- The thermostat has typically
been one of the most
confusing pieces of tech inside of your home.
But in recent years, a new wave of
thermostats has simplified
the devices, allowing them to become
a central part of your smarthome.
Today I'm gonna give you a look at four thermostats
that'll make your home a whole lot smarter.
What's going on Tech Squad,
Andru Edwards here.
Editor-in-Chief of GearLive.com.
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As I said, today we are continuing
our smarthome series that we're doing in
partnership with Lowe's Home Improvement.
Taking a look at some of the best
smart thermostats you can buy.
By the way, big shout out to Lowe's Home Improvement
for sending over all the smart thermostats
that I'm talking about today.
And for sponsoring this video.
If you didn't know, Lowe's Home Improvement
is the place to go if you wanna start
building out your smarthome.
Lowe's Home Improvement sells
everything you need to get started with your smarthome
including smart lights, smart thermostats,
smart cameras, and more.
So, if you want to start building your
smarthome, head over to your local
Lowe's Home Improvement store or Lowes.com to
check out all the latest gear.
As I said in the open,
thermostats throughout history
have been one of the most confusing
pieces of tech in your home.
Most people would just turn them up
or turn them down.
Didn't really know how to program them.
These days, smart thermostats are taking over,
making controlling the temperature of your home
a lot simpler.
Let's kick off the rundown starting with
one of the most popular smart thermostats
the Nest.
This is the third generation of the Nest
smart thermostat.
And most people see Nest as a company that
started the whole smart thermostat revolution.
On front of the Nest thermostat,
you got a bright, high-resolution display,
a premium metal ring surrounds the unit,
making it look nice in your home and it's
got feature called farsight,
which recognizes when you walk
into the room.
It'll light up the display and show a piece
of glanceable information of your choosing.
It can be the current temperature of your home,
it can be the current time.
Or it can even be the current weather outside.
The Nest third gen thermostat learns your preferences.
It'll auto set the temperature throughout the day.
So when you first set it up, if it sees that
every morning, you set the temperature
to let's just say, 70 degrees.
It'll program itself to know that at eight in the morning,
it should set itself to 70 degrees.
If before bed, you turn it down to 67 degrees.
It'll know, every evening at 10 p.m. to turn it
down to 67 degrees and so forth.
Now, another cool feature of the Nest
thermostat is that it knows
where you are.
So it knows that it should
optimize the temperature
when you're not home to save energy.
And it knows when you are home
to optimize the temperature for when
people are in the house.
That feature works in two ways.
As I mentioned, that farsight feature
which'll show things on the display
Nest actually uses that same feature to know
if someone's in the house.
Using your smartphone's location services,
the Nest app knows when you're home
and when you're not.
And if no one's there, it'll
go to work to save you some energy.
Now, one downside that some people
say about the Nest thermostat
is that it's a little too flashy,
it's a little too noticeable.
If you're one of those people
then you might be more interested
in this next one.
This is the Nest thermostat E.
If the Nest third gen is all about being
seen, the Nest E is the opposite.
Going for a minimal look that's
all about going unnoticed.
The Nest E is also about 33% cheaper than
the Nest third gen.
But it maintains just about all
of it's main features.
Like the original Nest, you can control
the Nest E from anywhere.
Check your energy history in the app.
Get alerts if there's a problem,
and it'll also learn your patters
and manage your temperature for you
with the aim of saving you money in the long run.
So, with all those similarities,
what are the differences between the Nest third gen
and the Nest thermostat E?
First, while the Nest sports a premium metal finish,
the E has a polycarbonate white ceramic feel finish instead.
The Nest E has a low resolution frosted display,
while the higher end Nest has the high resolution
full color display with farsight technology
that I mentioned which gives that glanceable
information like weather and time in addition
to the temperature.
Both the Nest third gen and the Nest thermostat E
work with Nest's entire line of
smarthome products.
So while they are thermostats that control the temperature
in your home, when paired with other Nest products,
they're able to do more than that.
For example, let's say you also use a
Nest protect smart smoke detector.
If the Nest protect detects smoke or carbon monoxide,
the Nest thermostat will turn off your fans and
turn off the heat so it doesn't spread the smoke
or carbon monoxide throughout your home.
If the temperature outside
gets so cold that your pipes might burst,
the Nest app is going to send you a notification
for that and if your furnace seems to be acting up
you'll get an alert from Nest to
tell you to take care of that as well.
Or, if you have Nest cameras in your home,
your Nest thermostat will use those to
determine if there's people in the house or not.
So rather than just going on the proximity sensor
on the thermostat itself, you can give it
extra eyes into your home by setting up Nest cameras.
So, as you can see, the Nest smart thermostat
third generation, not just smart about controlling
the temperature.
But really brings a level of smartness
to your home as a whole.
If you're looking for a smart thermostat
that you can talk directly to,
you may want to check out the Ecobee4.
This one has Amazon Alexa built right into the unit.
The Ecobee4 is a smart thermostat that
connects to your home Wi-Fi network,
allowing you to control the temperature
from anywhere that you have an internet connection.
Obviously, this isn't new as both the Nest and
Nest E that we just talked about do the same thing.
However, there are a couple of things
that set the ecobee4 apart from the competition.
The first is built in support for Apple's home kit,
allowing you to control it with Siri.
That's something that neither of the two
Nest thermostats are able to do.
But even more impressive, the ecobee4 has
Alexa built in.
So, not only can you control it with Alexa based
devices like Amazon Echo or Echo Dock, but you
can talk directly to the thermostat
and have it control your other smart devices
or ask it trivia questions or to set timers
or anything else you'd ask any Alexa device.
What this means is that ultimately,
you can control the ecobee4 thermostat
with your voice by using the built in
Alexa support as well as using an Amazon
Echo, Echo Dock, Echo Show,
Echo Tap.
Or by using Siri with an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch,
or iPod touch or you can opt to use
the free ecobee app for your smartphone or tablet as well.
So there's plenty of ways to control
the ecobee4 smart thermostat.
Now, there is one more cool trick
up the ecobee4's sleeve.
And that is the included sensor.
Inside the box, you'll find the
ecobee4 itself along with one room sensor
with a detachable stand.
Aside from the Alexa and Home kit capability,
this is another are where ecobee stands out.
The sensor is placed in a room that's separate
from where the thermostat is placed,
allowing the system to monitor temperature
and motion in more than one spot.
So if your thermostat is on the first floor,
but you spend a lot of time on the second floor,
the ecobee will still know that you're home
and will keep the temperature
right where it should be.
Alternatively, it will also save you money
when you aren't home by optimizing
the temperature accordingly
rather than wasting your resources and cash.
You get one sensor in the box with purchase
as I mentioned, but you can buy
up to 32 additional sensors.
So it will work with a home of pretty much any size.
And I've got one more thermostat on my list.
If you're looking for something a little less
expensive than the other options
that I've shown, you may wanna take a look
at the Honeywell Lyric T5 Wi-Fi thermostat.
This one is the least expensive of the bunch,
but still maintains all the essential
smarthome features.
Like the others, it's Wi-Fi connected so you can
control it using your smartphone or tablet
from anywhere you have an internet connection.
It automatically sets the temperature
by using your location data from your phone
to know whether you're home or away.
And, like the ecobee4 that I just mentioned,
the Honeywell Lyric T5 also supports Apple Home kit,
allowing you to control it directly
from Siri.
If Amazon Alexa is more your jam,
you can control it using any Alexa enabled
device as well.
But to be clear, the Lyric T5 does not act as
an Alexa device like the ecobee4 does.
But you can control it using any
Alexa enabled hardware that you have.
So if you're looking for a less expensive
smart thermostat from a company that's
been making thermostats for decades,
the Honeywell Lyric T5 may be the one for you.
There you have it guys,
that was your look at some of my
favorite smarthome thermostats.
Let me know what you think down in the comments below.
Have you started building out your smarthome?
And if so, if you've gone with a
smart thermostat, which one are you using?
I'll meet you down there for further discussion.
Thanks so much for watching, as always guys.
Big shout out once again to
Lowe's Home Improvement for sponsoring
this video.
If you enjoyed this one, feel free to
drop a like on this video and
don't forget to click or tap on my face
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Thank you so much for watching,
as always guys, I appreciate
your support.
I'm Andru Edwards
and I'll catch you in the next video.