Home automation and smart homes have been talked about for years. X10 has many different gadgets you could incorporate to control your lights and other devices. The Nest Thermostat is a fairly new piece of technology where it learns your habits. It programs itself to raise and drop the temperature depending if you are home or away. They also have a smartphone app and allow the ability to control remotely from a computer. The goal of smart homes is to save energy and run more efficiently driving down costs.
Nest has another product coming out just around the corner. Nest Protect which is a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm. This smart device tells you what it is has detected. You can wave your hand below it to silence it for situations where you burnt your toast. If it detects carbon monoxide, it talks to Nest Thermostat to automatically turn off your gas furnace.
Starting in 2014, they will be launching the Nest Developer Program allowing programmers/developers to connect using their Web API to interface their own products, apps, or services. The goal is to tie into other home products such as lighting and appliances.
As I sit here with cold feet on this chilly day, I wish I had an automatic thermostat. I could put on my socks, but I’m just not a fan of them. Thanks for the tip.
It’s nice that Nest Protect has that feature where you can wave your hand below it for instances when there is no threat. I wish all smoke detectors had this and not drive you crazy with all the noise they make!
The Nest Thermostat looks like something really useful that could take down the bills in a house. As prices continue to rise on everything, we need to find ways to cut down on expenses. And I also think the Nest Developer Program could become something widely used.
David, are you using any products from Nest? If yes, how are they working for you?
This is great. I’m really a big fan of home automation, despite the fact that I do not own any of the products myself. The more useful the devices and the more companies that enter the playing field, the cheaper these things will become. I can see a future where every home is massively automated and I love the idea of it.
This brings a bit of nostalgia. Although I am not using any Nest products, I am a fan of Home Automation/Smart Home Technology. I even made one for my thesis before when I was in college. 🙂 Just the simple temperature control and appliance automation using Programmable Logic Controllers (This is a good substitute if you don’t know how to do programs like me).
Its great that they are letting other developers/inventors/engineers use there web API, since making one for a specific product is just bit too much of a cost.
Looking forward to hearing more developments in Home Automation. 🙂
I heard about Nest when it was initially released. It sounds like a great idea. I love how aesthetically pleasing it looks. The ability to control my thermostat remotely through my phone is pretty appealing to me because I’m not home half of my day. I also go away on vacations. I hope this sort of control is an ongoing trend. Smart homes should be affordable and accessible to all.
This sounds like a very useful piece of equipment. It will most definitely save plenty of lives by detecting carbon monoxide and directing the thermostat to turn off the gas.
Our friend the electrical engineering guy introduced us to Nest a while ago. It’s one of the best things we have ever seen being invented for thermal control. The fact that it learns our habits only sometimes make it look like a tiny electronic brain.
Just kidding. It’s huge.