thermostat
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Ecobee's smart thermostat knows conditions throughout your home
As clever as smart thermostats can be, they usually have only a limited sense of what's going on in your home. They may know that it's cool in the hallway, but not that it's roasting in the living room. Ecobee may have a better, more holistic approach with its third-generation climate controller, the Ecobee 3. Rather than gradually learn what conditions work best over time, it uses remote sensors to determine which rooms are occupied and whether or not they're at the right temperature. The more detectors you add, the more cozy you're likely to be -- you can have up to 32, if you're determined to warm up your mansion.
Airbnb to give some of its top hosts free Nest thermostats
One of the difficulties property owners face when renting their place out via Airbnb is making sure they don't waste energy while nobody's staying there. Sure, timers can reduce some of the hassle, but many can't be configured remotely, nor are they aware of when someone is home. Devices like Nest's Learning Thermostat are, though, so that's why Airbnb has teamed up with the Google-owned home automation firm to help hosts better manage their homes. The Nest will let hosts take advantage of its auto-away feature and remotely lock the temperature, meaning guests don't have to fiddle with heating settings or automatic timers. The initiative is currently limited to "top hosts" in the US and appears to involve some sort of selection process. However, the company says it will feature many of the properties outfitted with a Nest in "curated Wish Lists" on its website. Good news if you're looking for a place to stay over the winter and want nothing less than a warm welcome when you arrive.
Tado hopes to put its smart thermostat in more homes with new retail partner
The smart thermostat space is plenty competitive nowadays, and securing an exclusive and high-profile retail partner seems the go-to sales strategy. Over the past few months, we've seen Nest buddy up with npower and Climote rebrand its thermostat for Scottish Power, not to mention British Gas plugs its own product. Now, thermostat-maker Tado's announced it's also found an advocate in new partner HomeServe, a specialist home insurance and repairs provider operating in the UK and other European countries. While teaming up with an energy supplier makes obvious sense, we don't see as clear a sales channel through HomeServe, unless one of its reps is round fixing the boiler. With five and a half million customers across Europe, however, we're sure the company will manage to flog a few Tado thermostats with location-based controls regardless.
Scottish Power is the latest energy provider to offer its own smart thermostat
Not to be outdone by British Gas and nPower, Scottish Power has become the latest energy supplier to jump aboard the smart thermostat bandwagon. While its rivals are either pushing their own controls or have teamed up companies like Nest to help customers automate their heating, Scottish Power is doing a bit of both by spinning off a white-label version of the Climote thermostat. Unlike nPower, which part-subsidises the cost of the Nest, Scottish Power is offering the Climote under its own "Connect" branding, starting at £10 per month for two years (with a £66 upfront payment). The thermostat lets customers set up heating schedules or control temperature in real time using an app, browser or even by SMS. Good news if you're looking to make your home smarter, but aren't keen on switching providers or letting Google into your place of rest.
Nest devices start talking to Google, washing machines and your car
Nest's Learning Thermostat and Protect smoke detector are now part of a much, much larger universe. The company has just launched a developer program that lets third-party apps and devices talk to Nest hardware, making it do things that aren't possible through official software. The initiative is kicking off with a whole host of partnerships in place, in many cases with feature updates either available now or due in the near future. Chamberlain's garage doors can now tell your Nest thermostat when you're home, while Mercedes-Benz lets you check the temperature on the road; Logitech's Harmony Ultimate remote can lower the heat in mid-movie, and Jawbone's Up24 fitness tracker can tell Nest when you wake up.
Nest Learning Thermostat has its security cracked open by GTVHacker
While we wait for Google I/O (which starts tomorrow) to find out what will become of the company's TV platform, a team that we've seen bust open the padlocks on Google TV, Chromecast and Roku has a new target. GTVHacker just revealed an exploit for the (now Google-owned, and owner of Dropcam) Nest Learning Thermostat. It could let owners do new and interesting things (like replace the Nest software entirely) but of course, someone with bad intentions could take it in another direction: monitor whether the owner is home via its motion detector, sniff network traffic, or just crank up the temperature a few degrees -- all without even opening the device. Interested in how the hack works? Like most jailbreaking techniques we've seen on mobile and home connected platforms it requires physical access to the device, so you don't have to worry bout someone wardriving down the block and wreaking havoc with your A/C. Check after the break for more details and a video, and if you're headed to DEFCON in August, the team has a demonstration planned that's oh-so-comfortingly titled "Hack All the Things." Update: Nest has responded, saying the team's software "doesn't compromise the security of our servers or the connections to them and to the best of our knowledge, no devices have been accessed and compromised remotely." [Image credit: gpshead/Flickr]
Honeywell thermostat lets you set the temperature using your Pebble smartwatch
Honeywell may now be looking to take on Nest with a new sleek and stylish thermostat, but it's still making sure that users of its other connected systems enjoy updates too. In a bid to make things a little easier for owners of it evohome smart zoning thermostat, the company has extended support to the Pebble smartwatch, offering up room-by-room heating control from the comfort of your wrist. Honeywell's new smart bundle allows you to set the temperature of in each zone (or room) in your home and turn the heating on or off with the push of a button. The app can also immediately enable or disable any of the preset evohome quick actions, which is especially helpful if you've forgotten to shut off the heating before you fly off on holiday. If you've installed Honeywell's zoning thermostat and also own a Pebble, you can grab the new app and watchface from Pebble's app store using either your iOS or Android device.
Nest strikes deal with npower to offer its smart thermostat for just £99
Now that the Nest learning thermostat on sale in the UK, the Google-owned company is pulling out all of the stops to make it your go-to smart heating controller. Today, it buddied up with its first European energy supplier to give Britons a more cost-effective solution (at least for now) to British Gas' own Hive thermostat. npower, Nest's partner in crime, is incentivising customers to switch over to its new dual-fuel tariffs (which fix energy prices until April 30th 2017) by offering a Nest for just £99 installed. That's £100 less than the Hive and a third of the price of a standalone unit (with support) ordered from npower direct. You can, of course, still pick one up for £179 on Nest's own website and Amazon, or online and in-store at Apple, John Lewis and B&Q, but it'll be down to you to install it and make sure it works as it should.
Make your air conditioner modern with Tado's smart thermostat
Plenty of companies produce smart thermostats to control your home's heating, but what if your air conditioner isn't part of the same system? Tado, which already produces Nest-like smart thermostats for heating systems in Europe, is now working on a device that'll do the same for cooling. Tado Cooling connects to your home's AC unit over infrared, and lets you control the temperature while out and about from your smartphone. In addition, there's geo-fencing, so it'll shut down if you go away, and come back on when you reach a certain distance away from your home.
British Gas' smart Hive thermostat can now respond to a home owner's location
Since its launch nearly seven months ago, British Gas' connected thermostat, the Hive, has enjoyed steady succcess. Now operational in more 75,000 British homes, it recently gained another competitor in Nest, the learning thermostat now owned by Google, so news of the company's new feature rollout could not have come at better time. In an iOS update that went live earlier this week (not yet live on Android), British Gas added geolocation support to the Hive app, allowing users to receive notifications or set triggers depending on where they are. For instance, Hive owners now receive alerts when the heating has been left switched on and they leave the house, or set the app to automatically begin heating the house as soon as it detects the owner has left their workplace. Nest owners can utilise similar features with a little third-party hacking, but for people who decided to go smart with the energy provider will get them right out of the box.
Nest Learning Thermostat now available on Google Play
With a $3.2 billion hole to fill, Google's opened up yet another avenue for you to acquire Nest. The company's smart thermostat can now be had via Google Play, available for the standard retail price of $249. The Protect smoke detector is currently off the market following a bug that popped up earlier this month, so it's not available through Play, but the connected temp controller sure is, earning the top promo slot on Google's online store. Additionally, in celebration of Earth Day, Google's planting a tree for every Nest sold through Play today, so if going green is on the docket, it might just be time to pull out that wallet. (Photo by Will Lipman for Engadget Distro)
Nest's Learning Thermostat lands in the UK for £179
Nest officially entered the UK market last year with the launch of its smoke and carbon monoxide detector Protect, but curiously, the Learning Thermostat the company's known for remained exclusive to North America. That changes today, however, with immediate availability of the clever thermostat across the UK. The now Google-owned Nest actually starting working towards the launch over a year ago, but unlike the US and Canada where temperature control systems are fairly standardized and digital thermostats extremely common, Brits have an eclectic mix of boiler setups, and analog/digital thermostats. Making the Learning Thermostat compatible with all these arrangements meant Nest had to conjure up some additional hardware in the form of Heat Link: a box that jacks directly into your boiler and takes orders from the thermostat. You can use existing wall wiring to directly connect the two, but they can just as easily communicate over WiFi all the same.
Honeywell's evohome puts a smart heating system in every room, is now available in the UK
You don't need Google to tell you that fancy, net-connected and smartphone-controllable heating setups have caught on, blazing a trail for other home automation tech and the mysterious internet of things to follow. UK energy merchant British Gas launched its own wireless thermostat not too long ago, and now Honeywell's upping the stakes with its evohome multi-room system (a bigger, badder version of an old evohome product sold for "specialist installations."). In addition to the main controller that pairs with your boiler, you can also pimp your radiator valves with wireless nodes to create up to 12 different "smart zones" that can be managed independently. As you'd imagine, this means you can concoct some pretty elaborate schedules using the tablet-like touchscreen remote or via the Android and iOS apps. The system will also learn things about your crib, like how it long it takes to heat up and cool down, so you're only using energy when you need to. And, if you've left a window open, any nearby radiator module will know as much and shut itself off in protest of your wastefulness. Available in the UK from today, the basic Connected Pack (sans valve nodes) will set you back £249 without installation, which can't be any more complicated than rigging up a Sonos, can it?
Nest is now officially a part of the Google family
Prepare for a world of Google-controlled thermostats, smoke alarms and no doubt other mysterious projects we don't know about yet. Shortly after receiving the green light from the FTC, the search giant announced that its $3.2 billion acquisition of home automation company Nest is now a done deal. Google's already touting Nest as the perfect partner to "enhance its suite of products and services," and is allowing founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers (both ex-members of the original iPod team) to continue operating the company under its own brand. Google's involvement brings its fair share of privacy concerns, but Fadell says Nest doesn't intend to change its current privacy policy, and that any future changes will be both transparent and opt-in. While we don't fully know what Google has planned, now that it has swapped smartphones for smart homes, we guess it could make a good start simply by making Nest's existing products available in more countries, as they're barely known outside of the US.
Spark shows how to build a Nest-like, open source thermostat
Wish you'd had the foresight to build the Nest thermostat and get Google's attention? You can't travel back in time, but Spark may give you the next best thing. It just posted a walkthrough showing how to build a smart thermostat of your own. The device centers around both the company's WiFi-equipped Spark Core as well as off-the-shelf displays and sensors from Adafruit, Honeywell and Panasonic. Its software won't compete with anything from Nest, but you can both change the temperature and view historical data from most any modern web browser. More importantly, it's open source -- you can program your own features or simply learn how things tick. While Spark's thermostat won't be an easy DIY project unless you're good with a CNC mill, it's proof that you don't need a vast array of resources to build your own climate controller. [Thanks, Binoy]
Google reportedly testing smart thermostats in 'EnergySense' program
Google called it quits on a smart thermostat two years ago, but it looks like the company couldn't resist circling back to the idea. According to two of The Information's sources and a document reviewed by the outlet, Mountain View has been conducting a trial of Internet-connected thermostats to help users keep tabs on their energy use and adjust accordingly. As part of a project reportedly dubbed EnergySense, the hardware itself seems to be created by a third party such as Ecobee. While Ecobee CEO Stuart Lombard says the firm isn't working with Google, he adds the search giant could still be using its hardware. Page and Co.'s effort isn't intended to compete directly with Nest, according to one of the chatty people familiar with the matter. It's said that Google's goal is to toy with making the energy grid more efficient and build applications and services with the data it collects. Non-employees are apparently being enlisted as "Trusted Testers" to give the service a whirl in St. Louis, Missouri and potentially other areas. There's no scuttlebutt regarding when the pilot might make it to primetime, so a Nest will just have to do for now. [Original image credit: Stephanie Conrad, Flickr]
Nest Learning Thermostat to get its own API
Nest has announced that it will be releasing an API for its Nest Learning Thermostat. The new API was first announced at the CEDIA Expo in Denver, Colo., and later confirmed in a blog posting on Nest's site: What if Auto-Away could turn off your lights? What if your dryer knew not to run when energy prices were high? What if your robot vacuum knew when you were gone and cleaned up before you got home? Starting today, we're looking for partners to bring this vision to life. The Nest Developer Program will offer a real-time web API for the Nest Learning Thermostat in early 2014. The API is not only launching so other apps can integrate with the Nest thermostat, but also so the device can talk to other smart home systems, such as those that control lighting. Developers who want to get in on the API can register their interest here.
Nest unveils web app developer program, teams up with Control4
Despite its internet connection, Nest's Learning Thermostat has been a closed device so far -- you've had to rely on Nest for new features and software. The company is opening up its platform with the announcement of a developer program. Programmers will soon get to build web apps that link the thermostat to other devices and services, such as home automation equipment. Nest won't start the program until early 2014, but it's already partnering with Control4; eventually, all of Control4's apps and remotes will commandeer Nest hardware. If you're interested in growing the ecosystem, you'll find more details at the source link.
BrewBit: the remote temperature monitor for homemade barley pop
Temperature is everything when it comes to fermenting beer. Thanks to a surprise heatwave, our last batch of homebrew went from lager to ale to horrible once we could finally taste it. If the BrewBit Model-T reaches its $80,000 Kickstarter goal, Inebriated Innovations could have the solution to hobby brewers' wort woes come next March. Each black box has dual power outlets as well as two temperature probes, allowing for independent control of heating and cooling. If you're so inclined, the open-source software and hardware means that you'll have an easier time hacking it to suit your needs. As of now, the company is just over halfway to its funding target, with 15 days to go. The early backer donations have already been claimed, but you still have a couple of weeks to snag either the single probe ($160) or dual probe ($175) model. We recommend you save the waiting for your suds' aging period.
Glass Nest lets users control their homes from their heads
Those who already own Google Glass are more likely than most to embrace new technologies like Nest's thermostat, so it only makes sense that an especially eager adopter would find a way to combine the two. That would be James Rundquist and his new Glass Nest app: Glass owners now just have to announce that they're coming home (or heading out) to make their Nest units change the climate. More exacting homeowners can fine-tune the temperature, too. While the utility is both unofficial and quite limited at this stage, Rundquist has posted source code that lets anyone expand on the project. If you're in the rare position of owning both gadgets, we'd suggest giving Glass Nest and its code at least a cursory look.
