of whatever gadgets I have ever bought. It has worked FLAWLESSLY since installation at the beginning of this year. It has kept me ( and my ten (10) residents cats warm and comfortable. At 03:13 in the morning when I am feeling lousy, i just hit my Sony phone and adjust it. At times I forget to set the Away mode, might be 50 miles away and I can simply adjust it. ( I have Auto Away disabled as my ten (10) resident cats confuse the hell out of the NEST and the two NEST PROTECT units. I run on Calor Cylinder gas which is hellish expensive in Ireland and adjusting the stat saves me money. Went into hospital again for a day and adjusted the NEST down a few degrees from my bed !. A bloody GODSENT, all from my hospital bed !!!
I’ve begruded a lot of things I have bought over time, but trust me on this, the NEST third Gen. stat is NOT one of them. I truly wonder how I ever managed without the dammed thing.
So, in summary? BUY IT ! For the remaining years I have left on this planet, this is the ONE thing I will NEVER regret buying even though it was bloody expensive. But… as the saying goes… YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
Albert, Founder, Cork Animal Care Society. Rep. of Ireland.
Folks, apologies for the length of this review but as you might be contemplating spending 200 pounds or 250 euro it might be worth taking a few minutes to read this.
This review is aimed at the UK/Ireland folks who are considering the purchase of the 3rd gen NEST thermostat. NOTE that there are significant wiring differences between the USA/Canada version of this product and the European version. As I am in Ireland I can meaningfully comment on the use of the unit here in Ireland and/or the UK. NOTE: if you have an open term boiler make sure you read the link at the bottom of this review. Nest has been less than honest about the true state of affairs re modulating your hot water ! After all, YOU are going to part with 200 pounds or 250 euro and you deserve the full story.
I got this unit as I found myself on Christmas day 2015 under the surgeon’s knife in hospital. Having a gas boiler which had NO thermostat at all the system was controlled via a timer switch. While that worked well, it has some serious drawbacks. The person (lady) who came in to look after my place and care for my ten cats while I was in hospital was not comfortable in adjusting the timer settings. Whether it was freezing cold or warm, the timer would come on/off at it ‘set times, resulting in a place which could be way too hot, or far too cold.
Being able to control my gas boiler from my hospital bed, know what the temperature was in the house, turn it up/down or even off would have been a God sent. So…. after having been discharged from hospital I threw several hours into researching this thermostat. That is when I came across the significant differences between the USA/Canadian version and the European version.
The European version uses an intermediate small unit called a HEATLINK. It is this unit which connects to the boiler and controls the boiler itself. The HEATLINK unit in turn connects either via 2 wires carrying 12volt and NOTE: IT MUST BE 12 volt and NOT NOT NOT 240 volts !!! or wirelessly to the actual thermostat itself. (note: the wireless connection is mandatory, the two wires, if used ,only sulpy12 volt to keep the backup battery in the actual thermostat charged.)
If there are no existing wires carrying 12 volt available for you to use I recommend the use of the supplied NEST 12volt USB adapter to power the actual thermostat. PLEASE NOTE: while the thermostat has a build in lithium ion battery, that will not last and it is imperative that you supply the thermostat with the 12 volts it needs to work. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP, the system will not work otherwise.
As mentioned The thermostat talks wirelessly to the HEATLINK control unit. (and to your Router). All adjustments and settings, as detailed in various UTube videos and other reviews, are made on the thermostat itself. The thermostat connects wirelessly either via 2.4 or 5 GHz (not sure about the 5GHz) to your router and to the HEATLINK unit. It needs to do this so that you can control it via your app. on yr mobile smartphone.
NOTE: Trying to run the NEST system without an internet connection is NOT recommended. While it will work, you cannot remotely control it and neither can the thermostat receive the occasional software updates from the NEST servers. Having no internet connection defeats the purpose of buying this unit !
Installation was very straight forward. Mount the HEATLINK boiler control unit (furnace for our American cousins) close to the actual boiler. NEST supplies even the screws to do so. Connect 240Volt AC to terminals N and L, this is the mains supply for the HEATLINK. Connect 2 wires from terminals 2 and 3 to the connections on your boiler which make it come on if a call for heat is issued by the thermostat. As I have no hot water supply to control terminals 4,5 and 6 are not used by me. My Morco boiler supplies on demand hot water when a hot water tap is opened.
> BUT NOTE CAREFULLY:< DO NOT connect an immersion heater to these terminals. The relays in the HEATLINK unit are only rated at 1 amp and will fry under the load of a standard UK/Ireland immersion 3KW heater which draws about 12.5 amps. It is highly likely that the whole unit will go up in fire !!!. There is a way around this but that will require a qualified electrician to install an intermediate relay (or solid state relay), which can easily handle a 3KW load. Terminals OT1 and OT2 are not used by me and apply only to units which can use open term control. IF you wish to supply 12 volt power to the actual thermostat itself (instead of the USB connection) use the final two right most connections and run wires from there to the actual thermostat backplate connectors. . As mentioned and made clear by NEST you can also supply the needed 12 V to the thermostat via the supplied USB adapter. This can come in handy if you wish to mount the thermostat in a new location and would do away with the need to run a pair of wires from the HEATLINK unit down to the thermostat to supply the 12 volts needed. Please NOTE: You must do the HEATLINK INSTALLATION FIRST and only once that is done mount the thermostat on its back plate by simply snapping it into place. As an engineer by profession, I have to admit that the whole unit is beautifully designed. If you see the small cable clamps on the HEATLINK UNIT something you cannot see until you loosen them is that the small screws which hold the wire clamps into place have miniature washers preventing you from unscrewing them too far and having 'em drop out and having to spend the next 1/2 hr searching the floor for these tiny screws. Note: the HEATLINK unit has a manual override button which allows you to run the heating or hot water by bypassing the actual thermostat. Note too that BOTH heating and hot water come on together, there is no way to just select either of them if you use manual mode. ( A nice touch is that once you engage manual override, the display on the actual thermostat prominently displays the word: MANUAL. Once you snap the thermostat onto it's back plate ( or onto the separately purchasable stand ) the unit powers up and off you go. It will do a s/w download to update its microcode (software) and take you thru the installation questions. Some really nice features...it wants to know where you are so it can pick up the nearest outdoor temperature. It uses this in its algorithms when it has fully programmed itself. There are plenty reviews out there covering the actual setup so I am not covering that here. CONCLUSION: This unit has now been up and running for a good week. I ordered it as soon as I came out of hospital and can only wish I had done it earlier. The joy of knowing that all it well, not too hot too cold, cats comfortable and this human comfortable too (although that is of lesser importance) is such a pleasure. YES, the bloody thing cost a LOT of money but i.m.o. it is worth it. The mobile app works fine and yours truly (lazy sod) now can control the thermostat from his bed, the car, or anywhere else, (cats allowing).
Go for it, you will not regret it but I urge you to read the material in the links given at the bottom of this article, ESPECIALLY if you are going to use an open term boiler and think (mistakenly) that you are going to modulate the hot water supply via your NEST thermostat. NEST only recently has come clean on this and admitted that this DOES NOT WORK.
This is the reason that this a 4 star review and not 5 *. Nest has been less than honest with its customers and that is something I did not expect from them.
ADDENDUM to my review as posted above: 25 Feb 2016.
My NEST thermostat has now been running for about 6 weeks. The key question in any purchase is: Would you buy it again, knowing what you know now? The answer is a resounding YES. It pays to very thoroughly read all the stuff you can get you hands on before you buy the unit. An example? I have 10 cats sharing my home and my life. I also have two of the NEST PROTECT UNITS. As you might know, these work with the thermostat in various ways, one being that they tell the thermostat if you are away. BUT…. the PROTECT units are very sensitive and will see the cats. It is therefore recommended to not enable the NEST SENSE feature on the PROTECT Units. To NESTS credit, they do mention this in their literature.
AUTOAWAY would never come on, as no matter how smart the units are, they can’t distinguish between a human and a cat (or dog) so if NEST SENSE is enabled they will tell the thermostat that you are home while you are not. I find that the normal AWAY function suits me fine, I can set it from wherever I happen to be and can also cancel it. It’s a really excellent feature.
The ability to remotely control the unit i.m.o. is its greatest selling point. Even in bed at 03:00 if I am cold just a few clicks on the smartphone and its adjusted. NOTE: For those of you who really want to go the whole way, Google Plus allows you to VOICE CONTROL the thermostat. So… get yr phone, say: OK Google and say: SET TEMPERATURE TO 18 (or whatever you want) DEGREES CENTIGRADE. And heh..presto… the adjustment takes places and your new temperature is set. There is a fairly detailed list of commands you can use in this voice control mode.
IN SUMMARY: The purchase of this unit was one of my (few) good ideas. It is working admirably well, does what it is supposed to do and I have seen virtually no connection problems between the thermostat, heatlink, and the protect units, as well as my Sony Xperia phone. All in all this is one purchase I most certainly do not regret. I wonder how I ever managed without it.
ADDENDUM to my original review, ADDED 13 April 2016
Very recently NEST has implemented a version of GeoFencing. The AUTOAWAY feature now can use yr mobile phone, or tablet, to help determine whether it should go into AUTOAWAY mode. The Nest support site has a detailed description of how it works, in case you are interested. Search the support site for: HOW TO CHANGE HOME/AWAY ASSIST SETTINGS.
Many folks seem to have asked for this to make the HOME/AWAY feature more accurate and it is nice to know that Nest has listened to their customers.
FINAL ADDENDUM to my original review, this addendum dtd, 17 April 2016
Miracles do happen. I had written to NEST support with a simple question: When I put the HEATLINK in MANUAL mode, does the hours while running in MANUAL mode count towards the total hours clocked in the monthly home report.
Guess what ? I got a call today, (SUNDAY !!!) from Tim in NEST technical support , saying he wanted to answer me as fast as possible. I just about fainted. A tech support Gent ringing a customer back on Sunday ??? Can you believe it ?
Anyway, Tim explained that those hours in manual mode are not reflected in the Home report hours. For the simple reason that the brains of the NEST system are in the thermostat itself and the HEATLINK is just the slave unit which does the switching. When the HEATLINK goes into MANUAL, the thermostat is unaware of that and so does not count the hours clocked up in manual mode.
Based on Tim’s fast and very courteous reply, I am now modifying my original rating from a four star to a five star rating. This unit has been performing superbly since its install and in fairness to NEST, they are trying hard to listen to their customers, see my GeoFencing addendum.
Remember this: Even though it might not show on the outside, the NEST thermostat houses a fair amount of brains and processing power. Any device of that nature is prone to the occasional problem and in my opinion it is unreasonable to expect absolute perfection from day one. I’ve now seen two (2) S/W updates since I first installed the unit and they went in without my knowledge and updated the function of the unit and have worked flawlessly. So… I’m going to give it a five star rating as in my mind it is well deserved ! Albert.
PS: Tim also mentioned that the modulating H/W issue on the OPENTERM units is now also fixed. I can’t verify this as I am on a standard combi boiler and would love to know if the modulating issue has now finally been put to bed ?