Is the Nest Thermostat Worth it?

We recently purchased a Nest thermostat for our home, because we had Christmas money to burn and our current thermostat was SUPER out-dated– I’m not even sure that we were setting our temps correctly, it was that level of old. I know that there are other brands of eco-friendly, high-tech thermostats but this is the one that I have experience with so I knew that it’d be a safe purchase.

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There are 3 things that we like about our Nest thermostat. If you’re on the fence on whether you should get an eco-friendly thermostat, here’s what I suggest you take into account. These are the 3 reasons it’s worth it to us.

Is the Nest Thermostat Worth it?

1. Easy Installation

The nest was super easy to install! We were afraid that removing the old thermostat would open up a huge hole that we’d have to cover up, but we didn’t have that issue at all. If we did though, the Nest thermostat comes with a face plate to cover the space– So NO extra drywall work!

There are only a few wires you have to attach to the back and then you follow the steps on the screen to get the heat to turn on. We only had issues with one wire because our previous owners had done some sketchy rewire for the old thermostat– But nothing on the actual Nest side of directions. It’s so easy that the YouTube video is only 6 minutes!

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHKD-9uI24I

2. Eco-Friendly Settings

There’s an icon called a Leaf that the Nest thermostat uses to tell you whether you are using an eco-friendly setting on your thermostat. We also discovered (a month in) that there’s an away eco-friendly setting that the thermostat will automatically set while you’re gone so that you don’t use as much energy, but it’s still warm/cool when you get home.

We’ve had an unseasonably LONG winter this year (It’s mid-April and we just woke up to snow AGAIN!), so the eco-friendly setting has been a life saver when it comes to our energy bill. At least a $40 saving just by turning that feature on. What’s nice about the Nest thermostat app, is that it lets you know how much energy you’re using during the day. So if you’re using more than you want to, you can make adjustments on your phone while you’re away.

3. Monthly Comparison Reports

Not only do you get a nice weekly report on your phone when you want, but once a month the Nest thermostat will send you an email with a snapshot of how you did. It also includes a comparison with the previous month, and a reasoning behind WHY your energy savings were the way they are.

As you can see, March was a warmer month than February so we used less energy. However, if March wasn’t warmer, there’s a potential that this could have been a worse month for energy usage because it’s longer and we were home more. Thank goodness it was warmer!

It will be interesting to compare this year’s February with next year’s, because we were slow to find the eco-friendly away setting. Since we’ve just hit our year mark in our home, we’re going to use all of the past year’s energy costs to see if we see any actual monetary savings. So far we’ve only seen a $40 difference between setting our schedule ourselves and using the eco-friendly setting, but we’re hoping to see more change with the upcoming summer months–if warm weather will ever get here!

And if you’re interested in getting a Nest thermostat for your home, Amazon is a great place to start!