Update Jan 2, 2013: I've added user observations and energy savings after eight months.
A few days before
Black Wednesday, my former mentor and I were talking smack about good user interface. Always fun to slag on the stuff that sucks - and let's face it, there's plenty of crap UI out there.
They'd just attended a presentation about the design of the Nest thermostat and were decidedly in the I-need-to-get-me-one-of-THOSE camp.
With the spectre of professional death imminent, I said "If I don't get canned this week, I'm totally getting one."
Well, I didn't get canned. Thus:
Okay, I know what you're thinking: $250 bucks is a lot to spend on a thermostat.
Which it is. I see that now.
At the time I justified this by saying-
- It's cool. Might as well be up front about that.
- It's not a toy, it's a household device that should save us money on heat.
- I might as well get some experience using good user interface for a change. I might learn something.
E's reaction was basically "So, you're saying you need this for
work? Ha!"
I suppose I deserved that.
But having done the install and the wireless connection - I can at least give some initial impressions of the Nest as a thermostat, its interface, and my expectations for the long term.
First off, it's hard to ignore the eye-candy of the design. A LOT of work has obviously gone into this product. There are
unboxing sites for the Nest. C|net has gone out of their way to
review the Nest based on the coolness of its visuals and features.
Installing a thermostat is not something anyone thinks of doing, since your house almost certainly comes with one. Most of us take what we get. Even if we hate what we get enough to replace it - the assumption is that this will require an expert. Nest aims to convince you otherwise.
Physical Installation
A thermostat is pretty much a glorified on/off switch that straddles the bundle of low voltage wires controlling your furnace and air conditioner. Replacing a thermostat is requires separating a bunch of wires from a central switch and re-attaching them to the Nest in the correct places.
That alone ups the cost of entry considerably. So the folks at Nest have
instructional video paired with a manual (complete with adhesive labels to keep track of which wire is which). Watch the
video, (g'wan) and tell me that didn't look easy.
Now, like any how-to, you're only getting an idealized version in the video. In
their video, removing the old thermostat reveals a wall blemish or two that magically vanish around 2:15.
When I remove my old thermostat, I'm treated to a horror show of unpainted and shattered wallboard. Moving the wires causes an avalanche of bits to pour out of the wall. There are - impressively - EIGHT holes beneath my thermostat, each complete with a wall molly that needs to be ripped out - causing more damage.
None of this is Nest's fault - but I'm composing a real world list of things a prospective Nest owner should keep in mind before they buy and attempt the idealized install.
The first two items would be:
1) Make sure your house is compatible with Nest. (I did, and it was)
and
2) Take a picture of your current thermostat's wiring. Make sure you can read any terminal labels. Move wires and take multiple pictures if necessary. Save these pictures on a device that is backed up.
-but the third one would be
3) Expect to spend some time preparing the wall where you will install the Nest.
You will probably need to spackle and paint. If you are buying the Nest for its aesthetic qualities, you might do this before your nest arrives. Once it arrives, you might be too jazzed up to patiently apply two coats of paint and wait for them to dry.
If you boil down the installation process, the Nest folks are bringing a few innovations
- the Install Video. Seeing is believing, and sometimes even comprehending. Every vendor should do this.
- the built-in level. Another great idea. When you attach the base to the wall, you can drill the hole with one hand and hold the base level with the other hand. On a regular base install, you'd have had to
make a mark on the wall with a pencil on a separate step. Not really a game changer, but a smart move that shows somebody was thinking. You have to make the built in level actually be perpendicular to the vertical axis of the base, so I'm sure that was a fun argument in the design discussions.
Why do we have to do this? People have levels already!
"Because this makes it easier to do."
But they only do it once... blah, blah, blah..
Yeah, I could have done without, but I'm glad they put it in there.
- the Wire Labels. Yeah, you could write down that "Yellow wire goes to W1 terminal," but it's so much easier to put a W1 sticker on the wire that goes to W1 on your old thermostat. Later, this allows you to take the wire labelled W1 and plug it into the Nest's W1 terminal. Less opportunity to screw up.
Oh, when I put in the wires? I screwed up.
One of the X factors in the install is that every thermostat is going to have different wires. Different colors, different combinations, and different labels. Or no labels at all. Unless you know which wire is which, you won't know what nifty labels to apply and - more to the point - you won't know where to install them.
My mistake was caused by a brown wire labeled "24V(c)" This label appears nowhere in the compatibility wizard or on the sheet of wire labels. When I spoke with Nest's compatibility guy he told me this wire was the counterpart to the red wire attached to the "R" terminal - it was the other half of the power loop.
Power come in on R. Power go out on 24V(c). Okay, I said. And I wrote that down.
When it came to actually installing the Nest, I had two labels with the letter R on them. One said "Rh" and the other said "Rc" So, I put the Rh label on the red R wire (in my mind, R for red, h for "hot") and the Rc wire on the brown 24V(c) wire (R for "counterpart to R" and c for "(c)").
So when I put all my wires in place, I put the brown Rc wire into the terminal labeled Rc. And when I switched on the power, it no workee.
I called Nest, but their service line is closed when I called (around 11pm), so I googled 24V(c) and found a few mentions of this being a common wire.
This I know, from nothing.
But common begins with the letter C, and I figured, I'd move the Rh/24V(c) wire over to the C slot and see if that did it.
It did.
Power!
Thus we learn:
4) Find out what each of your thermostat wires is and what it does. Write it down. The Nest folks have a great service line for compatibility (they want you to buy, so it's a high priority line.) There's a lot of variation in thermostat wiring, so call them with questions on what each of your wires is and what it does. They recommend emailing their support address with a photo of your wires - something I did and heartily recommend both for the install and for reason
#8, below). Ask them what each wire is. Even if they only know a few of them for certain, write those down. Knowing what my other wires were saved me from un-doing correct wires and allowed me to focus on the unknown. If I'd bothered to ask (or had been told) what label my brown 24V(c) wire should have gotten, I would have gotten the physical install in one try.
Initial setup: Orienting the unit.
Once you see Nest's screen fire up, you are immediately proud of yourself. It is very pretty and the interface is iPod cool. Turn the unit left or right, press the unit to click.
My unit wanted to connect to wireless immediately, so I started dialing in my network name (I don't broadcast my SSID). For the thousandth time, I wished I picked a shorter SSID, but dialing letters and numbers into the Nest makes you feel like a safecracker.
Click-click-click-click-click...A
Click-click-click-click-click...R
Click-click-click-click-click...1
and so on.
I was asked my wireless security protocol (None, WEP, WPA or WPA2).
Now this is honestly something I didn't remember. I know, I should. But once you set this up, you don't think of it much. And I seemed to remember mine was none of these.
The Nest failed to connect using any of them, each time requiring me to dial in my lengthy SSID and password. *sigh*
Ultimately, I logged into my router and found out I was using WPA + WPA2. This confused me for a bit, but I went back and dialed in my SSID and password and chose WPA2. And it still failed to connect.
It was about 1 in the morning by this time, so I went to bed.
In the morning, I tried again and it connected immediately. (I was probably tired and fumbling my password before). Anyway, the Nest tried to perform a software upgrade and failed for some reason. It said it would try later, so I pressed on with the setup tasks.
These are mostly "Where am I?" settings. You enter your ZIP code, tell it what type of devices it's connected to (Gas or Oil Furnace, Forced Air A/C) and what mode it should start in (Heat).
And the date and time. That seemed odd, since I was connected to the interwebs - but it's easy enough to enter.
What have we learned?
5) What is your wireless security protocol? If you don't know offhand, visit your router and find out. Write it down.
6) Check to see that your router's firmware is updated. If you have connection issues, this is one of the items on the
Troubleshooting Nest's WiFi connection checklist. Updating router firmware is no fun, but you should be doing it. My router last had a firmware upgrade years ago, but I'm ashamed to admit I was out of date. Don't be like me.
6a) Send your router manufacturer hate mail. Only do this if they (like NetGear) have firmware upgrade instructions that say "Write down all of your router settings. Then upgrade and erase them all. Then manually re-enter all of your router settings."
I'm kidding. Upgrade instructions that bad don't merit hate mail. They deserve getting a burning bag of poop. I digress...
Pairing Nest with your account and Wireless Debugging
In order for Nest to be truly special, it needs to talk to the mothership at Nest.com AND (more importantly) an application on your smartphone/ipad. To do this, you'll need to create an account on Nest.com.
Username/email
Password
Password confirm
Done.
(And kudos to the design crew for resisting the urge to spam us with marketing fields and defaulted checkboxes with 6-point fonts that say "Please send me crap." I truly appreciate it.)
This gets you halfway. The mothership at Nest.com is ready, now you need your Nest thermostat to generate an Entry Key that you type into your Nest.com account after you've logged in.
When I asked my Nest to generate an Entry Key - it gave me an error message.
Entry key error: Initializing please try again
So I did. And it gave me the same error and told me to try again.
So I did. And it gave me the same error and told me to try again.
So I did. And it gave me the same error and told me to try again.
etc.
This was really starting to annoy me. So I checked in the Network Settings and found my Nest wasn't connected to WiFi. So I re-entered my looong SSID and password *sigh* and tried to generate a key.
Same result.
So I went searching through the Nest's menus and found a Restart option.
Settings>Reset>Restart
Thus have we learned:
7) You can reboot! Perhaps all Windows users believe rebooting has magical powers, but we only think that because it does.
I restarted the Nest and asked it for an entry key. It gave me one.
Ta-dah!
Once I got the unit paired up with the web account - I could download the mobile app and set it up.
I do that, log into the app with email and password and - presto!
Five minutes later, though.... Sadness. It's telling me that my thermostat is disconnected from the web.
I go back to the thermostat and *sigh* re-enter my long SSID. This time it appears to have memorized my password (nice).
I check my mobile app and I'm back online.
Five minutes later, though... Sadness.
At this point - I clearly have an issue that goes beyond basic setup. I call their support line and get the first genuinely poor customer experience so far.
The guy on the phone sounds like he's reading from a script and most of it is aimed at a person with problems upstream of where I am in the process.
I know I've connected to WiFi with the unit. I've seen its MAC address on my router. But the connection doesn't last.
I've checked their
list of routers that have connection issues. My router isn't on it.
I get seamless wireless connections in every room in my house. This could be interference, but I am getting connected. Then I'm getting dropped.
Nest support offers me vague advice like setting the wireless "channel" (whatever that is) to 20MHz and buying another router.
Yeah, okay. Thanks.
Click.
I scour my router settings for any terms resembling ones the support guy recommended trying. I find none of them.
Eventually I blunder across a setting whose bullet summary suggests can help with devices getting interference. I try it and it seems to work.
I'll post it if continues to work, but as of this writing - it's too early to be sure.
The connection has stayed up all night and all day, but until I've gotten a week at least with no hiccups, I wouldn't call this solved.
I have a good deal of sympathy for Nest support folks trying to diagnose wireless connection issues on an ever-expanding list of routers for people who (in all likelihood) know next to nothing about wireless routers.
Still, as it is an essential part of setting up the advanced features of Nest, they should do better. The online help they have should be turned into a diagnostic wizard or flowchart so users can be routed through the likeliest fixes before getting routed to support reps.
The unit should have diagnostic codes that it can display so the techs ask the user to read error codes or signal strength measurements to them. There's a lot of room for making that user experience better.
While I was initially griping about the irony of installing a new thermostat at a time when the weather is damn near perfect outside (all geeked up and nothing to heat or cool) - it occurs to me that there is a definite upside. I don't think I'd want to install a new thermostat during a cold spell - when I absolutely had to have heat. Debugging the install is frustrating enough when I don't care if the fan runs or the heat is on.
Just because the Nest folks have made thermostat installation a lot easier and comprehensible doesn't mean they've made it a change that should be made casually.
Which leads me to the last thing on the list of things I like to think I've learned:
Changing a thermostat involves disabling a critical home system temporarily - potentially for longer than you expect.
And thus, I add to the list:
8) If the thermostat you're replacing was functional, save it. Put your old thermostat in a ziploc bag with all its parts and store it somewhere safe and accessible. New technology is awesome and all, but one thing lost in the promo materials and the rush to install awesomeness is this: A thermostat is a critical piece of your home systems. If it doesn't work, you will not be able to heat or cool your home. In the summer, you can open windows and use fans, but if there is a serious problem with the the Nest when it's below freezing - having a backup thermostat will allow you time to wait for tech support without risking damage to your pipes.
Which is not to say I'm disappointed in my Nest. Quite the contrary.
- I am thoroughly in love with the idea of a programmable thermostat that has modern user interface.
- I love that the Nest and its helper application can be updated and enhanced after they are installed.
- I love that I will be able to monitor and track my energy usage over time.
- I love being able to monitor and control my heating and cooling from anywhere (even if it's just from my bed)
Nest's marketing material points out over and over again that around 90% of programmable thermostats aren't programmed correctly. A good chunk of the energy savings they're bragging on relies on the difference between a constant temperature and their easily programmed alternative.
Well, I'm not going to realize a lot of that savings because I did program my old thermostat.
I absolutely hated my old thermostat - despite its virtues:
- already installed/paid for
- 7 day programming
- reliable
- a battery to retain data
Why? because it was absolutely murder to interact with.
I'd programmed a varied schedule to save energy based on the four days of our schedule that were regular. But for the other three days I picked a temp and held it. Partly because on those days, our needs would vary - but also because adjusting and readjusting to find a better setting was too much of a pain.
I did four days and then gave up and said "good enough." The fact that the hassle would probably be worth it did nothing to nullify the fact it was a hassle.
Adjusting the program with the Nest is not a hassle. It is the opposite of hassle. It's fun to play with.
Good user interface leads to more interaction. With the Nest, I expect to refine my settings for the remaining three days AND take advantage of a system smart enough to switch off when I'm gone.
Plus, I get data so I can improve and refine over time.
Plus, it really does look cool.
Update Jan 2, 2013: I've added user observations and energy savings after eight months.
