Nest 3rd Generation Thermostat Released

Looks like the Nest 3 is released and shipping in a day or two.

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n @ 2.4GHz, 5GHz
802.15.4 @ 2.4GHz
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

They also released a new Android App which is supposed to fix Nest Cam issues among others.

New iOS app too is released right now.

I don’t know about other people, but I’m a little uninspired by the 3rd gen. I have a 2nd gen so call it bias, but these are the only reasons I see to upgrade:

  1. WiFi congestion where 5Ghz might otherwise alleviate
  2. Going Nest/Google route for whole home automation which might make the BLE useful. Obviously this doesn’t apply to any of us.

At least the 1st gen to 2nd gen upgrade added humidifier support. If anything, I’m disappointed because I was considering selling my 2nd gen which now has dropped significantly in value.

I always ask myself why I buy Nest products because I always feel like I’ve been suckered afterword. The Nest Cam has been such a disappointment after Drop Cam. The new app has just crashed twice.

I think they make it better for iOS users! No crashes to report! :slight_smile:

I don’t really use any features of the Nest anymore other than a basic schedule that I use to override SmartThings on purpose instead of reworking a schedule in SmartThings. All intelligence has been offloaded into SmartThings, like automatic humidity control, presence,etc.

The only reason it is still on my wall at this point is because my wife prefers controlling it via the Nest app instead of the SmartThings app.

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Good thing I saw this. I just bought a 2nd Gen Nest 2 weeks ago for my new bedroom extension. I will be returning it at BestBuy and ordering this now.

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@Mbhforum I have never owned a Nest thermostat. Are they any good? I heard horrible things about the second gen when it was released. Have things improved? And does it require a Common? I went the Ecobee3 route for AC. Have two heating thermostats which I am thinking about replacing before winter… Just wondering…

The pain with the Nests was not actually the 2nd generation hardware, but rather the firmware updates that Nest/Google performed to support the 2nd gen (it affected my first gen Nests as well). They have since fixed their issues in my household and they are back to being the wonderful devices that I had the first 2 years. It was a bumpy ride for a few months.

They have wiring diagrams on their site, I can’t recall if it required a common.

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What problems did you have. I had issues with power. After a firmware update I had to run a common line because the fan on my furnace kept turning on/off when trying to cool.

This is for Thread.

Too bad not ZigBee HA.

Good article on the new model. It as a significantly bigger display than the previous model, with a better Farfield recognition, so it’s supposed to be better for viewing from across the room.

They are also adding more OMG features which will also be applied to previous generations. (That is, notifications when the temperature is wildly out of expected range, way too high or way too low.)

Am I the only one who thinks the OMG features are intended as a defense against malicious mischief hackers?

edited to add

Thanks to @beckwith for catching the typo in the URL, I have fixed it in this post.

Typo in URL:

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Looks like Nest added Geothermal support with its “Heat Pump Balance” feature:

I’d be really surprised if they removed the ZigBee radio. Maybe it is still in there and turned off like it was/is with their current thermostats.

My Nests kept going offline

@Mbhforum oddly enough I changed my DNS servers on my router from the Google DNS to OpenDNS and that had great improvement.

I was using OpenDNS the entire time and that didn’t factor into it. They eventually replaced one of my thermostats with a 2nd gen one and I think between that and software releases, the issue slowly got better.

Zigbee and Thread run on the same radio. It’s in there, but it may not be accepting zigbee commands.

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