The "Shit I just bought" thread

joeboo_sl said:

Just FYI for anyone installing a Nest thermostat...check with your homeowners insurance company as it could get you an additional discount.

I work for a fairly large insurance company and we started giving additional insurance discounts this year for "smart home" devices. Things like Nest thermostats and smoke detectors, Dropcam cameras(that have the "pro" subscription service to cloud record video), Wally water leak detectors, smart garage door openers such as the Chamberlain Smart Garage Door Opener and the Craftsman AssureLink Garage Door Opener, home management systems including Piper, SmartThings, Iris, and Honeywell Lyric Security System, etc.

None of these are traditional off-site monitored services like an ADT or Brinks alarm system, but all might get you additional discounts on your homeowners insurance. Insurance companies are slowly starting to realize how well these devices work to help mitigate major losses.

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Thanks for the tip, time to call my State Farm agent then. I've got the Chamberlain Q garage door opener, Nest thermostat, Canary video camera, and Ring.com video doorbell. The doorbell actually saved me from being robbed, because the thief rang it and when I answered it from work he skipped over my place and robbed my neighbor instead. The robbers use an innocent looking chick and dog to ring doorbells/intercoms to see if someone is home, and if not she calls the Boys to come shakedown your home.

With the amount of smart devices you have they may end up paying you

How does your insurance company know you have the Nest or Dropcam? Receipts?

Same thing with the cloud recording. How do they know if I have it or not?

I never knew about the dropcam and we are about to buy another one so maybe I should look into this...

I mean, you wouldn't want to get this stuff just for the sake of insurance savings, i think we give like 3% discount per smart device up to a max of 15%, so it's not like you'll be saving a ton of money, but it might add up to a couple hundred bucks. Better than nothing If you were going to get the things anyways.

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:

No, the batteries have no bearing on the C-wire, they are there in case the power goes out like your alarm clock. That being said, if you yank the batteries and the display goes dark, you don't have a C-wire or it's not hooked up.

Here's a good guide on the C-wire.. FYI I did the "fan wire" tick they mention not to do.. Personally, I don't give a shit about independently running your central air fan without heat/cool, what's the point?

Thermostat C Wire: Everything you need to know about the wire

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My thermostat is shitting the bed for the past couple of days, I am considering replacing it with a Nest. According to the documentation on my current thermostat (Carrier Infinity Series SYSTXCCUID01) it says the four wires it has are: Data A (green), Data B (yellow), 24 VAC Com (white), and 24 VAC Hot (red). I am assuming that the white is the C wire but I am not sure. Iwent ahead and emailed Nest to see.

chaos_sl said:

My thermostat is shitting the bed for the past couple of days, I am considering replacing it with a Nest. According to the documentation on my current thermostat (Carrier Infinity Series SYSTXCCUID01) it says the four wires it has are: Data A (green), Data B (yellow), 24 VAC Com (white), and 24 VAC Hot (red). I am assuming that the white is the C wire but I am not sure. Iwent ahead and emailed Nest to see.

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They won't be able to tell you based on that information I don't think. Every system has thecapabilityof having a C-wire, it's just a matter of whether the installers bothered to hook it up depending on a) whether your thermostat needed it or b) they were lazy or not. But figuring out whether you have one is easy, either:

a) Pop the faceplate off your thermostat and look at the wires/terminals. You'll have a terminal labelled "C". If there is a wire there, you're golden. If not, look to see if there is a loose wire stuffed behind the thermostat or in the drywall hole. If there is, this is most likely your C wire and can be confirmed by doing b)

b) Go to your HVAC air handler (not your condenser), pop the cover off, and look at the circuit board terminals. One terminal will also be labelled "C". If you had the loose wire I mentioned in a) behind your thermostat, and the same color wire is hooked to "C" in your air handler, then your good to go simply by connecting the loose wire tucked behind your thermostat to C on your nest.

If you don't have an extra wire behind your thermostat, and/or no wire connected to C on your air handler, then you'll either need to pass a wire yourself (usually unfeasible) or do the fan jumper trick.

chaos_sl said:

My thermostat is shitting the bed for the past couple of days, I am considering replacing it with a Nest. According to the documentation on my current thermostat (Carrier Infinity Series SYSTXCCUID01) it says the four wires it has are: Data A (green), Data B (yellow), 24 VAC Com (white), and 24 VAC Hot (red). I am assuming that the white is the C wire but I am not sure. Iwent ahead and emailed Nest to see.

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White usually is heat, green usually is fan, red usually is power. Can't tell you what the yellow is for sure. FWIW c-wire is the one that typically doesn't have a standard color.

joeboo_sl said:

I mean, you wouldn't want to get this stuff just for the sake of insurance savings, i think we give like 3% discount per smart device up to a max of 15%, so it's not like you'll be saving a ton of money, but it might add up to a couple hundred bucks. Better than nothing If you were going to get the things anyways.

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Meh, 6% for two cameras basically takes care of the amount my homeowner's seems to be increasing this year so it's worth a check.

Meh, mine uses some carrier proprietary connectivity so nest won't work without heavy modification, so says nest.

chaos_sl said:

Meh, mine uses some carrier proprietary connectivity so nest won't work without heavy modification, so says nest.

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That blows, but if it's any consolation Carrier manufactures Wi-Fi thermostats that will perform the same functions, they're just more expensive.

No idea if it will work the proprietary Carrier stuff or not, but if you want a smart thermostat you should also look into theSmart WiFi Thermostats by ecobee |

I actually would have prefered this option as you can add remote sensors throughout the house and base the temp on an average of the readings rather than a single thermostat. My house in particular, the downstairs is basically one big area and the upstairs is all separate bedrooms so the bedrooms can get rather toasty by the time the thermostat downstairs hits the set temp. I only have the Nest because it was a gift, although worth pointing out that the 3rd gen Nests have bluetooth capabilities which leaves the door open for remote sensors down the line.

Just googled this nest thing everyone is talking about, so its just a wifi thermostat that programs itself "No more confusing programming."? Personally, I'd rather do the one time programming rather than adjust the thermostat until it learned what I wanted it to do and save myself nearly half the price.

mures_sl said:

Just googled this nest thing everyone is talking about, so its just a wifi thermostat that programs itself "No more confusing programming."? Personally, I'd rather do the one time programming rather than adjust the thermostat until it learned what I wanted it to do and save myself nearly half the price.

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The Nest knows when you're home and away because it has motion sensors. You can program your home thermostat but it requires ongoing adjustment, isn't smart enough to know you have the day off or are on vacation, and can't be controlled/monitored from your IPhone. The Nest cut my electricity bills by about 15%, so it was worth it and payed for itself in about a year. But yes, it doesn't do anything miraculous or life changing.

Yeah, I suppose a nest would be useful for someone who's schedule is constantly changing. At my house we're gone the same hours every week so it being programmable and running on a schedule isn't an issue. Not sure about the iphone thing as I use droid, of course it can be controlled by my phone.

The big thing for me with the Nest is that it is super easy to set to "home" or "away" with the push of a button (on my app). That alone will save me some money on my energy bills as it was a process to do the same on my current programmable thermostat (to the point where I wouldn't bother). Also has way better algorithms for adjusting and maintaining the temperature of the house, again saving me energy. Also you get tons of access to data that analyse your energy usage which should allow you to adjust as needed/wanted.

If it manages to automatically adjust itself to my wife's schedule (who works nights 1 week on, 1 week off basically) it will be even better. Also, the UI on my current programmable thermostat was such an un-intuitive, obtusive process it wasn't even worth trying. Finally if you go whole-home with Nest there are tons of other fringe benefits as well. Smoke detector goes off your thermostat can kill power to your furnace, record and event noted by your smoke detectors on your Nest(dropcam) cameras as well, etc.

Also, since Nest is owned by Google, doubt you'd have any issues on your Droid (I don't).

Rheem and Carrier like to do whatever the heck they want with their thermostats... mine must have been put in by some hack as it was a rheem, but didn't match rheem specs on the thermos side, but did on the air handler side- so there is a wire swap somewhere in the attic and then when I replaced it with a Lennox that uses standard wiring colors got swapped around again... basically the AC dude has to wire test everything to make sure its all plugged up correctly... I am thinking I am just going to run a new wireset that's proper...one day...

I checked my furnace and it has a C1 and a C2. Both have wires, but I'm not sure which is which.