The Nest Learning Thermostat gets its biggest upgrade in over a decade

At $279.99, nan 4th procreation of nan Nest Learning Thermostat is much costly than the third-gen Nest, which launched successful 2015. However, it now comes pinch a caller Nest Temperature Sensor (2nd gen) to show somesthesia successful different rooms. Both are disposable for preorder now and will vessel connected August 20th — successful nan US and Canada only. 

I’m a large proponent of smart location devices that are built to past — nary 1 wants to upgrade their thermostat each mates of years. But it’s been 9 years since we had a caller Nest Learning Thermostat (the Nest Thermostat that arrived successful 2020 stripped distant astir of nan intelligence features), and exertion is progressing much quickly than successful nan days of nan beige integrative boxes connected your wall. 

Surprisingly, Google didn’t travel competitor Ecobee by packing much usability into its flagship thermostat. This isn’t a smart speaker, a smart display, aliases a smart location hub. Instead, nan attraction is connected making this a really smart thermostat.

Google says nan caller exemplary uses AI to study your heating and cooling schedule faster and much accurately — alongside different upgrades to thief negociate your strategy much efficiently.

Google added its Soli radar sensor to nan instrumentality to supply much meticulous inputs astir your presence, positive support for Matter, nan new smart location standard. This intends that, among different benefits, nan Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) tin now activity natively successful Apple Home. (The Nest Thermostat from 2020 already useful pinch Matter.)

But arsenic Google Home’s caput of product, Anish Kattukaran, tells me, Google wants users to person different devices successful their homes to enactment arsenic Thread hubs — specified arsenic nan new Google TV Streamer 4K — which is simply a Google Home hub, Matter controller, and Thread separator router. The Nest Thermostat is meant to attraction connected its main job: keeping you comfortable while redeeming you energy. 

I saw nan caller Nest Thermostat successful personification astatine Google’s New York office past week, and it’s very striking. It’s overmuch bigger — nan 2.7-inch surface is much than double nan size of nan erstwhile procreation — but besides slimmer. It looks for illustration personification flattened nan third-gen Nest while borrowing a batch of creation cues from nan Pixel Watch, including nan aforesaid curved solid surface and customizable watch-like faces.

It comes successful 3 brushed metallic designs: black, silver, and gold. I liked nan golden best, though it’s much subtle successful personification than successful nan property shots. 

The beingness rotating dial remains but is now smoother and easier to control. It still has those satisfying clicks, but its larger size makes amended precision selections imaginable connected nan screen.

There’s nary visible bezel, and nan larger surface takes advantage of a nosy caller Dynamic Farsight characteristic that brings neat upwind animations to nan surface on pinch much customizability. You tin take nan main look to beryllium your indoor temperatures, an analog clock, a integer clock, aliases nan weather, and arsenic you approach, you’ll get much elaborate information.

That item now includes 3 other fields, akin to watchface complications. Each tin beryllium group to show accusation specified arsenic humidity, outdoor temperature, time, and date. Plus there’s now nan action of an outdoor aerial value scale people — useful successful areas prone to seasonal issues for illustration wildfire smoke.

On nan learning front, Google is addressing a semipermanent annoyance of nan smart thermostat: its propensity to person a mind of its ain and crank up nan power connected a sunny day for nary evident logic (speaking from experience).

There’s now nan action to person nan thermostat propose changes for you to judge alternatively than initiating them automatically. It will besides show you what it’s doing if you property connected nan screen. “We wanted to return nan achromatic container attack retired of it. It’s an incredibly intelligent device, but that shouldn’t mean you don’t cognize what’s going on,” says Kattukaran.

That intelligence extends to caller energy-saving features. Natural Heating and Cooling reacts to outdoor temperatures and learns really your location people adjusts to prevention energy. For example, “If it’s a sunny wintertime time and your location heats up a fewer degrees connected its own, nan thermostat will automatically region heating to prevention energy,” says Kattukaran.

Adaptive Eco is an update to Eco Mode that adjusts based connected climate. It won’t driblet excessively debased connected a acold time erstwhile you’re gone, avoiding having to activity overtime to ramp backmost up erstwhile you return, says Kattukaran. A caller Smart Ventilation action for compatible hardware optimizes erstwhile to ventilate based connected outdoor aerial quality.

Upgrades to nan HVAC Monitoring feature, now called nan System Health Monitor, way your system’s capacity and nonstop alerts astir immoderate issues. A Humidity Helper intends to support humidity levels unchangeable to forestall condensation and mold. Google says these caller features are exclusive to nan newest exemplary astatine launch.

Kattukaran says nan fourth-gen Nest is their most compatible thermostat yet and useful pinch much systems, including humidifier, dehumidifier, and ventilation equipment. It now supports 12 ligament hookups compared to 10 connected nan third-gen Nest and continues to activity without a C-wire successful astir setups.

New look, aforesaid sensor

The different caller hardware is nan Nest Temperature Sensor (2nd gen), 1 of which comes pinch nan thermostat. The sensor is fundamentally the aforesaid arsenic nan first-gen model, pinch a caller look to lucifer nan caller thermostat. In some cases, its superior occupation is still to provender nan somesthesia successful different rooms to nan thermostat.

Unfortunately, nan sensor still only monitors somesthesia and not occupancy, for illustration nan competing sensor from Ecobee. One upgrade is that aggregate sensors tin now mean nan somesthesia crossed respective rooms.

Google says you tin adhd up to six and take which are progressive astatine different times by linking them to your schedules successful nan Google Home app. This lets you person nan thermostat respond to nan somesthesia successful nan room and surviving room successful nan greeting and past to your chamber astatine night.

The caller Nest brings important upgrades to an already fantabulous device. While immoderate features are playing catch-up pinch nan title (Ecobee already uses outdoor upwind to equilibrium ambiance and radar sensors for occupancy), it’s bully to spot them yet arrive. In position of design, it feels for illustration a victor — this is simply a gorgeous portion of wall art.