Cool Product: The Nest Thermostat

Programmable thermostats come in handy when you’re walking that fine line between expensive energy bills and frozen pipes at the cabin. But wouldn’t it be nice if your thermostat could recognize when you are away from the cabin and automatically adjust the temperature accordingly?

For $249, you can swap out your tired thermostat for the Nest Learning Thermostat (www.nest.com), a device that can program itself based on your heating and cooling habits.

The Nest is simple to install and easy to adjust: turn the outer stainless-steel ring to the right to increase the temperature and left to turn it down. The display is orange when it’s in heating mode and blue when it’s cooling. A small, green leaf icon appears when you choose an energy-saving temperature. After just a few days of manual temperature adjustments, the Nest learns what temperatures you like and builds a personalized schedule to set itself.

Program an energy-efficient “away” temperature for when you’re not at the cabin. If you forget to set the Nest to “away” mode when you close up, it has an “Auto-Away” function that kicks in when the device senses no movement inside the cabin.

Finally, if you are lucky enough to have a wireless Internet connection at the cabin, you can adjust the thermostat remotely using your smartphone or other mobile device, so you can arrive to a toasty cabin, even in late February.