Think of all the new revolutionary technology and all the fields in which innovation is occurring. But the one field that has not had much reinvention is the field of thermostats. A former employee of Apple, Mr. Nest, has designed his new thermostat, the Nest. The Nest is a learning thermostat. However, it is not only smart, it is sleek and a radical departure from the normal thermostat view. The Nest is a small circular thermostat that sports a dome to cover the screen. The input is similar to an iPod in that you must turn the dial and push the dome to make selections. However, the most unique characteristic about this thermostat is its ability to “learn”. For the first week after installation, you must manually adjust the temperature just as you would your typical thermostat. Following the first week of programming, the thermostat will pick up on your routines and automatically adjust itself based on the times and temperatures you previously entered. It also has a sensor to detect when no one is home and will drift outside the typical temperatures to a range set by you. A second sensor tells when a person wanders by the thermostat. When someone gets close, the LCD screen lights up and dims when a person walks away.
So what are the implications of this? Well, it will save money, plain and simple. Most people with programmable thermostats never bother to actually program them, and in doing so are wasting money. The energy saved by a programmable thermostat is a rather large amount! The Nest also tells the user how long it will take the house to reach the designated temperature you have just set. This feature helps in disproving the common misnomer that if you blast the heat, the house will warm up faster. This smart thermostat will waste less energy and in result, will save great amounts of money! The thermostat also includes an eco-leaf that notifies the user when they are being ‘eco-friendly’ giving them an added incentive to use the thermostat.
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