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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

The average UK heating bill is about £650 a year (based on 2012 numbers with a ~10% increase). Assuming you have a reasonably stable routine I can imagine a better thermostat could save 15% on your energy bill - amounting to about £100 a year. It could be worthwhile financially.

Of course though, that would need to be tested. Fortunately there's a big queue of early adopters just waiting to do that for us.

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could isn't enough to spend £250 on a 40% return in a year on such a low value.

If you have £250 floating around then £100 difference over a year on your heating bill isn't likely a major issue either.

It doesn't make sense, even as an early adopter.

It makes an interesting purchase for the shiny squad with a disposable income but that's about it.

As an early adopter, I would want it to have some kind of 'geofencing' logic.

Given that I currently use as my main mobile a Windows Phone and the announcements that they are doing something around this area come (should be detailed at Build), I'd like this.

I live alone, I have a gas and electric bill of £800 pa, often I'm not home, I'll work late, end up in another country that night etc. Having something that lets me switch off remotely the heating would be useful to a point. But I only have the heating on for maybe 5 months a year.

What would be useful, is some software that realised I was heading home, automatically turning it on. That realised there is no way I'd be home within 30 min, so delayed heating going on. Without me interacting with it.

As for control of the temp, well, as mentioned thermostatic valves do a great job of that.

I just want remote On / Off timer functionality. £250 is far beyond what I'd consider reasonable for that.

I'd sooner have an array of Zigbee sensors for the temp, a controller for the solenoid and something to bridge it to TCP/IP land.

This strikes me as not only ugly (you wouldn't notice the current thermostat) but pointlessly over engineered in one aspect, whilst ignoring the most important one. If you have to remember to interact with the app, it won't work. I could save the odd £2 or £3 if I remembered to flick a switch before leaving home on a morning.

At least from those I've seen in the US with a great interest in this product, it serves much the same function as a Prius; helping those with disposable income feel better about saving the world without having to really make that much of a sacrifice.

That is a broad generalization, I'm aware. So far it has been true.

It's £179 this week. I bought a new heating programmer and a wireless thermostat last year - together they cost £180. Nest is expensive, but it's not insanely pricey assuming that it leads to a similar energy efficiency as higher end thermostats and heating programmers.

Also: why so much anger about other people and their purchases? You don't have to buy once of these if you don't want to.

Spending £250 now to save £100 a year for a decade (the period you suggested you would want savings for) does make sense if you could save that much.

You also have to consider that as well as the cost savings you're getting a nicer 'thermostat experience' for the time you're living in the home, and potentially increasing the value of it should you move. There's a lot of things in favour of improving the building you live in besides minimising your bills.

It all hinges on the 'if' though. If the Nest doesn't save you anything, or if it costs you more in heating, or if it makes the home uncomfortably hot/cold then it's not worthwhile.

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