Nest Learning Thermostat (4th-gen) assessment: well worth the wait

There are solely a handful of sensible house devices I unequivocally advocate to everybody, and a wise thermostat is one in all them. They’re extremely helpful, combining the three C’s of the sensible house: comfort, consolation, and value financial savings.

The Nest Learning Thermostat, which debuted in 2011, was one of many unique sensible thermostats. But it hasn’t seen an replace in nearly a decade. Today, there are dozens of cheaper linked thermostats, together with Amazon’s wonderful price range thermostat and Google’s personal stripped-down Nest Thermostat. So, why do you have to contemplate spending $280 on the brand new fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat?

For two causes. First, it’s the neatest sensible thermostat. The studying Nest is the one thermostat with an algorithm that robotically adjusts your heating and cooling schedule based mostly on how you employ it, and the fourth-gen is smarter than ever. Second, it seems beautiful. If your thermostat is in a outstanding spot like mine, seems matter, and no different thermostat seems this good.

I liked the third-gen Nest, with its modern type and tactile dial, and the fourth-gen Nest takes that iconic design to the subsequent stage. Adding a bigger display screen, thinner physique, and extra built-in dial, the fourth-gen Nest additionally has a smaller base, making it appear like it’s floating on the wall. The all-gold shade I examined is beautiful, and the crystal LCD display screen displays gentle fantastically. As my colleague Victoria Song put it, “The Nest is so fairly, it makes the remainder of my home look drab as compared.”

The greater display screen makes it simpler to regulate and navigate settings, and the Farsight dynamic show has new choices that benefit from the house. Farsight makes use of the system’s Soli radar sensor to modify the Nest’s show based mostly on how shut you’re to the thermostat.

From a distance, it reveals a simplified view with simply the time, climate, or temperature settings; up shut, it transitions to indicate extra detailed info, together with a brand new row of three customizable “issues.” These can show varied information, equivalent to temperature, humidity, time, date, and even an outside air high quality index rating. (There’s no indoor air high quality monitoring, which is one thing Ecobee, Nest’s fundamental competitor at this value level, does provide.)

I selected to make use of the climate face on my upstairs unit, which reveals animations of the climate over the present outside temperature and the day’s forecast. I added issues for the feels-like temp, date, and time, which have been useful once I’m dashing between my youngsters’ bedrooms within the morning. For the downstairs unit, I went with the fashionable analog clock that appears tremendous fashionable on my entryway wall and is beneficial to look at from the lounge. 

I’m additionally thrilled to lastly be capable of management the Nest natively in Apple Home — my household’s most popular methodology of sensible house management. The fourth-gen Nest is the primary Learning mannequin from Google with Matter assist. This means it will possibly work with any sensible house platform that helps Matter. (There’s a Nest thermostat with Matter assist, however no studying algorithm.)

However, you possibly can’t set it up with Matter initially, as there isn’t any Matter code on the thermostat itself; solely as soon as it’s arrange utilizing the Google Home app are you able to generate a code and share the thermostat with one other Matter platform. (Note: this mannequin doesn’t work with the Nest app in any respect.)

I linked the thermostat to Apple Home and Amazon Alexa through Matter, and the method was surprisingly easy. Response occasions have been instantaneous on all platforms, whether or not utilizing voice or app management; with Matter, the instructions are routed regionally.

Sadly, Google has ditched Thread right here. Thread is one in all Matter’s fundamental wi-fi protocols, nevertheless it was initially developed for the Nest Learning Thermostat. A model of Thread has been on each earlier Learning mannequin, so its exclusion right here, on the primary Learning thermostat with Matter assist, is baffling.

The Nest Learning Thermostat (4th-gen) is Nest’s strongest thermostat to this point. It works with extra programs than the third-gen, together with as much as three heating and two cooling phases. Plus, it’s appropriate with humidifier, dehumidifier, and air flow gear. It additionally has extra software program options designed to scale back vitality use whereas holding you comfy. At $280, it is going to take some time to offset the thermostat’s value with vitality financial savings, however you is likely to be eligible for an honest rebate out of your vitality supplier.

I’ve put in dozens of sensible thermostats over time, and the Nest continues to be one of many easiest to put in, due to clear steps, good steerage from the app, and click-in connectors. (Pro tip: insert the wires earlier than you screw the backplate to the wall.)

It’s additionally one of many solely sensible thermostats that doesn’t require a C wire, however I like to recommend putting in one for those who can — or utilizing the Nest Power Connector. Without devoted energy, the Nest Learning Thermostat makes use of a power-sharing trick to trickle cost its inner battery, however that won’t at all times work persistently. When my C wire went unhealthy on my previous system, the non-learning Nest Thermostat I used to be testing stored disconnecting from Wi-Fi and ultimately stopped working when its AA batteries died.

This time round, nevertheless, I had a brand new HVAC system. My previous single-stage system had given out after 12 years of sweating by way of South Carolina summers, and we’d determined to put in a extra energy-efficient Trane warmth pump system with a multistage high-efficiency compressor and a TEM6 variable-stage air handler. 

Connecting the Nest required me to contact Google. According to their techs, the fourth-gen Nest is appropriate with my system since it will possibly run the air handler in two phases, permitting the unit to resolve what proportion to make use of at every stage. However, my HVAC installer advised me I had to make use of Trane’s personal thermostats to get the compressor’s full effectivity.

This isn’t distinctive to Nest; variable-speed programs almost at all times work greatest with the producer’s thermostats. But this makes me unhappy as a result of the Trane XL824 thermostats that got here with my system appear like mini Windows computer systems on my wall and never like beautiful items of bijou. They are additionally fiddly to program, and the app is indecipherable. 

Even with out entry to the complete vary of compressor settings, I used to be nonetheless in a position to take a look at the Nest Learning Thermostat, together with its signature operate: Smart Schedules. This function is why I’ve at all times appreciated and really useful Nest thermostats — it’s a way more hands-off expertise than most sensible thermostats. 

Smart Schedules makes use of three modes: eco, sleep, and luxury. During setup, you select preset heating and cooling temperatures for every mode. The thermostat is programmed with a starter schedule that units your own home to consolation mode at 6:15AM and sleep mode at 10PM. From there, I simply wanted to regulate the temperature (within the app, with voice management, or on the system) for every week or so, and the thermostat robotically tailored the schedule to my preferences. 

I’ve been testing the Nest for 2 months now, and in that point, it has repeatedly tweaked the time and temperature of the schedule as my family’s habits and the seasons have modified, with little to no enter from me. The home has persistently felt comfy regardless of the wild temperature swings of the South Carolina fall and winter. 

On earlier fashions of the Nest Learning Thermostat, I’ve run into points with sensible scheduling, particularly throughout seasonal modifications. Thankfully, Google has largely addressed these with the fourth-gen mannequin by making the system’s decision-making extra clear. It now sends notifications within the app when it adjusts your schedule and tells you what it’s doing on the thermostat. This allows you to repair any faulty modifications earlier than you’re feeling them and is a welcome change from the generally inscrutable actions of the sooner variations. (You can inform it to not make changes with out your approval if you’re actually involved about shedding management.)

Along with Smart Schedules, you possibly can add the thermostat to Google Home’s house and away routines. These use presence sensing to know when nobody is house and put the system into eco mode to assist save vitality. You can even tie different sensible house actions into these routines, equivalent to having your lights flip off once you go away and switch again on once you arrive house. 

The away mode was impressively correct in my testing, switching on as quickly as I obtained within the automobile in my driveway. This is extra environment friendly than the 2 hours it will possibly take the Ecobee to resolve if the home is empty. Google makes use of a number of alerts right here, together with the Soli radar sensor within the thermostat, movement sensors in any wired Nest Protect smoke alarms you’ve got, interactions with any Nest audio system, plus your telephone’s location, for those who allow that setting within the Google Home app. While you’ll need to have relations obtain the Google Home app so it will possibly embody them, the opposite alerts ought to assist forestall anybody left at house with out a registered telephone from getting frozen out.

On the third-gen thermostat, away mode typically let the temperature drop an excessive amount of, struggling to return to a snug stage once I obtained house. A brand new adaptive eco mode on the fourth-gen addresses this, considering the climate and staying shut sufficient to the consolation temperature in order that it will possibly get again to it inside an hour. Last week, it was within the excessive 20s right here in South Carolina, and as a substitute of dropping all the best way all the way down to 62 levels Fahrenheit (my heating threshold in eco mode) once I left the home, it solely went all the way down to 66F and was again to a snug 68F inside a couple of minutes of my return.

Another new function on the fourth-gen is pure heating and cooling. This equally leverages its data of out of doors temps and can pause the system if Mother Nature can naturally warmth or cool your own home. I haven’t seen this occur but, however in idea, if it’s a sunny, heat day, the thermostat can pause heating and use passive warmth to complete heating your own home. There’s additionally an choice to get an alert telling you to open the home windows to assist with this. Google additionally added a wise air flow function that robotically prompts your air flow system to usher in recent air if outside air high quality is sweet and temperatures are appropriate. I couldn’t take a look at this as a result of I don’t have a air flow system.

The Nest’s distant temperature sensors have a brand new design to match the thermostat, and one now comes within the field (which helps offset the worth bump from the third-gen). These let your thermostat goal the temperature within the rooms you’re truly in, and never simply the place the thermostat is. With the fourth-gen thermostat, now you can choose a number of sensors and purpose for a mean temperature throughout them, which is extra environment friendly than focusing on only one room. This is a function opponents like Ecobee and Honeywell Home have had for years, so Nest is taking part in catch-up right here, nevertheless it’s nonetheless enchancment. 

I’ve a two-zone system, and I positioned the sensor for the upstairs thermostat in my workplace and the one for the downstairs thermostat within the kitchen. I tied the daytime consolation schedule to the workplace sensor to maintain me cozy once I’m working and the night consolation schedule to the kitchen sensor so I keep comfy when cooking. This is extra intuitive than the third-gen mannequin, which has you create separate mounted schedules for the sensors.

However, Nest nonetheless hasn’t added occupancy detection to the sensors (once more, one thing Ecobee’s and Honeywell Home’s distant sensors provide). This would let the thermostat alter to the room I’m truly in quite than the place the schedule says. For instance, the consolation schedule that assumes I’m working in my workplace in the course of the day will nonetheless run upstairs, even when I resolve to work on my eating room desk downstairs. I’ve to manually alter the Nests if I transfer rooms, whereas the Ecobee might alter robotically based mostly on my presence. In lieu of presence detection within the sensors, it could be good if the units Google Home makes use of for house and away detection additionally labored for occupancy sensing for the Nest’s heating and cooling modes.

Also, the temperature sensors disappointingly use Bluetooth, not Thread, and subsequently don’t work in Matter. This means they’re solely accessible within the Google Home app, so you possibly can’t use them to run temperature-based automations on different platforms. As talked about earlier, Google ditched Thread from the thermostat with this model, and whereas the thermostat itself could not have seen loads of profit from Thread (apart from serving to type a stronger community in my sensible house), the battery-powered room sensors would definitely see some profit from the protocol. 

If you want the concept of your heating and cooling adjusting to you as you progress round the home, then the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium can be a greater match. Its latest design will look very good in your wall (though it’s extra techy-looking than the Nest), and at $250 with a room sensor, it’s a bit of extra inexpensive. Compatibility is similar to the Nest, though the Nest presents three phases of heating, whereas the Ecobee Premium is optimized for as much as two. 

I’ve used each Ecobee and Nest thermostats for a few years, and the simplicity of the Nest makes it the higher alternative for me. Plus, it is simpler to combine into my sensible house now that the Nest works natively with Apple Home (one thing Ecobee has accomplished for years). Overall, the Ecobee is extra difficult to arrange and use however has extra options and capabilities. This contains being a wise speaker, a video doorbell intercom, a house safety system, and monitoring your generator. However, most of those capabilities are proprietary, and Ecobee doesn’t assist Matter (but).

In distinction, the Nest has only one job and it does it nicely. It’s simple to arrange and simple to make use of, and simpler to grasp, now that it tells you what it’s doing when its smarts kick in. It takes many of the work out of your arms and requires much less tinkering than the Ecobee to maintain you comfy. I like and advocate each merchandise, however if you would like one thing easy, fashionable, and actually sensible, go along with the Nest.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge