In the UK, for 79% of households, rising gas and electricity prices contributed the most to people’s cost of living.¹ A smart thermostat can really make an impact on your home’s energy use, by keeping track of it and reducing your overall energy bill. 

It seems simple, but one of the best and least used tools for energy savings is programming your thermostat. But many programmable thermostats are just set to stay at one temperature all the time. Many people don’t know how to manually create an energy-efficient schedule, or find it too complicated. That’s where Nest smart thermostats come in.

Nest automatic thermostats make it simple. Our thermostats either automatically learn your preferences and routines and build a schedule for you, or they guide you through creating an energy-efficient schedule yourself. Once that schedule is set, your Nest thermostat will automatically adjust the temperature throughout the day to help run your heating more efficiently, so you can save and be comfortable at the same time.

Helpful features like Savings Finder on the Nest Thermostat and Seasonal Savings on the Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat can help you save even more. Savings Finder suggests tweaks you can make to your temperature schedule, like adjusting your sleep temperature a bit. Just accept the Savings Finder suggestions to start saving. And Seasonal Savings fine-tunes your temperature schedule as the seasons change. You can learn more in this published paper. 

In many households, a lot of energy is wasted heating or cooling the home when nobody’s there. If you opt in, Nest automatic thermostats can use sensors and your phone’s location to determine whether you’ve left the house. Then, the thermostat can set itself to an Eco temperature when you’re away, so you don’t waste energy heating or cooling an empty home.³

The Nest Leaf icon appears on your Nest thermostat or in the  smartphone heating control app to signal that you’ve made an adjustment to a more energy-efficient temperature.³ The Leaf encourages you to choose energy-saving temperatures that are a little higher or lower than what you’ve set in the past, all in the name of energy and cost savings. 

Nest thermostats are also smart about when to use energy, thanks to Rush Hour Rewards. Just as traffic clogs up roads when everyone drives to work at the same time, energy rush hours occur when a lot of people in a particular area turn on air conditioning or heating at once. With Rush Hour Rewards, you can earn rewards from your energy company by using less energy when others are using more.

Many other smart thermostat brands estimate savings by comparing to a thermostat set to 22°C 24/7 all year long. This can often result in higher savings estimates. Instead, Nest calculates savings using a more rigorous approach based on real data.

We reviewed the energy bills of real people in real homes across 41 US states before and after installing the Nest Learning Thermostat. We watched the data roll in from two independent studies and the results were clear: on average, the Nest Learning Thermostat saves 10% to 12% on heating. Read more in our energy savings white paper.²

And the energy-saving smarts from the Nest Learning Thermostat are in every thermostat we make. So it’s simple: Nest smart thermostats can help you save.

The kilowatt-hour (kWh) ticker features an estimate of how many kilowatt-hours all Nest thermostats have saved since October 2011.⁴

These energy savings are calculated based on the typical percentage of heating and cooling savings found in real-world studies of the Nest Learning Thermostat. To calculate the total savings, we apply these savings percentages to the actual heating and cooling hours of all Nest thermostats.

For our kWh ticker, we estimate the rate of savings for the upcoming month based on the total savings calculated for the prior month adjusted for the average rate of savings from the same month last year (and then reduce this rate by 25% to be conservative).

Google thermostats keep your home cool in summer and warm in winter, just as you like – with many ways to increase your savings.