Nest Learning Thermostat: Shiny Toy or Serious Tool?

Typography
It looks a bit like a hockey puck, but it's designed to keep your home warm in the winter, while cooling it in the summer. But while it is indeed slick, it's a lot smarter than a hockey puck; so smart, in fact that it can learn. I'm talking, of course, of the Nest Learning Thermostat.

It looks a bit like a hockey puck, but it's designed to keep your home warm in the winter, while cooling it in the summer. But while it is indeed slick, it's a lot smarter than a hockey puck; so smart, in fact that it can learn. I'm talking, of course, of the Nest Learning Thermostat.

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It seems that the folks at Nest Labs, a group that includes a number of Apple expatriates such as Tony Fadell, former head of the iPod Division and Matt Rogers, the iPhone's lead engineer, decided that the lowly thermostat was a device that had been under-innovated and was too important to be left in the dark ages.

According to CEO and co-founder Faddell, "It was unacceptable to me that the device that controls 10 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn't kept up with advancements in technology and design."

This, then, is clearly the thermostat for the iPhone generation. What does it do? It programs itself. This is a programmable thermostat, like the ones you remember from the 90's, only you don't need an engineering degree to program it. Instead, you simply set it to whatever temperature you want, whenever, you want it, turning it down when you go to bed, or leave for work, then turning it back up when you wake or when you return home. After a few days, the thermostat learns your schedule and implements it.

Article continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/10/nest-thermostat-shiny-toy-serious-tool/

Image credit:  Nest Labs