The Depot at Nickel Plate welcomed its first residents earlier this month and as the project marches toward completion over the next few months, residents and guests will be delighted at the amenities presented on the property. From the awesome game room to the Fitness OnDemand and clubhouse area, The Depot is packed with great features and amenities.
It is also a tech-savvy community, highlighted by the Nest® thermostats and pre-wired Bluetooth® Surround Sound in select units.
Brian Moore, Marketing & Communications Director at Flaherty & Collins Properties, installed a Nest thermostat in his home over the holiday weekend for those who are curious what the fuss is all about. Below is his “Nest Best Thing” Journal.
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If you are like me, perhaps you’ve thought that thermostats are just thermostats. They exist to alter the temperature in your home depending on what suits you.
And they were – until technology recently introduced a device that learns what suits you without you ever needing to touch the thermostat again. Nest is much more than a slick looking gadget with cool colors and no “buttons.” Nest learns what your preferred temperatures are for your humble abode, day or night, home or away.
Add in the phone app and you can control Nest – and the temperature of your home – from any where in the world. So, leaving for a trip and forgot to turn down the heat or air conditioning? Just open the app and adjust. Coming home from vacation and don’t want to walk into a cold house or a stuffy room? Same thing – just open the app and your home will feel just the way you want upon arrival.
The installation process was fairly simple. There are videos posted on the Nest website, as well as printed directions for even the most non-handy of home dwellers (I fall into the latter). Within 20 – 30 minutes, we had successfully removed our old thermostat and installed Nest. The device connects to your WiFi and automatically downloads the latest software updates.
From there, you simply begin adjusting the temperature to your desire. Over the next few weeks, Nest will remember when you changed the temperature and what you changed it to. Say you like it a little cooler in the middle part of the day because you’re moving about and the natural sunlight is warming your home, so between 10am and 8pm, the temperature is 68 degrees. But you want it a little warmer before bed, as everyone is relaxing about. You up the temperature to 70 between the hours of 8pm and 10pm. And since you’re a person who knows the body sleeps better at cooler temps, you bump it down again to 68 degrees before bed. Lastly, you don’t like waking up to a cold house and getting ready for your day, so you up the temperature to 71 degrees.
Within a week or so, Nest will remember all this information and store it to create a customized schedule for your home, called Nest SenseTM . You can repeat the same process when the weather changes each season by simply adjusting the temperatures again for a few days to a week. So when summer rolls around, you could wake up to 68 degrees and go to bed at 72 – Nest has got you covered.
If this part sounds like work, rest assured, Nest thought of people like me when it comes to adjusting the thermostat. Who wants to walk into the dining room to adjust the thermostat four times a day to get started? The solution is the app – you can adjust it from upstairs in the bedroom or from the garage. You can adjust it on your flight back from Hawaii or that business trip to Chicago. You could adjust it from a friend that lives 20 minutes away.
My wife notoriously decides that it is either too hot or too cold in the house after we have long settled in to bed, the lights are out and I am nearly asleep. Within the first several hours of installing the Nest thermostat and downloading the app, I avoided getting up and trudging downstairs to alter the temperature of our house by a single degree.
I just opened the app, raised the temperature to her preferred state and then sat the phone back on my nightstand. Presto! My wife was warm and I didn’t have to leave the room.
What we’ve found thus far is that Nest creates ease when it comes to adjusting and maintaining the temperature of your home.
Oh, and Nest can save you money on your heating/cooling bills as well – an average of 20% according to the Nest website. Nest also provides other functions, like reminding you a filter needs changed and monitoring your heat pump.