@Joel — I’d hold off. While they claim it can adapt you unusual schedules, at this point, I’m highly skeptical. It can’t even keep simple schedules correctly. At best, you could probably turn off the learning mode and rely (if it worked in your thermostat location) on auto-away to help save you some money (in theory).

What really interested me was the Learning of the Nest. I have a programmable thermostat now and it just doesn’t fit my lifestyle. I’m a firefighter and work a rotating 24hr on/48hr off schedule. Unfortunately there’s nothing out there that can accommodate such a schedule. I got on Nest’s website and used chat to talk to a representative about how it could handle this. She stated that while it is unusual it will adapt after time. It just wouldn’t learn it in the week or so that would be “normal.” After reading your experience I’m not so sure.

I like your idea of informing me somehow that it’s made some adjustments to the schedule. It could be either via the thermostat itself (“Hey! I’ve just adjusted your schedule! Check online for more details.”) or via an e-mail as you suggested. My thermostat apparently is still learning after having it installed for 12 days. :) If it were as cold as it should be here in Wisconsin during December, having the furnace run unexpectedly for hours is very expensive. So, I’d like the thermostat to make smarter choices and as you suggested, tell me.

If Nest hadn’t described the learning phase in such magical terms, my expectations would probably be more reasonable. “Nest even notices when you get home late on Tuesdays after bowling” or something like that one of their videos suggests.

Thanks for the cool suggestion. I hope they’re listening!

I think what it is doing now seems like a good compromise – it makes some early assumptions, but it provides an easy way to view those assumptions in a web page and make corrections if they are wrong. Given the thermostat is still learning, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to have to check the state of the learned schedule via the web to make sure there isn’t some unwanted schedule changes.

Nest should probably make this clearer in the user manual about how learning works – when does the Nest change the schedule based on learning? Is it as soon as you make a manual change or does it happen X hours later or at midnight? Know this would be helpful to know when to check the schedule for unwanted learned schedule changes.

Maybe an automated email from Nest saying when the thermostat has automatically made a schedule change based on learning would prevent the problem you describe. You’d know right away that the Nest learned incorrectly and could tweak it via the web interface.

Not having any feedback that the schedule changed due to learning does seem like a potential pitfall.

I’ve only had my Nest for 3 days so can’t comment much on my own experience yet.

Part of the problem I’m having is really about the price of the experience. I had one Wifi enabled thermostat for about a year (or so). While the UX of the device was sub-par, it got the job done. The reason I bought it originally was exactly what you mentioned — the ability to set the temperature from anywhere. Now that I’ve disconnected it, I get warning e-mails from the manufacturer saying “YIKES! What happened to your thermostat? Something is wrong!” :)

The issue is that the thermostat when I bought it was about $100. I like the looks and UX of the Nest thermostat overall. It’s a slick little device. However, at $250 a pop, I expect more. It has one job to do really. And right now, I don’t think it’s delivering.

I know I’m an early adopter and that we jumped in with both feet into the deep end, buying a product that’s not proven, and worse, buying 3 of them! :)

The reason I bought them and replaced the older Wifi device was the sub-standard UX of the old device. It was just too hard to program and adjust. I rarely felt confident in the adjustments or control. (There also wasn’t a web interface for adjusting the programming schedule).

I definitely appreciate you leaving comments about your experience with the Nest even if they don’t match with my current impressions. I want to hear other stories and honest and rational reasons why others like/hate/etc. the Nest thermostat. I’ve got enough geeky friends that I’m sure they’ll follow this conversation and my experiences — and in part base their decisions on whether to buy based on my and your (and others) comments and reviews.

What I hope in the end is that the Nest thermostat inspires other manufacturers to look at their product portfolio and realize they may need to think a bit outside of the traditional thermostat design box and make something measurably better. While the thermostat is $250 today, it likely won’t always be. I could also imagine a Nest with a less sophisticated color display, etc. that is managed primarily through an auxiliary device of some sort (like a phone). Heck, maybe even a lit e-ink display. I don’t need color. :)

(Also, I wish Nest would respond!)

Thanks again for commenting!

I’m sure it’s the “learning.”

Unfortunately, right now, it’s wasting energy more than it’s saving as it’s running when we’re not there. :( I’m sure I’m not alone in not wanting to micro-manage the thermostats. I’m surprised by the major decisions it makes even with so little data to go on.