The Nest Thermostat E is ugly and cheap

If you’ve had your eyes on the Nest Thermostat, but the $249 price tag kept you from making, then today’s your lucky day! Nest announced the Nest Thermostat E which is a cheaper, uglier Nest Thermostat. The Nest Thermostat E is $169, which is only $80 less than premium Thermostat. For the lower price, you get a plastic rim that’s meant to feel like ceramic and a low-resolution screen that has a white diffuser to distract from the screens reduced quality. There is also no display awareness, so you’ll need to press on the display to turn it on. The Nest Thermostat E also lacks some connections found in premium A/C units, so the E will only work in 85% of homes compared to the Nest proper working in 95% of homes.

Besides the uglier design, cheaper materials, and fewer connections the Nest Thermostat E does exactly what the premium version does; learn what you set the temperatures too, set the thermostat to away, and save you money. It also works with every Nest compatible device from Philips Hue lights, Nest cameras, and every device in between.

Will the Nest Thermostat E help with sales?

Most customers didn’t want to spend $249 on a Nest Thermostat when they could buy alternatives for half the price. Many energy companies also offered their customers free or discounted thermostats, but the Nest option still carried a high price. Now at the $169 price, it’s still at the high end, but it’s more competitive with most “smart thermostats.” The only up side the Nest ecosystem is you still get to use the beautiful app and use the advanced learning algorithms.

Nest hopes the cheaper version will boost sales of the Thermostat and companion products like the Nest Protect or Nest Cam. They want to push their platform of “Works with Nest,” among more customers. The problem I see Nest facing is not having any other “cheap” products. The other products in their lineup are  $150 or more, and always on the premium end of the market. While Nest will sell more of the Nest Thermostat E’s than their Nest Thermostat’s, they won’t see a huge jump in sales of their other products. Maybe we’ll see more affordable home devices from Nest in the next couple of months.

Let me know what you think about the new cheaper, uglier thermostat! Are you going to buy one or are you going to opt for the more expensive version?


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