Smart Homes Start with the Nest Thermostat

The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.

I have always thought that having a Smart House would be cool and futuristic. Well, the future is here! With the 3rd generation Nest Learning Thermostat you can control your home’s temperature whether you are home or away. We have had a programmable thermostat for years but the Nest takes that to a whole new level.

Our Nest thermostat arrived right before we left on our cruise and our Netgear Nighthawk Router arrived after we returned home. I left hubby to install everything last weekend while I was at Type-A Con so we have only been using it for a few days. Ron said the Nest thermostat was easy to install and configure and the Nighthawk router took a bit longer to get set up.

The 3rd generation Nest Learning Thermostat is thin and sleek and has a crisp display. It’s also been proven to save energy in independent studies. Up to 12% a year on heating bills and 15% in cooling! Here in Florida, those are very welcome savings.

I love that the Nest Thermostat learns the temperatures we like our home at and adjusts accordingly. It is steps ahead of our former programmable thermostat because it senses when we are home and when we are away. When we are away we have the added bonus of the free app which keeps us connected to our Nest no matter where we are. With the app we can change the temperature in our house from anywhere in the world, assuring it is always a comfortable temperature when we arrive home.

To make sure our network could handle another device we also upgraded our router to the Netgear Nighthawk DST Router and  DST Adapter with Geek Squad included (exclusively from Best Buy). This is a brand new router that was exclusively developed between Netgear and Best Buy, to help provide consumers with an easy, all-in-one solution to support their home’s connected devices. As the number of Wi-Fi dependent products increase in a home – the average US household has 7 “connected devices” ie, smartphones, tablets, laptops, wifi printers etc, this puts a strain on the home’s network, especially the router. Add to that online gaming and 4k TVs, connected devices such as smart thermostats, plus the need to stream shows from Netflix or hulu, it places even more demands on the network. Many households may experience slow Wi-Fi, dropped calls, or experience “dead zones” – which could be improved upon with an “AC” router, Wi-Fi extenders and expert help. After a quick count I think we have 11 connected devices in our home when all 3 of us are here! With our new Netgear Nighthawk router and adapter, my husband finally has a strong wifi signal in the garage, which is where he runs his business from!

We are enjoying our new Nest Thermostat and Netgear Nighthawk Router. We are looking forward to tracking our energy savings and keeping our home more comfortable year round.