I've changed my mind as well. I thought the Nest looked really sweet, but I'm not going to be getting one. While I LOVE the physical design, I've come to the conclusion that I need to first think about what I want to do, then find the product that suits my needs. The Trane model you linked to, Bruno, is very nice, but it also doesn't integrate with many (any?) home automation systems like I'm looking for.

Instead I'm going to continue expanding my ZWave system with a compatible thermostat. I'm currently looking at this Trane, as it seems to be the best choice among the options available to me.

My goal is that I don't even have to be near the thermostat to control/program it, so in the end I've decided I don't really care what it looks like. I'm happy with it simply blending in with my wall.

Bruno, would you mind taking a look at that product and telling me if it has a decent compliment of HVAC capabilities? I don't know anything about that side of the equation (I probably wired the thermostat in my current place the wrong way ).

Before purchasing the Vera Lite for my ZWave system, the Nest was much more attractive to me. Now that I can start doing much cooler stuff with my system than I could before, I'm really excited to outfit the rest of my place with ZWave stuff...

My current fav among commercially available thermostats is the Filtrete 3M-50 Wifi Thermostat (aka. the CT-30/CT300E Wifi). It sells for about $110 at Home Depot in the USA.

I don't have one, but were I to purchase a new thermostat, that's what I'd get.

Instead, I've decided to just make one that works how I want it to work. An Atmega328p PIC (w/Arduino bootloader), LCD screen, some buttons, a couple of relays, RTC, temperature sensor, and either ethernet or an ElectricImp for remote access and easier programming.

Yeah, I'm weird.

Sounds like something we'd do at my work.

Certainly in the UK, most central heating controllers are completely un intuitive, is it really that difficult to design something that operates in a simple and logical manner?

(no in the answer because we did it many years back when my boss needed a new one!)

My problems are a) I need temperature sensors in at least 4 different spaces to get it right, 2) the central heating system / boiler only talks some proprietary RS-232 stuff (I assume there are no real, accepted standards), and 3) temperature adjustment needs to take into account wind strength and direction, as the north/south ends of the house let wind straight through, while east/west side walls are solid double-layer brick...

Yeah, I like that one as well. But I thought the Wifi version was the 3M50?. Anybody know what the difference is between the 3M40 and the 3M50? The website is not really clear about that.

Matt, the Trane Comfortlink II I mentioned before is probably best deployed when using Trane communicating furnace and AC equipment because they'll all talk to each other. There's also an adapter for regular 24v control which is required for non-communicating gear. I'm pretty sure modules exist to interface with commercial automation systems like Crestron and Control4, but I think it's more stat than I need.

The one you linked to sounds like it may do what you want and work well with your Z-Wave stuff. I'll have a closer look later when I can sit down, I'm kind of in and out at the moment.

For me one of the things I really wanted was a circulation mode for the fan so that I didn't have to leave it on all the time and so that it would come on at other times in addition to heat and cooling cycles.

The EcoBee gets a lot of positive comments as the best stat with wifi and web connectivity available to consumers. It does not have Z-Wave. It does have Zigbee which is currently used exclusively to talk to smart meters to monitor energy usage - which it can use for deciding how to run your AC, etc.

Took a quick look, but didn't find the level of detail for that Trane Comfortlink (the one from Amazon Matt linked) as I did for others in the Trane lineup. I know it requires an accessory module to support a dual fuel system if that's important to your installation.

The internet connectivity which they call Nexia, costs $9 per month. And the stat is Z-Wave ONLY, requiring a Nexia Z-Wave bridge to get it connected to your IP network.

IMO, it's doubtful that this stat will save you $9 per month over a more pedestrian programmable model, let alone the price of a Z-Wave bridge on top of that. IMO, EcoBeee seems like the leader in the web-enabled thermostat game at the moment.

Other than that, if it compares well in other areas to the Comforlink II, it's definitely a very capable device.

I'm pretty sure that the Nexia stuff is just if you don't already have something that can talk to it over ZWave. I'd be surprised if I couldn't just add it to my Vera Lite controller and get it working the way it's supposed to. But if it needs to talk to my heating/cooling system in a way that I can't provide with the equipment I already have, I'd be hesitant to get it.

I don't know how to tell what would be compatible with my HVAC system. All I want is something that will work with it, but also has ZWave in it. Apparently the Vera will work with Insteon and X10 products too, but those all seem to be even further behind, technologically.

Could turn out to be nothing, but...

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/22/nest-home-monitoring-device-pops-up-at-the-fcc-with-zigbee/

Engadget says...



And I say... Not likely. At least not likely what this product is indicating nor geared for.

While there's an automation profile for Zigbee, Z-wave, which is not compatible, commands the lion's share of the home automation landscape. Zigbee however is popular precisely in the market this product covers, monitoring. Zigbee equipped smart electric meters have now been around a few years, and it's why the Ecobee thermostat also supports that technology. The Nest's WiFi radio already gives it all the communication capabilities it needs to join any home automation bandwagon.

I can see Nest releasing a replacement base plate (the part that gets the wires and to which the stat attaches) with built-in Zigbee plus a firmware update for the thermostat itself to allow monitoring energy consumption from the meter and use that information and time-of-use data to better plan its heating and cooling schedules.

EDIT: The image from the FCC is labeled as "back cover" in the official document, so it looks like it may be a new Nest main unit.

Yup, that's it. My bad.

Mark, our local (and small) Home Depot has that 3M stat (re-branded but logo-less) for about $100 at the moment. It may actually have been $89, but I can't remember at the moment. They had piles of them in a cardboard display box in the HVAC aisle a few days ago.

I just checked and it's not listed on the web site.

As expected, here's the new Nest Thermostat: http://www.nest.com/blog/2012/10/02/the-next-generation-nest-thermostat/

The whole Zigbee thing at the FCC was sort of a red herring because the original Nest has also always had it.

Looks like Nest now does 2 stage cooling, 3 stage heating, humidifiers and dehumidifiers. It's also 20 percent thinner than the previous model, but I kind of miss the fact it no longer has a black band around it.

A few of my wish-list items are taken care of with 2.0, including humidification and simultaneous heat/cool (maintaining automatic operation). Still too bad about HRV/ERV because I'd love to get rid of the separate control panel for that.

CAVEAT: The support for the extended HVAC hardware will only work with ONE of those pieces of hardware at a time. Nest is using a catch-all connector to support humidifier, dehumidifier, emergency heat-pump and third-stage heat. So if you have two or more of those capabilities with your current system, you'll need to pick only one for control by Nest.

http://www.nest.com/blog/2012/10/02/the-next-generation-nest-thermostat/

Second generation hardware is out with support for more HVAC systems. And software 3.0 is rolling out to all units. Biggest change for me will be the automatic scheduling support when in range mode (now called Heat/Cool mode).

You don't say?

The software update won't do much for me, since I have a more straightforward HVAC system. What I'm *hoping* they've done is souped up their logic for "gosh, the sun is shining right on the thermostat, so maybe I shouldn't trust the temperature reading". Right now, I have my Nest programmed for the late afternoon to tweak the temperature so it doesn't drive the house into frigid temperatures.

Also interesting, if you look at the new base plate, they appear to have adopted a small amount of wiggle room in terms of the screw holes. This is a big deal if you want to get the thermostat installed truly level. (Losen the screws a bit, tweak, then tighten down again.) Can't do that on the 1st-gen Nest.

Nice interview with Nest Co-Founder Matt Rogers by Kevin Rose: http://9to5mac.com/2012/10/02/nest-co-fo...ew-nest-launch/

You can listen to most of it in the background without watching the video.

Not related to the video, but another caveat with regards to humidification is that Nest doesn't have any external/remote thermometer to monitor the temperature outside your house. Internet weather forecasting isn't a suitable replacement for real-time measurement when you're controlling a humidifier trying to avoid dew-point issues like condensation. It seems like their humidifier control is mostly suited to the most simple manual units. Mine comes with its own automatic controller which monitors outside temperature and frequently samples the humidity of the return air duct - it's also able to humidify without the HVAC already running a heating cycle, by turning on the fan itself.

Somebody didn't read the manual when choosing that location for a thermostat. Or at least the manual for our current $25 thermostat clearly shows a warning against mounting where the sun can shine directly upon it.

Cheers

Yup, (un)like many things, you have to stick it where the sun don't shine.

Thanks for the set-up Mark.

My old house had the thermostat right behind where I put the TV. Running the TV screwed up the thermostat. My new house has the thermostat somewhere the sun sometimes shines. I suppose I could relocate it to the other side of the same wall.

What kills me is that Nest built in some fancy IR and visible light sensors. They have all the information they need to know how much heat the thermostat is absorbing from ambient light. Some poor schmuck just needs to run a bunch of lab experiments to come up with a suitable model. I wouldn't expect that from a $25 thermostat, but my expectations are higher for a $250 unit.

Ugh. My old place had that too. The temps were never right.

I think it would require more sensors and a ton of fuzzy logic to even get close to something useful in the sun detection and real-ambient deduction department. IMO, it would be a lot more cost effective and accurate to simply create/use a remote sensor.

I'd think if they had a $50 remote (wifi) sensor unit that measured ambient and exterior temperature they'd sell quite a few of them. It would be a nice extra revenue stream considering a thermostat isn't something a family is going to replace year over year like a mobile phone.

Don't make me go change the DB to have my post show up first
( Was going to add a comment about UBB.Threads 8 possibly offering a notice of a new post while composing. That lead to 20 mins of reading about 7.6 instead, and what now appears to be a dead product. Hrm, will have to ponder the future of the board software more later. )

It just dawned on me that the Nest always shows the SET temperature in a huge font in the middle of the display and the actual temperature in a small font along the peripheral, and not the other way around.

I can see this being useful while making settings, but when you're not touching the thermostat, I think it's going to drive me up the wall that the actual (measured) temp is not displayed in the center in the big font. When I'm walking by the thermostat or when I go look at it, it's because I want to know the temperature, not because I want to know what I had it set to.

I don't suppose there's any way to change this layout? I've seen at least a few other people mention they'd prefer it the other way round as well, but I haven't looked to see if there's any FAQ about it on their site.

Wow, really? That's annoying. In my experience, every other thermostat shows the current temperature. You'd think that they'd at least give you the option to change that...

If you are close enough to activate the near motion sensor, you should also be close enough to read both temperatures. The screen tends to not turn on with the far motion detector is activated, unless it's making a change (such as turning off auto away).

I think I can get used to it, but I can already anticipate my wife's going to have an issue with it and find it backwards.

From a usability perspective I probably would have done something a bit different while still trying to keep that ultra-mimimalist look. I'll reserve final judgement until I can get one of these bad-boys installed, but I suspect my idea would also be more intuitive when changing the set point.

Is anyone aware of something like the Nest or Filtrete/3M thermostats that works with line voltage (220V) electric baseboard heat?

I've installed Nests in my parent's house and just outfitted our warehouse with the Filtrete/3M model. I think both are pretty great and I would love to have them in my house. Unfortunately, I have electric baseboard heat. You would think this would be the easiest system to adapt to a wifi thermostat, but I can't seem to find a solution.

There is some mention on the 3M forums of adapting an electric baseboard system for a low voltage thermostat, but googling doesn't come up with much. Something that would sit between the 220V connection and Nest must exist. Right?

Wouldn't you just need a relay?