In 2011, I first heard of this neat gadget that would help my family save money on our heat and cooling bills. It promised to save my family about 30% on our monthly energy usage through auto-scheduling, auto-away and through learning your family's tendencies. As soon as I saw the 30% savings, I immediately started running the numbers! :)
My current electric and gas bills are $135 and $64 per month respectively (both on an even payment plan), which provides all of my heat and cooling needs for my home. That is $199/month total, and a savings of $39.80/month. Not chump change if you ask me!
Now, the big pill to swallow in buying the Nest thermostat is the initial $249 price tag. For myself, I'm always looking for a deal, and before black Friday last year Nest, Home Depot, and Lowes were all selling the thermostat for $199. I went onto Lowes and Home Depot, and both were charging $199 + taxes, and so I decided to buy it directly from Nest.com, which saved me about $14 in taxes. Again, helped to keep the overall initial costs down.
So based on my $199 monthly utilities bills, a 20% saving would save me $39.80/month, and my $199 initial Nest thermostat costs would take me about 5.0 months to recoop my costs in. Everything beyond month 4 would be a net savings. This point of recooping costs is important in knowing any return on investment. You have to know at what point your big investment will start saving your family money! Any good thrifty guy will know this! :)
4 months later
Now that I've owned the Nest thermostat for about four months, I've begun to see in my monthly bills a significant drop in my utilities usage. On average I've been saving about 5-10 kWh per month and about 15-30 therms per month, which you can see below.
As you compare 2014 vs 2015, you'll notice in Jan – April a noticeable drop in the year to year comparison. I personally haven't noticed a 30% yet, but more in the 15-25% range in the four months that I've owned the device. One other key note that you need to make note of is that your percent savings won't be on your overall bill, but on the kWh or Therms used. If you notice on most of your bills that your electric or gas company charge you a base service for having the utility into your home. For my bills, this base service equiates to about 7.5% of my electric base service and 30% of my gas base service. So regardless of the Nest's utility savings, these base service costs will always be there. So don't forget that when you are estimating your family's monthly savings!
Weather's affect on utilities savings with Nest
So I'm fully aware of how weather affects utilities usage. Here is a summary of what the weather has been in Omaha from Jan-April 2014 vs 2015:
Jan 2014 – avg high 34°
Jan 2015 – avg high 39°
Feb 2014 – avg high 32°
Feb 2015 – avg high 31°
Mar 2014 – avg high 49°
Mar 2015 – avg high 58°
Apr 2014 – avg high 64°
Apr 2015 – avg high 64°
As you can see the weather has been slightly higher, but not 15-25% more than the previous year. So with taking weather out of the equation, then we are able to show about a 20% savings in the usage of the Nest.
Summary
Overall, the Nest Thermostat does what it says: It can save you money! That is what I'm all about. However, it does take some effort on your part. I HIGHLY recommend taking the time to setup the “Auto-Schedule” function on Nest.com or through the Nest app. By inputting when you want your air/heat to kick on or off, then it will save you a lot of money. Primarily it will save you the majority of money while you sleep, while you are at work, or when you are “typically” away (with the usage of the Auto-away feature). I would give the Nest Thermostat a solid A grade and recommend it to any friends and family.
I would be interested in hearing from some of our readers on what their experience has been in using the Nest thermostat. What did you think of it? Is it saving you money like it promised?
Check with your utility company to see if you can get a rebate offer with Nest. Xcel Energy in MN is offering $50 back.
Nest Thermostat
$249 Pros
- Auto-away
- Saves money over time
- Worry-free
Cons
- Up-front costs
6 Comments
We’ve owned the nest for a couple of years now, and I think we’ve realized some decent savings – my guess is about in the 15-20% savings range. I’m sure it could have been higher, but my wife prefers the house pretty warm in the winter, and cold in the summer – which helps short circuit savings to a degree. I’m sure it would be more otherwise.
I love the Nest for the ability to access it anywhere – it came in handy on our recent trip to Florida, we could turn it way down while we were gone, while still keeping tabs on how things were – and then turning the temp back up on our way home so we would arrive home to a nice toasty house.
Love the fact that we can now also control the Nest via our Amazon Echo bluetooth speaker, we can just speak the temp we want and it will do our bidding. Home automation is fun!
I went with Ecobee instead. It is well designed, aesthetic, and has tiny remote occupancy/temperature sensors. Program for viewing historic temperature, set points, and occupancy is great.
Thanks for the review! I’ve been curious about Nest for a long time. But with my new rotating irregular work schedule, I don’t think it’d work for me, so I’m glad I didn’t get it back when I had my M-F job! My programmable thermostat doesn’t even fit well with my new work schedule, so I’ve just become really disciplined about turning it down when I leave for work.
Thanks for sharing your experience on Nest Thermostat. Nest can use the GPS function of the owner’s smart phone to alert the Nest system when they are within 5 miles of the home and make the necessary adjustments.