Nest Thermostat Now Heating Things Up In The UK

Giving in to incessant requests, Nest, which is now owned by Google, has finally brought its Learning Thermostat to the UK. But due to differences in how heating works in the country across the pond, Nest's smart thermostat works a little differently from those that have already been in the market in the US and Canada.

The heating system in the UK, it turns out, is not that simple. Homeowners barely have any control over heating, much less their bill. A good number don't even have thermostats, so the process of heating up or cooling down a house involves no small amount of trial and error, guesswork, and legwork going to and fro the heater's programmer.

The UK version of the Nest Learning Thermostat takes the drudgery out of trying to survive the bitter cold by injecting a few smarts into the system. The device replaces the programmer and automatically changes the temperature the way you want, when you want, which it learns from observing you. It is also smart enough to know when no one's around to keep warm anyway and turns down the heat. Thanks to True Radiant, it can also learn how long it takes to heat up the house so that it can start the process just in time for your arrival.

Nest also gets smart about power consumption, allowing owners to monitor the energy being used and how the weather and other factors affect it. And of course, for those who want to manually control their thermostats from a distance, the Nest app gives you the power to do so over the Internet.

The difference between UK and US system once again rears it head when it comes to installing the device. In the UK, the assistance of Nest Certified Professionals is needed due to boilers using high-voltage wiring. The whole process takes around an hour, but it will probably an hour well spent considering the automation and convenience benefits that the Nest Learning Thermostat will provide

SOURCE: Nest