Anyone using any of the Wink smart home stuff? I already have Nest thermostats, so I’m covered there, but thinking of investing in some of the lighting and other gadgets.
I’m in the process of buying my first house. I was planning on buying the Nest product line at some point, didn’t really know about Wink. What’s your experience been like with Nest? What are the Wink products about?
Nest is cool. Not the money saver they market because we already had programmable thermostats and actually used the programming feature, but still nice to be able to control remotely with your phone when needed (i.e. go on vacation and forget to change the thermostat). For those who don’t bother to use the programmable feature of a traditional thermostat, Nest will program itself over the first week based on when you turn it up and down (you can also program it yourself directly). It also takes humidity into account when adjusting the temperature, which works pretty well at keeping the house at the right “effective” temperature. FWIW, the Nest also looks pretty cool.
We also considered the Lyric from Honeywell because the geo-locator feature (or whatever they call it) seemed pretty cool. After reading a bunch of online review though, it seemed like the feature didn’t really work.
Wink, which works with Nest and other “smart” thermostats, extends the remote control feature to other things in the house, mainly lighting (you have to buy special bulbs which are very expensive, but supposedly last 20 years or something like that), exterior door locks (have to have compatible hardware with wifi capability), and garage door openers. Basically, it lets you turn lights on and off (and program them to go on and off automatically), lock and unlock doors, and open and close your garage doors from your smart phone. If you have nest smoke alarms, it also alerts you on your phone if one of them is going off (I don’t have Nest smoke alarms though).
That’s pretty sweet, I might be waiting a year to afford all that though. Also I’m concerned about my home becoming self aware.
The cost can add up. We have multiple heating/cooling zones, and you need a separate thermostat for each. As of late last year, Nest only allows their products to be discounted just before Christmas, so look to buy around then.
Congrats on the house too. We’re closing on a new place this coming Monday, which is why I’m thinking of adding more “smart home” type stuff. The Nests are coming with us.
Is your electric bill still $900 in the summer?
That was heat. Was quite a bit lower this past winter, not really sure why. I guess cost of oil was lower this year than last. The new place is natural gas, but bigger, so we’ll see how that goes.
I need to do at least part of this but I’ve been putting it off. I don’t think I’d go for the new lights, but the thermostat, garage doors, smoke alarms, and door locks would be nice.
I’m sure after I look up the cost I’ll probably come back and say we’ll do one smoke alarm.
Natural gas makes a big difference, heating bills are big up here. Natural gas will knock almost $2K off of heating bills in New England in a year.
I’m looking forward to having natural gas again for heating and cooking. Oil heat kind of blows and an electric range really blows.