Gadgetory

and this is our first look at the Nest Learning Thermostat which I'm going to take out of the box right now so we can see what's in there a very pretty box pretty beautiful looks like an eye nice and heavy it feels solid this part swivels and that's really the only moving part pretty much everything that you absolutely need to install a thermostat and included screwdriver and you take the top off for all the bits there's a built-in level so that you make sure it's level on the wall concierge service in case you don't feel like doing the installation yourself depending on the kind of wall you have and the damage that's left from your old thermostat you may want to use one of these kits and paint them to match your wall color you can also mount the thermostats straight onto your wall okay we just finished taking the thermostat out of the box and now we're gonna see how easy it is to install but first we have to take off the old thermostat the first thing you want to do is turn off the power either on a breaker box or in this case I have a switch right above my thermostat which is nice most thermostats just pull right off the top of the thermostat okay I'm labeling the wires as they come off with these handy labels that came in the installation guide there's the RH here's the W nest suggest that if you can you put the thermostat straight on your wall because it would look nicer and it sure would but I don't have time to repaint my wall right now so I'm gonna use one of their mounting kits now we have to drill some holes in the wall because the holes I had for my old thermostat are not the same place as the holes for this mount now I'm gonna put on the trim plate and the base once I have the wire through and everything snapped together you use this handy built-in level it looks like my drill holes are level okay now the hardest part is done and I'm gonna connect the wires thanks to these handy labels I remember where they're supposed to go and you just push back this toggle and insert the wire we're ready for the exciting part putting the nest onto the base I'm just gonna snap it on the promise of nest is that it's going to learn what our patterns are and then automatically adjust itself to make us comfortable when we're home and to save energy when we're away so I'm gonna come back in a couple of days and find out whether nest has learned what we like one of the great things about the Nest Learning Thermostat is that it's connected to the Internet and nest has created a few apps one for iPad one for iPhone and one for Android to help you control your thermostat from afar and also to view what's going on in your house so there's this little house and there's an indicator to show what's going on with your thermostats so right now my thermostat is set to away I'm not at home so the thermostats not on I click this say that right now my house is 65 degrees I'm gonna go ahead tap on that and end a way I want to come home in a few hours and have it be nice and toasty I can turn up the thermostat right here and now my heaters on when I get home should be 69 degrees in 55 minutes so far over the last four days since I installed nest nest has learned that it's gonna take 55 minutes to get my house up to 69 degrees you click on the schedule tab you can see the patterns that nest is learning for my family's preferences and this is all been learned from the daily actions that we've made so when we've turned up and down the thermostat nest is remembered and started to set a pattern for each day of the week you can see that we like it to be warm in the afternoon I get really cold at about 8 o'clock and then when we go to bed we turn it down to 64 Nest has been learning our patterns for about 4 days now and I think it's gonna get a little bit more sophisticated once we've been doing it for a week I've noticed that for instance NIST hasn't noticed our mourning patterns for the whole week yet you definitely have to be patient with nest it's not going to instantly know what you like and what you don't like but I'm really happy with this now and I particularly love checking in on my house while I'm away it's really fun to see what's going on at home even if it's just one little peek into the temperature at my house this is Lindsay turn time for CNET reviewing the Nest Learning Thermostat