Thermostats - Nest?

randombar

Hi Lads,

I have a temperature controller / thermostat? in the utility room. Two thermostats outside of that, one upstairs and one downstairs. Basic temperature dials on both.

I've started programming the thermostat in the utility room but it's a piece of !£$%£@£; it takes forever to increment every day by an hour or anything.

I'm looking for recommendations. I've been ready a lot of good things about the Nest but I doubt it would work with my old fashioned system with the two external thermostats. I'm wondering what other cheapish alternatives people are using?

Thanks
Gary

JohnnieK

GaryCocs wrote: »

Hi Lads,

I have a temperature controller / thermostat? in the utility room. Two thermostats outside of that, one upstairs and one downstairs. Basic temperature dials on both.

I've started programming the thermostat in the utility room but it's a piece of !£$%£@£; it takes forever to increment every day by an hour or anything.

I'm looking for recommendations. I've been ready a lot of good things about the Nest but I doubt it would work with my old fashioned system with the two external thermostats. I'm wondering what other cheapish alternatives people are using?

Thanks
Gary

To be honest I love stuff like that. It looks like a funky piece of kit. I could only imagine the ridiculous price it would be if it were sold over here considering it's 295 dollars.
I have a feeling there is nothing like that on the market over here.

randombar

Ya I'd say a company like that you'd be buying direct, hopefully wouldn't be a massive mark up. Still wondering if it could be used in an old fashioned system. Again last night the timing was off and I was about ten minutes changing it.

youtheman

If I was you I'd install a Horstmann controller, nice and easy to use with a good digital display.

randombar

Thanks, I have something similar to this:

http://www.horstmann.co.uk/central-heating.php

It takes forever to increase a time by an hour.

Thats my thinking

IRISH company CLIMOTE launched a similar product to NEST in the European market and is already picking up national awards for their intuitive design and approach to remotely controlling the device. Their proposition is a fully integrated 3 zone controller with built in thermostat, GSM communication, and a full user interface on the device should you decide not to use the remote control. It is fully certified CE approved 220v controller that connects directly to your boiler

randombar

Thats my thinking wrote: »

GSM communication

might be wrong but I think gsm communication on thermostats has been around for a while, any wireless connection? Login remotely etc etc?

ted1

Thats my thinking wrote: »

IRISH company CLIMOTE launched a similar product to NEST in the European market and is already picking up national awards for their intuitive design and approach to remotely controlling the device. Their proposition is a fully integrated 3 zone controller with built in thermostat, GSM communication, and a full user interface on the device should you decide not to use the remote control. It is fully certified CE approved 220v controller that connects directly to your boiler

Are you comission based ? Any product sold within the EU needs to be CE approved so why the need to point it out, also GSM technology is fairly old surly in this day wifi or a 3G would be a better solution

randombar

Ya there is a web based interface and app but it's 36 euro a year subscription. That's a bit cheeky considering you have to pay 400 euro for the device.

Thats my thinking

GaryCocs wrote: »

Ya there is a web based interface and app but it's 36 euro a year subscription. That's a bit cheeky considering you have to pay 400 euro for the device.

Hi Gary,
If you are genuinely interested in understanding the reason climote use the GSM network and pay the telcos for the 2 way sms communication to and from the HUB so its free to the consumer in year 1 and the €36 in year 2 I would be delighted to explain in detail.
Not sure this is the forum to do this i just wanted to make sure you were aware there was an Irish company in this space it that helped out.

gctest50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guhf7eohl98

ted1

Thats my thinking wrote: »

Hi Gary,
If you are genuinely interested in understanding the reason climote use the GSM network and pay the telcos for the 2 way sms communication to and from the HUB so its free to the consumer in year 1 and the €36 in year 2 I would be delighted to explain in detail.
Not sure this is the forum to do this i just wanted to make sure you were aware there was an Irish company in this space it that helped out.

So you are indeed affiliated with them. I think people would be interested in understanding why a wifi option is not available, please do explain.

Thats my thinking

ted1 wrote: »

Are you comission based ? Any product sold within the EU needs to be CE approved so why the need to point it out, also GSM technology is fairly old surly in this day wifi or a 3G would be a better solution

Ted1 I am not sure what you mean by are you commissioned based I just wanted to make you aware of a product that was fully designed in Ireland that is in the same space as Nest it's not a sales pitch.

Re EU and CE the point I was making was that Climote is approved for sale in EU but some products are purchase on line and imported into EU that are not CE certified and that's the reason I was pointing it out.

Finally regarding GSM technology I fully understand where you are coming from & believe me we put a huge amount of thought into weighing up the pros and cons of wifi v gsm v 3g and with 10 years experience installing home technology the easy option would have been wifi but for a mass deployment of up to a million plus climotes in Ireland UK using the utility channel to market we were not happy with the reliability of connecting a home heating controller to a wifi network and this was backed up in our trials.

Its important to point out that we might as you suggest introduce another communication method in the future but its taken 3 mill of development to get this far and there are a number of reason some of which are not obvious to the consumer why we used GSM.

These reasons become fairly obvious to electricians, plumbers, utilities etc that have to try and run a business installing this technology as these products need a professional install by a qualified trades person as you are removing a 220v mains electrical heating clock and replacing it with the climote HUB and these installation companies are really concerned about connecting to a home owners wifi as the potential for inbound technical calls and for heating not working calls due to switched off routers, broadband not working, 20% to 30% churn in the broadband market which if it happens during the summer could
have 1000s of inbound calls hitting a utilities call centre on the night of the first frost, passwords not available at install, utility companies responsible for wifi security, and the list goes on.

As I said the wifi option seems like a no brainer but we have trained up over 300 electricians & plumbers in Ireland who all have climote in their own homes and we have 6 of the top 10 utilities in ireland and the UK who between them have over 20 million customers who understand our approach as we want a bullet proof product and service first and a business model that will work for a mass roll out.

We are an Irish company taking on the Goliath's of Honeywell, Siemens, Hortsman Nest etc and we are getting traction as consumers and the trade really like our product as its robust, bullet proof, easy to use and with 12 mths remote access built into the price and annual savings from €150 to €300 based on trials with ESB the annual service charge for text messages, App updates, etc at €36 make this a totally different proposition than other devices in your home as you can save up to €300 per annum.

In saying all that Ted1 its not for everyone and my reason for posting this is just to give people some insight into an Irish company who have taken a different approach to solving the heating controls problem.

Hope this info was useful.

randombar

I can see the pros and cons of a GSM based device in Ireland where 3G reception is definitely not 100% and wifi option would mean a lot more support and reliance on the customer know how of the basics of a wifi network. I guess for the tech savy out there we would be reluctant to pay any subscription per year, I for one like to pay for a product and not be tied to a company forever after. If I need updates I will pay for them when I like but for general use I would expect nothing but the initial cost. Best of luck with the device

ted1

There some pretty big claims to be made about savings, how are they being verified or put together, do you publish case studies or basic information such savings are based on 1 person living on there own who had the heating on 24 7.
I know myself with a family of four living in a 3 bed house with a spend of approx 180 every 2 months during winter and 30 during summer months that works out at 630 a year, so a saving of 300 is just under 50% so were only talking about on off switch with a thermostat, how would your product offer me savings, show me what your figures are based on.
This seems to be missing in all your media.

Thats my thinking

Hi Gary,
Yes I fully get where you are coming from I have been in the home automation space for over 10 years and I understand the tech savy folks like yourself may want a DIY product that they can buy, install & manage
and it maybe a product we develop in the future. We have really focused on making our first offering a solution that is bullet proof, easy to install for the electrician/plumber, wont generate support calls for them which
can be substantial as any issue with home wifi has a very good chance of been blamed on the TRADES guy who connected to the home owners wifi and if they have to do a call out it will be a lot more than €36.

Gary I take on board your concerns re been tied to the company but the product will work perfectly as a stand alone very intuitive heating controller after 12 mths if the customer sees no value in paying for the remote sms, app, portal services and the network sim charges. To show our commitment we have a special offer at the moment where we are offering €100 scrappage discount for your old timeclock and a no risk 100 day (money back quarantee) . We feel this is a great offer and backs up the feedback we are getting from our customers that once you have the ability to remotely control your heating their is no going back to a DUMB time clock.

In a nutshell we will install the product for customers and if your they are not happy within the first 100 days we will call out and re install their old time clock. (No quibble no risk)



I know this type of offer is not for you or a DIY tech savy person but I hope you found the info on the product useful and maybe in the future we will develop a product that suits you.

Thanks for the feedback its appreciated.

Thats my thinking

Hi Ted1,
I take on board your concerns and I will try and explain.
As I mentioned in another post we have been in detailed trials with 6 of the top 10 utilities in IRL/UK and a number of the trials were completed last year.
As you can imagine these utilities all had similar concerns/interests to you so they wanted to carry out their own research which they did.
The trials contained very detailed market research study with one of them with over 500 home owners & 75 climote HUBS installed for 8. There were also before and after consumer
focus groups.

After the trials were fully completed by the utilities the data was also shared with SEAI and there is now an approved section in the better energy scheme for time and temperature remote control heating .

I understand the example of your own home but the market research of 1 is not going to stand up to a utility or SEAI so we had to do a full trial.

Ted out of the 75 homes on the trial the big savings come from people who stop trying to guess when they are going to be occupying the home
and just programmed climote on in the morning for an hour and used the boost button on their app at all other times. We also found that consumers
that used the app 4 or more times a week had their boilers programmed on 30% less than those how just set it up and left it on program.
There are also huge savings to be made at weekends when buildings can suffer from lot of wasted heat when nobody is at home.

Ted I can give you a flavor of the market research and the claim on the Electric Ireland website stands up.



Sample of the Market research with 500 homeowners.
1. How often to you engage with your heating controller? 60% adjust heating schedule 3 or less times per annum

2. 63% admit to having heat on weekly and nobody home.
3. When 500 home owners asked how many hours a week would the heating be on and the house empty the average was 3.5 hours wasted every week heating empty home
4. Nearly 50% admit to having the heating on unintentionally every day.
5. Only 19% of workers said they arrive home at same time every day
6. over 50% could not program simple schedule on their current time clock
7. Over 50% either don’t have a Boost function or don’t use it.
8. With 80% willing to change their controls is there a better way ?
9. Whats the Game Changer? SIMPLE CONTROLS WITH REMOTE ACCESS & UTILITY DEPLOYMENT



Link to electric ireland https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential-energy-services/home-services/climote-benefits.jsp

electric ireland (Homes that use climote more than once a week found that they were using their heating up to 20%* less of the time compared to before – and enjoying savings of up to €350** for a typical oil heating home, and savings of up to €175** for a typical gas heating home).


I hope this info was useful and I fully understand your own situation may be different but there there is a huge amount of waste heating empty buildings
as nobody wants to arrive back home to a fridge so they are willing to guess when they will be home. If you take away they need to guess it can be quite surprising
how much was been wasted. On another point Ted what we do find after the unit is installed is consumers dont talk about the money saving they talk about the comfort
and I assume this is down to the fact if your in full control of your heating its a comfort choice to turn it on.

Thanks for taking the interest in our product and I hope this was helpful.

Best Regards

Solair

That Nest device is designed for use with 24 volt US/Canada central heating control power or possibly 110V 60Hz US/Canada mains power.

So far, there's no European version that runs on 230V 50Hz which would work here, so there's no point in even attempting to import it as it would be unable to work with European power.

Most of our thermostats switch 230V lines.

You could probably do something like install it to switch a 24V line that was controlling a 230V contractor, but it'd be a hell of a cumbersome solution.

Merch

Thats my thinking wrote: »

Ted1 I am not sure what you mean by are you commissioned based I just wanted to make you aware of a product that was fully designed in Ireland that is in the same space as Nest it's not a sales pitch.

Re EU and CE the point I was making was that Climote is approved for sale in EU but some products are purchase on line and imported into EU that are not CE certified and that's the reason I was pointing it out.

Finally regarding GSM technology I fully understand where you are coming from & believe me we put a huge amount of thought into weighing up the pros and cons of wifi v gsm v 3g and with 10 years experience installing home technology the easy option would have been wifi but for a mass deployment of up to a million plus climotes in Ireland UK using the utility channel to market we were not happy with the reliability of connecting a home heating controller to a wifi network and this was backed up in our trials.

Its important to point out that we might as you suggest introduce another communication method in the future but its taken 3 mill of development to get this far and there are a number of reason some of which are not obvious to the consumer why we used GSM.

These reasons become fairly obvious to electricians, plumbers, utilities etc that have to try and run a business installing this technology as these products need a professional install by a qualified trades person as you are removing a 220v mains electrical heating clock and replacing it with the climote HUB and these installation companies are really concerned about connecting to a home owners wifi as the potential for inbound technical calls and for heating not working calls due to switched off routers, broadband not working, 20% to 30% churn in the broadband market which if it happens during the summer could
have 1000s of inbound calls hitting a utilities call centre on the night of the first frost, passwords not available at install, utility companies responsible for wifi security, and the list goes on.

As I said the wifi option seems like a no brainer but we have trained up over 300 electricians & plumbers in Ireland who all have climote in their own homes and we have 6 of the top 10 utilities in ireland and the UK who between them have over 20 million customers who understand our approach as we want a bullet proof product and service first and a business model that will work for a mass roll out.

We are an Irish company taking on the Goliath's of Honeywell, Siemens, Hortsman Nest etc and we are getting traction as consumers and the trade really like our product as its robust, bullet proof, easy to use and with 12 mths remote access built into the price and annual savings from €150 to €300 based on trials with ESB the annual service charge for text messages, App updates, etc at €36 make this a totally different proposition than other devices in your home as you can save up to €300 per annum.

In saying all that Ted1 its not for everyone and my reason for posting this is just to give people some insight into an Irish company who have taken a different approach to solving the heating controls problem.

Hope this info was useful.

So it doesnt support wi-i, which is quite widespread?
Savings of from 150-300, plus annual app costs of 36 euro, 360 euro over ten years!!?
And you can, but might not or probably wont save 300 a year?!


As per below, the device is 400?, I looked at this online, cant see why people will go for a device they cant connect to via wi-fi? or more importantly a fee for annual use of an app, without which the device doesnt have the same functionality.

so worst case scenario 400+36euro cost Vs 150-300 saving, so
a loss of 136-286 euro loss in the first year, at that cost, I cant see how it would be worse to go for an ordinary programmable stat.
As much as I would like remote access and think the climote looks good, forking out 400 +36(subject to change) annually for an app doesnt appeal to me, or I think a lot of people.

I also found the website, lacking in clear information about the device, personally I like to see it in writing, couldn't see anything about GSM/WiFi written down on the home page or FAQ's

GaryCocs wrote: »

Ya there is a web based interface and app but it's 36 euro a year subscription. That's a bit cheeky considering you have to pay 400 euro for the device.

ted1

Sorry I'm still having troubles from the claims.

Are you saying that only 75 people were in the trial?
The results are from a survey and that you have no quantifiable results from actual measures usage allowing for difference in degree days.
What was your demographic used in survey. I work during the day and the house is genreally occupied with wife and kids. Where is the case study and results,

You have to understand I work in energy management and know that focus groups etc are pointless when making claims and that only quantified results will cut it.

You make up stats but proven measured results are a lot harder

Thats my thinking

Hi Ted,
The trial was in 75 homes & the results were quantified. During the trials we were not allowed communicate with the customer to prompt adjustments relating to weather changes, temp settings etc (re NDA & Confidentiality clause in our contract) but we reckon there are more savings to be squeezed out. We are looking at opportunities to do a larger european trial but its hugely expensive so at the moment we can only make the claims that the saving can be up to 20% even though we believe the average could be more.
I take on board your comments re you own family occupancy and in the UK DECC say the heating on time is 72+ hours per week to accomodate these type of occupancy levels but I can tell you looking at the data we receive back from the live devices this is miles out. Ted interesting feedback you get post install with remote heating controls is that consumers feel they are in full control and they wont be wasting money heating an empty house which can be a huge benefit. The arriving home to a warm house is still the biggest response we get and once they are in full control energy saving discussions just dont happen.

Ted I am sure you are also aware that there is a claim on the SEAI website that standard heating controls with no remote access can even save you up to 20% if used correctly and this is where remote heating controls win out as they are easy to use "SEAI Typically homeowners can reduce their energy usage by up to 20% by installing easy to use heating controls in their home and using these controls in an efficient manner".

SEAI Better Energy Homes scheme to help you improve your home using this measure.http://www.seai.ie/Grants/Better_energy_homes/homeowner/What_Grants_Are_Available/Heating_Controls_Information.pdf

Ted I cant really add anymore to this just to say that I also have a wife a kids and my savings are a lot more than €350 on oil per annum.
I can also tell you dont waste a cent of energy heating an empty home yet I always arrive home to a warm welcome and at the end of the day thats what
its all about for me. I program my heating for 1 hour in the morning and every other interaction with my heating is remotely so its only ever on when its required.

Regards Derek

Diggerdunne

Why not control your heating thru your alarm panel with a GSM unit and a 12v relay, it does the same thing and there is no annual sub....
Also alot cheaper than the 300 inital fee..

turbo

Any anybody got Nest working over here?

shane0007

I see Google has just purchased Nest for $3.2 billion.
http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/google-gains-entry-to-home-with-32bn-nest-deal-29915045.html

That should prove interesting.
It they had of come onto Boards, I could have got them a remote system for a lot less than $3.2 billion!

Gerry1995

Just jumping in here, I've been looking into these for a while also and just today Santa clause (my son, role reversal) brought me two nest wireless thermostats. I'll have a go at installing the over the next few days and I will report back asap

thewools

Looking at getting one of these shortly... see electric ireland are doing a decent offer - see below:

Free for new customers and €99 for existing customers. (24 month contract)

https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential-energy-services/home-services/nest.jsp?p=0&gclid=Cj0KEQiA8f6kBRCGhMPFtev8p58BEiQAaMLmqeYmYG1eXKy3EQlaMnko7NpoRnRLcGCHaIuIQIues_gaAuus8P8HAQ#ex-q2

Be interested to hear feedback from others though...

Gerry1995

Just installed the Nest over the last couple of days. Seems exactly what I wanted, I can control each Thermostat from my iphone (no fees) all I need is internet access and good to go. See this thread my post
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057351382