Nest’s Smart Thermostat Gets Updated With A Bigger, Brighter Screen

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Back in June, Nest overhauled just about every product they make… save for one curious exception: the smart thermostat that most know them for best.

Two months later, Nest’s thermostat is getting an upgrade of its own.

So what’s new?

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If you walked by the new version without having seen the previous one in a while, you… might not notice a difference. This new third-gen Nest Thermostat looks just about the same as those that came before it; like its predecessors, it’s got a big ol’ bright circular display wrapped up inside a rotating silver ring that acts as the control interface.

Side-by-side, though, the differences are a bit more obvious. The third-gen Nest packs a bigger display (2.08 inches versus 1.75 inches) into a body that, while ever so slightly bigger (about a tenth of an inch larger in diameter), doesn’t jut quite as far out of the wall. That larger screen also packs a higher resolution than the one before it, with a resolution of 480×480 versus the 320×320 display of v2.

Meanwhile, Nest has introduced something that they’re calling “Farsight” — a fancy way of saying that its motion sensors can sense movement from a greater distance now. Whereas the previous generations promised to sense motion at a distance of about three feet, the third-gen screen’s motion detection is said to work “from across the room”.

The third-gen Nest thermostat goes on sale today at the same price as before: $249. Meanwhile, they’ve cut the price of the 2nd-gen model down to $199 — but only until the remaining stock runs dry.

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