Smart Home

The worst were those stupid fucking coil light bulbs that were supposed to last forever and save you money and they actually don't last very long and they give off no light.

 

So the Nest is working out?
I've glanced at them, but haven't pulled the trigger. Isn't it just a smart thermostat?

I skip on buying expensive bulbs. Parts of our house has old wiring. I change bulbs in the upstairs hall (two lights, four bulbs) on a monthly basis, because a bulb has blown. No way I'm paying $7 a bulb.

 

This is the first house I've owned, so this is the first time we're investing in this sort of stuff. Off the top of my head, my Amazon Prime membership saves me quite a lot, my wife's hybrid SUV turned out to be a money saver, and our high-effiency washer/dryer will begin saving us money soon.

Assuming the bulbs last three years, they will definitely save money and energy since they will all be installed in ceiling light units (ceiling fans, recessed lights, surface lights). We wouldn't randomly decide to swap them out for 60W bulbs. Same with the Nest Thermostats. Now that they're in, we're not going to pay a plumber to uninstall them and put in dumb thermostats.

 

We haven't moved back in yet, and they were only installed on Monday, so they're not fully set up. We haven't yet set up the Wi-Fi, which will give us the full functionality.

Yes, they are smart thermostats. Did mean they're just programmable thermostats? The Nest tracks your movement and your habits, so it learns when you are typically away from home or sleeping, turns down the heat automatically during the hours you're gone or snoozing, and it turns the heat back up in anticipation of your return or waking up. I read a report (not sponsored by Nest) that says that only about 6 percent of homeowners actually program their programmable thermostats, so the idea with Nest is that it doesn't require you to program it.

Also, the Wi-Fi capability and the app allow you to control the thermostat from anywhere, so if you're away on vacation but you forgot to turn down the thermostat before you left, you can do it remotely.

We move in next Friday and Nest says it takes about three weeks for it to learn your patterns, so we'll see. Right now, they probably assume we sleep from 3:30 p.m. until 7 a.m., since there's basically no movement in the house during those hours.

 

Net present value allows one to determine whether a project is worth financing. The discount rate is an assumed rate of return you could get if you invested the money in another venture.
10% is kind of a default, although it isn't really realistic in this case.

So, if the investment pays for itself in three years, your getting 33% on it. If the equipment fails after three years, it's a wash and a bad investment because you could have made 10% a year for three years on the money instead of breaking even.
However, if the equipment lasts 10 years, which is what I used on the payout, you come out way ahead because the savings you realize in years four through 10 are much more than you could have gotten from another investment.

 

Ah, gotcha, that makes sense. Yeah, I think we'll end up coming out ahead, of course assuming the equipment doesn't fail.

Before the renovation, we had regular Honeywell programmable thermostats and, frankly, they sucked. No matter how many times I tried to program them, the temperatures would somehow get screwed up and reset to some default setting, and I'd up manually overriding them to turn them down. The interface was clunky, at best, and we were wasting a ton of energy, something I hate doing.

 

We've got two thermostats - one on each end of the house. couldn't even tell you the brand, and have never had any trouble with them.

I will say that we have two tankless water heaters, and I regret that decision. hot water temperature cannot be well regulated, which is unpleasant for washing dishes and showering.

 

We had two zones as well and it was impossible to keep all the rooms at a consistent temperature. My son's room was always either 78 degrees or 63. We struggled to keep it comfortable for him. We replaced the whole heating system, so hopefully the new pipes, added zones and the thermostats will make things more comfortable and efficient.

We're probably going to get a new water heater soon, too. Our current water heater is about 15 years old and can be pretty unreliable. If we do a load of laundry or run the dishwasher before showering, we run out of hot water. Our energy company is offering a $750 rebate on a $1,000 heater, so we're going to try to take advantage of that (I have to make sure the new one is compatible with our current setup).

 

Ours are programmed. And they are somewhat efficient. Not so much when we leave the weekend or on vacation (then I just turn them off).
I like the wi-fi app, idea though.

 

Smart bulbs:

Get ready to dust off the old jokes about how many (fill in the blank) people it takes to change a light bulb. I just spent a week changing some of the bulbs in my house, and the complexity was enough to give me a migraine.

Programmable light bulbs — you never knew you needed such things, but maybe you do — are among the latest offerings of a technology industry that wants to fill homes with new Internet-connected appliances. So now the humble bulb of old is no longer a throwaway commodity.

It’s a smartbulb, complete with a computer-chip and wireless technology that connects it to the great hive brain in the sky.

The punch line, I suppose, is that these bulbs are worth considering if you ever fantasized about living in a Jetsons-type household, and if you have enough disposable income to pay the early-adopter tax currently being levied on them. For that price, you’ll enjoy features that may impress your friends, lower your electric bills and possibly even save the life of a loved one. But more on that later.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/g...tbulb.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimes

 

Open up another avenue for some 16-year-old hackin' asshat to mess with my life? No thanks! I'll keep the good old dial thermostat and light bulbs that don't bankrupt me if I drop them.

 

We built a new house 18 months ago that is "green". All of the light fixtures except the pot lights have CFL which gives off a light that I do not really like.

We are looking at swapping out with LED bulbs but they were running about 40 bucks a piece if you bought 10, up to 55 if you only bought one. They were supposed to last 20+ years so eventually recoup the cost.

What really appealed to us was that they were completely dimmable and had an enormous color range. Realistically we probably would not have programmed them for different colors but the ability to set precise light is very appealing.

As far as a Nest goes I have heard good reviews. In our case though we have a lot of people living in the house so basically keep the house at the same temperature all the time. Fortunately natural gas is cheap right now.