When you finally decide to install a Nest thermostat in your firm, you might be under the impression that information technology's only a style to relieve on energy bills. What you'll realize inside just a couple of weeks of owning one is that there are many other things y'all can use the smart device for.
The Nest thermostat is fast becoming the heart of many smart homes, mostly because information technology's one of the virtually popular smart devices on the market, but also considering at that place are so many manufacturers and app developers who are integrating their services and products with the Nest.
Read on - you may be surprised just how many lilliputian tricks you tin can accomplish with your new Nest thermostat!
Vocalism Commands with Google Now
The hereafter has arrived.
Just similar on Star Trek where every ship control was proceeded with the word "Computer" - you tin can use Google At present to control your Nest by preceding the command with the words, "OK Google".
This is easy to accomplish. Here are the requirements:
- You need a Google account
- Download Google Now for your iPhone or your Android
- Or download Google Chrome
Go become started, just visit the Works With Nest page, and nether
Control your Nest with your voice, click
Yep, I'k In. You'll need to give Google permission to control your Nest thermostat.
Once you're done, you'll see a greenish "Enabled" status with a check mark. This ways you lot're ready to outset controlling your Nest with your voice!
If you're using Google Chrome, just tap the microphone in the Google Search field (or say "OK Google" into your microphone) and then say "set temperature to 65" or whatever temp you like. Google will popular upwards a control panel with your Nest device and location, and the temperature that yous want to set up information technology to.
Click the green check mark nether this to initiate the change. You lot'll encounter an image of the nest with your target temperature as confirmation that the change took place.
You can utilise different wording to issue your temperature modify command - see them all at the Works With Nest voice command folio.
This is wonderfully user-friendly. Imagine you've left dwelling on a trip and y'all're at a hotel. You ran downstairs to get a snack in the lobby, leaving y'all telephone in your room. You lot remember that you forgot to turn the temperature down when you left home. Just go to the nearest computer, open up the Chrome browser, log into your Google account and then result your voice command. Done.
Of form, if you practise have your mobile with you, it's a whole lot easier. Open Google Now and just issue the aforementioned vocalism command. Google takes care of the rest.
I tin't actually think of a more convenient mode to control our Nest thermostat than this, short of opening up the Nest app on your phone and literally changing the temperature. Only fifty-fifty that would accept longer than a voice command!
Your Nest Can Call You with Ooma
The wi-fi enabled, Internet phone service Ooma has been around for years, but the visitor has cleverly integrated its service with Nest.
What purpose could there be to integrate your phone service with your Nest? Simply put, the Nest thermostat has an intelligent Car-Away feature that actually learns your at-home patterns. Whenever the Nest knows your out of the house, it will adjust the home temperature to save energy.
Ooma taps into your Nest to offer you the following features:
- Using your Nest'due south "Abroad" status to automatically enable call forwarding whenever yous're not habitation.
- Ooma tin call you if people don't arrive home when you expect them to.
- Receive a call if your Nest smoke alarm triggers or the battery is low.
Enabling this is really easy from your Ooma account. Only click on
Preferences.
In the left bill of fare, you'll see
Nest Alerts.
This page is where you tin click the push button to
link your Nest business relationship
with your Ooma account.
To enable the "Auto-Abroad" feature for call forwarding, just click
Follow Me enabled
and choose which away status you want it to utilize (manual or automatic).
If you lot have a Nest Protect, yous tin can enable the smoke and CO alarm features on this page. Also, configure "Check-in monitoring" to have Ooma alert you if no one is home during a fourth dimension of twenty-four hour period when you expect someone to be there.
Equally y'all can come across, the integration between Ooma and Nest makes perfect sense. The features of this integration add convenience and automation to your growing smart dwelling.
Command Nest from Windows
If y'all take either a Windows mobile device or a Windows computer running Windows eight.1 or Windows 10, you tin control information technology correct from your desktop with an app called Nest Manager.
The desktop app looks identical to the website and the mobile app, with your Nest devices displayed in the center pane, and the settings and status forth the right.
From your Windows desktop you can also set upwardly the Nest temperature schedule to optimize your energy savings, or review your energy usage history.
IFTTT Integrations with Nest
1 of the best ways to enhance your Nest experience is through IFTTT integrations. One of the integrations I mentioned in the Nest installation commodity was using the
Weather condition trigger
in IFTTT to set the temperature on your thermostat.
In this case, I've set information technology up to turn the thermostat way downward to 50 degrees F if the temperature outdoors rises in a higher place 65 degrees.
Another useful integration is the
email trigger, which you can use to send IFTTT an email to gear up your Nest temperature.
All you have to do is configure the email trigger with a hashtag to identify the temperature setpoint command.
Then you can prepare the
Nest action
to use the body of the email as the setpoint temperature.
Now all you have to practice is send IFTTT an e-mail with the trigger hashtag in the subject, and the temperature you desire to set your Nest at in the torso of the email.
Or, you lot could prepare
a Facebook trigger, so that whatever time yous desire to set up your Nest to room temperature, or to an energy-saving temperature, y'all can post a condition update using a specific hashtag.
For example, you tin create a Facebook hashtag "#warmupnest" that'll set the Nest thermostat to lxx degrees whatsoever time y'all post a status update with that hashtag in it.
Just utilize the Nest action, and requite information technology the temperature setpoint for that hashtag.
If yous always weigh yourself in the morning on your Aria scales, or log your sleep fourth dimension with your Fitbit t, why not create a
Fitbit trigger
in IFTTT for those ii actions?
Or, what if you'd like to ensure that the Nest keeps your business firm at a cooler, energy-saving temperature whenever you're at piece of work and non at abode? Create a
Foursquare trigger
so that every time yous cheque-in at your workplace, your Nest action lowers the thermostat temperature to your energy saving setpoint.
IFTTT really transforms your Nest thermostat into a device that you lot can access and command from anywhere, at any time, and in any which way yous delight.
Merely what about decision-making other things with your Nest? Well with IFTTT, that'south possible too.
Have Your Nest Trigger Home Automation
The beauty of having a Nest product in your firm is that y'all have a device that always knows when you lot're home and when you're away. This can really come in handy when you want to trigger useful automations.
For example, you tin employ the IFTTT Nest trigger of "Home" status to switch your
Android to silent/vibrate manner
whenever you lot arrive home, so y'all can have uninterrupted, quality family time.
Or, how well-nigh using it to trigger an
automatic Facebook update
letting everyone know that you're home! By the time you really sit downwardly to the reckoner and log into Facebook, yous'll have a bunch of responses from your friends.
You could even apply it to
log data collection
to your Google Drive account, in case yous desire to track the exact time that you arrived dwelling from work or from traveling. This tin can be especially useful if you lot're getting paid for travel and need to know the times that yous leave and get in.
You can actually have the Nest and IFTTT log both when yous're away and when you lot're dwelling house every twenty-four hours. The best mode to practice this would be using the Nest "Abroad" trigger to log that data every bit a new row in a spreadsheet.
If you work in a home office and your remote squad all communicates on Slack (like many do), y'all could even utilize the Slack Activeness in IFTTT and have your Nest automatically
mail service a Slack update
in a specific channel letting everyone know that you're effectually if they demand anything.
These are just a few ideas pulled out of IFTTT, but there are many more than. The Nest integrations y'all'll find in that location are actually simply limited past your ain imagination.
Develop Your Own Web or Mobile Apps
If all of those integrations aren't flexible enough for you lot, and if you know how to use JSON and Firebase libraries in web or mobile apps, you tin really custom code your ain applications using the Nest API.
Nest offers full documentation [Broken URL Removed] and API reference for learning how to practise this.
At that place's likewise a Nest Labs area at GitHub where you'll find some authentication code as well as application samples you can review.
Then, the adjacent time someone tells y'all that the Nest thermostat is but a thermostat, make sure to tell them just how much more it really is. With all of the integrations to a higher place and all of the new products coming on the market that are compatible with it, it tin truly become the heart of any smart home.
Exercise y'all own a Nest thermostat? What's your feel with it? Do you take any other creative home automation ideas using the Nest?
