nancy929•1d agoProlific Poster

Spent $400 on a smart thermostat that made my heating bills worse

I bought a fancy Nest thermostat back in 2020 thinking it would save me money on my Buffalo winter heating costs. Turns out the 'learning' feature kept cranking the heat when I was away, and my gas bill jumped by 30% over three months. Anyone else have a smart home gadget that backfired on them?

2 comments

2 Comments

rubybarnes1d ago

Honestly, the problem is those things don't actually learn your habits, they learn your thermostat movements. So if you're anything like me and you fiddle with the temp a lot when you're home, the Nest thinks you want it set to 72 all day even when you're out. I had to factory reset mine and turn off all the "smart" features and just use it as a basic programmable timer. Fixed the bill but kinda defeats the whole point of spending that much money.

skylerw871d ago

I read an article in Consumer Reports a few months back that basically said the same thing @rubybarnes. They tested a bunch of smart thermostats and found that the Nest especially just doesn't handle people who adjust the temp a lot. It just assumes you want it at whatever you set it to most recently, even if that was because you were trying to get comfortable after a workout or something. So it just locks onto that temp and never learns the pattern of when you leave for work or go to bed. It's basically a dumb thermostat with a fancy face that costs too much. I stuck with my old Honeywell programmable one, it's way simpler and I don't have to fight it.