One of the most popular and capable smart home ecosystems available today is Works with Nest. But what exactly does work with Nest, and why should it matter to you? If you’re interested in bringing your smart home together in ways you can barely imagine, then you need to know all about Works with Nest. Read on for a detailed overview of what Works with Nest is, what products actually do work with Nest, and how this smart home ecosystem can bring your home forward into the truly connected age.
What is Works with Nest?
Works with Nest is a smart home ecosystem that allows many different kinds of smart devices to communicate and work together to make your home more energy efficient, safer, more comfortable, and far more convenient.
Moreover, compatible devices are not limited to those manufactured by Nest alone—devices from many other brands are also compatible.
Works with Nest essentially links your various smart devices together so they can cooperate for your benefit and enhance each other’s performance.
Nest also learns your preferences over time, thus personalizing your smart home experience by programming your devices so that you don’t have to. It literally learns your usage habits to anticipate and fulfill your future needs.
This makes Works with Nest an excellent hands-off way of managing your smart home devices. It’s both incredibly convenient and offers the potential of providing significant energy cost savings by managing your devices more efficiently.
For instance, by learning your sleeping and waking habits and adjusting the temperature in your home accordingly, Nest not only ensures that you’ll be warm while you sleep and comfortable when awake, but it also keeps your energy bill well under control.
Works with Nest is an incredible smart home ecosystem with numerous compatible products already and more being added each day. By reading the remainder of this article, you’re sure to get many more ideas on ways that Works with Nest can work with you!
Smart Thermostats
Some of the products that work most effectively with Nest are those that are actually manufactured by Nest. One such example is the entire Nest family of Smart Thermostats.
The good folks at Nest have been world-class experts in smart thermostats for nearly a decade now, and they show no signs of slowing down.
Nest’s smart thermostats have a variety of great features that will not only keep you comfortably enjoying ideal temperatures all the year round, but that can also save you big bucks on your future power bills.
Features like Nest’s smart learning technology allows models like the Nest Wi-Fi Smart Learning Thermostat to learn your schedule of comings and goings (as well as your heating and cooling preferences) over a period of time, and to later use the data it’s collected to program itself to operate more efficiently, thus reducing your energy usage by a whopping 20 percent.
In other words, Nest Learning Thermostats can turn themselves down when they know you’re not at home, which they’ve learned through your own usage habits. And, thanks to Works with Nest compatibility, this same knowledge can also be used by your other smart home devices. With smarts like that, the savings can only multiply!
Google Home
One of the coolest products that Works with Nest is the Google Home smart speaker, which is also one of today’s most relevant and useful smart home devices. Occupying the space of Voice Assistants & Accessories, Google Home is a product with many great features of its own (aside from its Nest compatibility). Even so, with Nest compatibility it becomes even better, as there are several specific voice commands that you can give to your Google Home unit that will directly control your Nest thermostat (depending on which generation of thermostat you have). For example, if you wanted to adjust the temperature in your home, you could give a command such as “Ok Google, make it warmer.” Alternatively, you might say something more specific, like “Ok Google, set the temperature to 68 degrees.” Either way, Google Home is capable of working with Nest to make your life easier and more convenient.
Safety Sensors & Detectors
Another smart product type that Works with Nest is Safety Sensors & Detectors. These devices are among the most important we’re discussing today, as they can literally save your life. This is even more true when they work in conjunction with Nest, as the Nest Protect Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm does. This incredible multi-purpose detector has an amazing safety feature whereby it can communicate with your Nest thermostat in the event that CO is detected in your home. Your Nest thermostat can then take the precaution of turning off your furnace to stop the CO leak at its most likely source. This is the kind of protection that only the best sensors and detectors can provide!
Smart Security Cameras
Smart Security Cameras are yet another area of significant Nest compatibility. This has never been more true than with the Nest Cam Wi-Fi Indoor IP Camera itself, which works perfectly with other Nest products like the Nest Thermostat and Nest Protect. For example, if your Nest Protect detects smoke, this camera will automatically begin recording, which could help you to determine what happened (if there was an actual fire in your home). It could also potentially help you with an insurance claim if it caught something of note that could help to explain the fire. Another useful benefit is the fact that it begins to record whenever your Nest Thermostat is set to its Away mode. This means that whenever you’re not at home, there’s always a camera on duty keeping an eye on things. But not only that—in cooperation with other Works with Nest devices, this type of camera protects your home under a variety of different circumstances.
Smart Locks & Door Bells
Smart Locks & Door Bells are yet another smart home innovation that frequently Works with Nest—particularly if you have one of Nest’s own locks, like the Nest x Yale Wi-Fi Smart Lock with Nest Connect (shown at left). This lock (and others like it) can be programmed to lock automatically whenever you’re away from home. Similarly, they can unlock again when the Nest system knows that you’ve returned. And, thanks to the Nest App, this specific lock can be controlled from virtually anywhere in the world, giving you complete control over access and entry into your home. If, for example, you’re half way across the country when expecting a delivery at home, you can literally give someone temporary access to your home at your own convenience. Or, if you can’t remember whether or not you locked the door when you left, you’ll easily be able to check in at any time and from anywhere. It’s the perfect marriage of security and convenience.
Smart Lights, Plugs, & Switches
Of course, when it comes to Nest compatibility, we mustn’t forget about Smart Lighting, Plugs, & Switches, which together comprise one of the most Nest friendly categories of smart home product there is.
Among the many things that Works with Nest can do for you here is telling your Philips Hue Smart Lights (one of the most compatible smart lighting brands you can get) to automatically turn off whenever you leave the house.
Similarly, you could have a specific light(s) turn on inside your home (or have an outdoor floodlight come on) if your outdoor security cameras detect a potential trespasser on your property. This would have the effect of making it look to strangers as though someone was at home even if nobody was.
Finally, you might set your smart lights throughout the house to flash frantically in bright colours if smoke or carbon monoxide was detected by your home’s smart sensors and detectors, such as the Nest Protect. This way, if you don’t hear the alarm sounding (maybe you’ve got headphones in and turned up loud), you’ll still be warned of the danger by the wildly flashing lights.
Of course, these are just a few of the ways that smart lighting can work with Nest to make your life easier. Nest can also turn your lights off if you mistakenly left them on when leaving for work, and the Nest Cam can work with your lights to help maintain your home’s established security parameters.
Additional Smart Home Devices
The smart devices discussed above are certainly not the only types that work with Nest to make our lives safer, easier, and more comfortable and secure, but they are the major product classifications at present.
A few key brands that also Work with Nest that we didn’t quite get to cover here include August Smart Locks, certain Belkin WeMo Plugs & Switches, Chamberlain Garage Door Openers, and Logitech Harmony Remote Controls, to name but a few.
Of course, since more and more smart home brands and products are being designed for Nest compatibility all the time, this is really an area that requires a fair bit of monitoring to keep up with, as you just never know what might be coming next.
Thus, I invite you to keep checking in with Best Buy online from time to time for all of your Works with Nest inquiries and needs.
