These days, everything is becoming smarter. From toasters to toothbrushes, humble household items are acquiring impressive new sensors and abilities. This buyer's guide deals with one of the biggest Smart brands around. Nest offers a variety of advanced home products, from security cameras and video doorbells to ultra-effective smoke alarms, and cost-saving thermostats. Read on to find out what the brand can do for you, and how to buy its devices as cheaply as possible.
In 2010, Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers decided the time had come to go it alone. Seeing the potential for smart technology going to waste, the pair started a lab with a difference. Unlike current smart home systems like Google Home, Rogers and Fadell would focus on practical applications to make energy systems more efficient, boost home security, and generally enhance the way customers used their homes.
The first Nest Thermostat appeared soon after, in 2011. Dubbed a “Learning Thermostat”, the appliance was engineered to take information from its environment, and automatically adjust temperature levels to save energy and maintain comfortable conditions when humans are around. By mobilising data from smartphones and logging user schedules, the thermostat managed to learn more about users' habits than they may have known themselves. And it was a popular move, resulting in hundreds of thousands of purchases worldwide.
Since then, the thermostat has been joined by indoor and outdoor Nest Camera designs, security systems that integrate with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, as well as doorbells which utilise facial recognition. So whatever household security or energy challenges you face, there's a good chance that this trailblazing brand has already found the solution.
The smart home market grows bigger each year, meaning more and more companies are offering smart products for your home. It can sometimes be hard to tell the difference, as well as recognise the stars from the duds. Nest is a particularly strong brand, due in part to being one of the first on the market. Here’s a breakdown of why it stands out:
Technological Power – The standard of technology onboard outperforms Nest’s competitors. It’s acquired decades of combined experience since the company was founded, and have pioneered technologies like smartphone-thermostat integration, and 4K facial recognition for the company's cameras.
Collaboration – Secondly, the brand seeks out innovative collaborations, allowing it to expand its reach and the uses of its products. We mentioned the connection between security alarms and Google Home, while the brand's Smart Lock systems have been developed with the help of Yale.
Chic Design – Then there's the aesthetic side of things. When you buy a camera, thermostat, or even a Nest Alarm, you can expect a stylish design which echoes the approach of Amazon, Apple, and Google. These smart appliances are intended to look the part and to be as unobtrusive as possible, so they won't ruin the look of anyone's living room.
Smart thermostats replace your conventional thermostats to give you far more flexibility when it comes to controlling your home heating. Nest currently offer 2 versions of their smart thermostat. Both models have some really cool features, like the ability to switch your heating off once it’s sensed you’ve left your home. Which model suits you best depends on how much control you want to have over your home heating:
Nest Thermostat E – The cheaper of the two models, the Nest Thermostat E gives you comprehensive control over your home’s radiators. You can set up a heating schedule that lets you have your radiators switch onto temperatures at preset times. You can also manually switch the temperature at any time as well, all you have to do is rotate the thermostat’s outer surface around like a conventional switch. The Thermostat E is also easy to install, it simply attaches to the wall with ease.
Nest Learning Thermostat –This thermostat goes one step further by programming an automatic schedule based on manual inputs you make during the first week of use. You literally don’t have to make any extra effort for it to have your heating automated. The Nest Learning Thermostat can also connect directly to your boiler, so you can use it to have hot water ready for your shower each morning.
Home security cameras are becoming a more common fixture in British homes, due in no small part to the dramatic reduction in cost seen in this market within the last 5 years. Nest offers a wide range of cameras, from tiny doorbell models to powerful HD cameras:
Nest Hello – This compact video doorbell shoots in 1080p, can live stream 24/7 to your smartphone or laptop, and features a “talk & listen” function. Nest Hello allows users to hear intruders if they enter the home, and to issue messages that often scare them away. When hooked up to Aware, these cams also record as much as 30 days footage and store it in the Cloud, providing plenty of evidence should you be the victim of break-in.
Nest Cam Indoor – This is the perfect camera for keeping an eye on what’s going on inside your home. The Nest Indoor Camera captures a live stream that can be viewed from anywhere, while also sending notifications automatically to your smartphone when it detects motion. It’s ideal for general home security or simply monitoring what’s going on around your home.
Nest Cam Outdoor – Complement indoor security footage with every external angle you need with one of the brand's popular outdoor cameras. Designed to be fitted to walls, and with rugged casings that can handle any weather conditions, the Nest Cam Outdoor offers 24/7 footage beamed straight to smartphones, providing complete awareness should trespassers violate your property. As with the indoor cams, they come in standard and more powerful IQ varieties.
Nest Cam IQ – Nest’s high-end cameras comes with extra features that enhance home security further. It has built-in ‘Supersight’, which lets the camera actively track people as they walk through the room. It also has features available like the ability to recognize who’s being recorded (a feature that’s normally only available with a Nest Aware subscription). An indoor version and outdoor version of the camera is available.
The Nest Protect is a smart alarm system which provides early warning of smoke or fires, as well as less commonly detected household dangers like carbon monoxide (CO). Capable of distinguishing burning food from the real deal, the smart smoke alarm can provide voice alerts to your phone, and actually tests itself throughout the day to ensure that the sensors are functioning at 100% efficiency.
Aware will make a Nest Camera or doorbell much more powerful. With an Aware membership, customers can store 30-days-worth of footage in an individual Cloud account and set facial recognition alerts to let you know when specific people are at the door. It's sadly not free – subscriptions come in 5, 10, or 30-day varieties and you can buy them as and when you need them. So, if you're heading abroad for an extended holiday, but want to stay totally in control of who accesses your home, you can easily purchase a package. And with hotukdeals, Aware subscriptions can often be enjoyed for far less, so check for discount codes before you buy your subscription.
As we mentioned earlier, there's a bigger concept behind these products. The idea is to fit them together and use them with other smart tech or smartphones to optimise the way you use your home. But how can this be done? It might seem daunting to people who are new to smart tech, but you don't need to have an engineering degree to get started.
If security is your priority, it makes a lot of sense to buy cameras and doorbell devices at the same time. UK merchants often offer multi-buy deals for home security projects, and this can drive down the cost of security considerably. Think about how many cameras you'll actually need and remember – if you buy one at a time, the costs will be much higher than buying in bulk.
When setting up a smart home, make sure you have the right central hub. We'll talk more about this in a moment, but for now, let's say that Nest Thermostat, camera, and security products can be enhanced by working together with devices like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. With one of those systems in place, you can use standard wifi to connect more devices, such as Philips Hue lights or Samsung SmartThings devices.
The key thing is to plan ahead and understand which elements make up your ideal smart home. Don't buy on the spur of the moment (after all, smart tech isn't cheap). Be systematic, base purchases on your actual needs, and take advantage of deals as they become available.
Amazon Alexa is the number one home assistant tool, and probably has the slickest voice activation features around. So, it's a natural entry point for all sorts of smart devices. It took a while to happen, but Alexa will now work with your Nest camera and other products via a standard Amazon Echo speaker.
Beware though. In Europe, Alexa currently works with the 2nd and 3rd generation of the Nest Learning Thermostat, but not the E thermostat. So bear that in mind when choosing your smart devices. If you have the right equipment, just fire up Alexa, say “Alexa, discover my devices”, and your cameras or thermostat should be found quickly. It's incredibly easy.
You can use your Nest devices with Google Home much in the same way you can use them with Alexa. So if you'd prefer to control your home temperature or check security footage via Google Assistant, you're in luck.
Finally, can the brand's smart tech be integrated with the Apple Homekit? This is actually a sensitive question, as the answer is currently no. Even though the company was founded by Apple engineers, it's not possible to connect thermostats or cameras to Apple Homekit devices.
If you want to increase the IQ of your home, it's surely time to join the Smart revolution. However, as anyone who has tried to do so will confirm, this isn't always a cheap option. While smart tech has come down in price in recent years, it remains a premium product, making it essential to take advantage of any savings you can find. Fortunately, those savings aren't rare – especially at the hotukdeals smart home listings. But before you even think about consulting the listings, take some time to plan what you need.
When it comes to security cameras, less is more. Don't over-buy cameras that won't make a difference. Pick strategic locations that cover as much ground as possible. Thinking about the particular features of each camera is also important. Do you need to buy the top-end camera model, or does the cheapest model suffice for doing basic surveillance? Keeping the number of cameras you want to buy and the features available in mind will stop you from overbuying and ultimately wasting your money.
In the case of thermostats, there's a strong case for anyone making their heating systems “smarter”. It can be tough to simply reduce your heating use manually, so all of us can save cash by adding automated devices to our homes. Sure, the initial cost may seem significant for brand new models, but the long term savings will pay for that in time.
When all of that's out of the way, you're ready to make a purchase. Simply head to the hotukdeals listings, where you'll find Nest thermostat deals, money off cameras, doorbells, and everything else in the company's range. Expect Nest deals with merchants like Asda, Toolstation, Amazon, John Lewis, Screwfix and Argos. So if it's available for less in the UK, you'll find it in our listings.
It may also be worthwhile to time your purchase to find the best deals. The New Year sales are a good time to add a smart thermostat (especially with much of the winter and spring still to come), while Black Friday in November is always packed with tech deals. But whenever you need to find Nest deals, check back with hotukdeals, where you'll find prices slashed on cutting edge technology from the UK's biggest retailers.
The Smart technology from Nest offers so many advantages, holding out the possibility of dramatically reducing your heating bills, protecting your home from intruders, and even letting you know when friends have popped by. If that sounds good to you, check out the wide range of Nest offers at hotukdeals.
