Installing the Nest Gen 3 Learning Thermostat Part 2

If you haven't read Part 1,  click here.

Now comes the part that gives you control over your stat 24/7 no matter where you are currently located.  Installing the phone app and syncing to your WiFi allows you to lower your temperature setting on your furnace while you are away, so that you can save your hard earned cash.  But it also allows you to come home to a warm house by using your smart phone to turn the thermostat back to it's normal temp before you arrive home.

Along with changing the temperature inside your home, you can monitor how much energy you have used and get extreme temperature alerts before your home gets too cold.

  I'm sure you have read the horror story of a family on vacation in January, who arrive back home to find that their furnace had stopped working, and all the pipes had frozen and burst.  Now they have to gut their home, deal with an insurance company, buy all new furnishing, mourn the loss of non replaceable items such as photos and heirlooms all because their furnace stopped working.  If only they would have had a warning that the temperature in their house was dropping.

Let's get started.

The first step is to download the Nest app (blue logo with white house) onto your smart phone.  When the download is complete you will find the Nest logo on your phone and click to open.

Nest will walk you through the process of syncing with the WiFi.  You will need to know your password or PIN number of your WiFi.  Our PIN number is on the bottom of the Internet modem in the world's tiniest font. The most important part is giving your Nest thermostat permission to use your WiFi.  Once that happens your new Nest thermostat can start learning your family's habits and will know when to lower your home's temperature in the winter, when to rise the temperature in the summer when the air conditioning is running and no one is home, and this will also allow Nest to alert you to dangerously low inside temperatures.

Our Nest thermostat also needed to give access to Consumers Energy and permission to monitor and adjust our usage during peak use time in the summer.   This was done through an email sent from Consumers Energy and was the easiest step of the entire process.

Our Nest Gen 3 Learning Thermostat has been up and running for over a month now without any problems.  The instructions said that it could take the thermostat between 30 to 90 days to learn our habits so I have not noticed any lowering of temperature at night or while we are away.  But to be honest I really have not been monitoring that closely.  As long as the house is warm, but not too warm when we are here, then I have no compliant.

I will do an update sometime in the spring after the Nest has learned what it needs to know and by that time we will have received 3 or 4 monthly bills from the utility.  

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