Google Nest Smart Thermostat (Open Box)

UPDATE: Nest Accuracy Just spent 40 minutes chatting with some at the Google store regarding the accuracy of their Nest thermostat product. Asked what I thought was a pretty straightforward question - how accurate is the temperature and humidity data shown in my Nest app? Just installed a new AprilAire whole house humidifier and wanted to quantify the change. Well, it seems there isn’t much documentation available… Was told that they thought the temperature was accurate to 1% - and the same applied to its humidity setting. Pointed out that 1% was probably not an issue at 50% humidity, but would be miles off at a 10% environment. They did offer to sell me another one, I guess to benchmark it to my existing Nest (which might or might not be refurbished), but I declined. Shame consumer products not getting the support they deserve - especially one that directly impacts household environmental quality. Bottom line: Is this thermostat accurate - don’t know. If you’re like me, and would like to know what you’re getting into before you start a project, Nest thermostat installation will be frustrating. Picking one out to begin with is confusing - C wire, no C wire, etc - hooking up fairly straight forward, the tough part is getting the thing to eventually work… There is literally nothing in the box that helps sort any of this out - you will learn/fail as you go along with the on line set up and thousands of YouTube tutorials. Google saves $1 per unit by not including directions and leaves it up to the Nest “community” to walk you through it. Hopefully. After diagnosing we had a wiring issue (wire broke trying to jockeying it into the baseplate) we ended up with a persistent E294 error code. Again, Google saves money by not having any on line live chat or call center and we ended up getting by with one of the YouTube “experts” advice (disconnect and set up again) which finally worked after a couple hours effort. The most telling sign that Google underplays how easy this is to install is how quickly they route you to an installation company to make your headaches go away. The end result is a fancy set back thermometer (which we already had) that connects to your phone, spies on your activity, and encourages you to let your power company decide how comfortable you are going to be. The only benefit I see in this device is potentially easier programming - and seeing and adjusting comfort levels away from home. Spouse works from home, so setback features fairly minimal during the day, but knowing that system was not running properly (which recently happened when out of town) is nice. UPDATE: Much like the Ring doorbell we recently installed, Nest makes it impossible (so far) to easily add a second user to their account. Trying to add myself as a second user, the Nest said there was something wrong with the thermostat and would require yet another factory reset - which I am not ready to do as it has already taken over two hours just to get it working in the first place. Signing in as my spouse, can finally see the pretty basic control panel for the Nest thermostat. Don’t see any system health features (like battery life) or any programming suggestions (like eco mode) that would add value to this product. Without a sizable rebate from our electric utility, probably would have never purchased this product and waste several hours installing and troubleshooting. Support is nearly nonexistent and/or unreliable sourced. UPDATE 2: After battling with the Nest for a week, decided we had to invest more $$$ in a remote temperature sensor. Our Nest is stationed in corner of dining room and therefore sees little traffic to activate it. Having a warm Summer, was getting tired of Nest going Eco on us and letting house get into the 77-78 degree range, especially since it was set to 74. After fiddling around with the remote sensor, it eventually dawned on us that we had just purchased an early generation Nest, built several years ago, which would not recognize any sensor we tried to pair it with. We, wrongly assumed in this case, a brand new Google Nest would be, brand new (latest generation). Had the pleasure of paying $6 to return this useless accessory.