The smart and sexy thermostat
(Nvonews.com)
Everything is getting a little sexed up these days, but one would have thought a thermostat would escape trend. As it turns out it didn’t, and people are quite happy about it.
A couple of guys who were last at Apple, and were behind the iPod, no less, have redesigned the thermostat to make it gorgeous and smart. And yes, it also has a click wheel. Tony Fadell, the man behind the device, which is building the devices says that it is an excellent power saving machine. Untold billions were being lost every year in US homes simply because there was no device to automatically manage temperature.
Fadell sold his idea to a bunch of Silicon Valley investors, and the Nest Labs was born.
The device is called the “Nest Learning Thermostat” likely a reference to the way its sits in your wall. The Nest Thermostat can figure out when you are not in the room, or have likely gone out, using it advanced six sensors and automatically dials down energy. It learns your temperature routines and starts adjusting accordingly. Furthermore if you have more than one device installed in your home, they can communicate with each other via Wi-Fi. So if you are in let’s say the living room, and bedroom thermostat will know and start heating up automatically.
The sensors pick up temperature, ambient light, humidity and motion, that is to say it can detect people going in and out of the room, and of course when you touch the thermostat.
That is the smart part. Now for the gorgeous part.
The Nest glows red, when it is heating up and blue when it is cooling down. It has a simple three-concentric-circles shape, which has all the elegance and simplicity of the iPods. You can rotate the outer wheel to either increase or decrease temperature.
The Nest is now available for pre-order through Best Buy and Nest.com. The devices are set to ship in November. The units are already coming out hot from the assembly lines of advanced Chinese factories.
One other thing: you can try setting it up yourself; it takes just 20 minutes according to Nest Labs, or get an engineer to do it for you. And, oh yes, you can also use a remote to manage the Nest.
Go here for more. Wired: Brave new thermostat
Shortlink:
Posted by
Socialize