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Nest: The Coolest and Hottest Gadget in One

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Just over a week ago I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that I would be raving over a thermostat, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing since I heard about Nest.

Nest, dubbed “the learning thermostat”, is probably one of the coolest gadgets (or hottest?) gadgets I’ve heard in quite a while. Sure, there are plenty of mobile devices that excite me, but the fact is that the demand for these mobile devices is such that you will see cool features left and right. Thermostats though are devices that seem to be stuck in time. This is perhaps one of the reasons why a new thermostat that smacks of innovation excites the geek in me; but enough about why I like the idea of an learning thermostat, and on to what it is exactly that makes this thermostat super cool.

Nest is called the learning thermostat not just for marketing purposes, but because it learns about your habits and preferences and is able to put the data it gathers into good use allowing you to save much on electricity. “Teaching” Nest to learn your habits is, however, no big deal since all you need to do is install it, answer a few basic questions (i.e. Should Nest start heating or cooling your home?), and then leave it alone to do the “learning” all by itself. Within a week, Nest should have come up with a schedule that is personalized to your needs. Even better, it adjusts the schedule to make it even more personalized as it gets more information about your daily, weekly, even monthly habits as time passes. In short, this thermostat programs itself.

You can also access Nest from anywhere using your mobile phone via the Nest mobile app, or on a PC connected to the Internet and adjust the thermostat anytime you want to. You can use the app to manage all thermostats at home if you opt to get one for each room, or even for thermostats located in different houses. And as for updates, there’s no need to do anything since Nest also automatically downloads and installs updates as long as it is connected to your Wi-Fi.

The Nest is already available for pre-order in the US for $249 with pre-orders limited to 5 units per person.

Photos courtesy of Nest

Home-Based Hydrogen Fuel Production

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Is it Viable? Yes and it has minimal if not zero emission of greenhouse gasses. This might become more of a necessity and scientists in Australia have come up with a prototype that can become a mainstay of homes in the near future. Hydrogen Fuel is one of the alternative fuels that is being looked at as a replacement technology to fuel vehicles of the future. Efforts to produce and use hydrogen have been plagued by problems such as the production of more than acceptable levels of greenhouse gasses for the production of the gas for fuel with today’s technology. Hopefully, advances in technology and fuel research will produce a more portable and easy to use version of today’s hydrogen production plants.

This solution would allow a localized production facility that makes enough hydrogen to fuel the family car for errands or short trips around town. The said home-scale production plant would be powered by solar panels further reducing their carbon footprint by removing the otherwise dirty need for power from the grid. It also allows small fuel plants to be installed at bus stops and other public transport system hubs that can make enough fuel to propel the vehicles to their next destination or stop. These forms of green technology are growing into our best solution to the already bad environment we live in as we work more to veer away from fossil fuels due to their unwanted byproducts that have accumulated to enough levels that a hole in the earth’s ozone layer has formed with no signs of its growth slowing. This has been result from years of uncontrolled venting of polluting gasses that end up as acids in the atmosphere as they react with the sun’s ultraviolet rays. This acid rain can even filter down to the water table rendering them useless worsening the already troubled water supply.

Hydrogen fuel is clean and it produces no gasses that harm the environment but many technologies still have to be developed to make it safer and easier enough to convince the average homeowner to shift to hydrogen fueled vehicles from their oil based predecessors. Safety is one of the key issues for hydrogen gas is highly explosive and combustible that any problem with containment has to be addressed well ahead of its implementation. The efficiency of engines is still quite low but they do have zero-emissions which is the main lure of the technology. The infrastructure for supporting such hydrogen based vehicles is quite expensive but that has been proven to be un-needed with the above mentioned home-based/local production facilities, the prototype being as big as a filing cabinet. Further research and development might allow it shrink considerably allowing home use.