Nest is singlehandedly responsible for the current boom in the intelligent thermostat market. It also still makes the best smart thermostat money can buy. The third-generation Nest remains the best in the business despite all of the improvements we’ve seen in rival devices, but it’s also one of the more expensive options out there — it retails for $250, though digging through the “other sellers” section on Amazon can save you between $15 and $20. That’s still a pretty heft sum when there are basic options out there for under $100, even if Nest is the best of the bunch.
Stronger competition from entry-level devices hasn’t gone unnoticed at Nest, and rumors have emerged over the past few months suggesting that the company is working on a new smart thermostat that will launch at a lower price point. Now, it appears as though the rumors were just confirmed and the upcoming new Nest Learning Thermostat has been pictured for the first time.
Gadget leaker Evan Blass posted a photo on Friday night that appears to show a sleek new Nest thermostat that we’ve never seen before. The device shown in the leak ditches Nest’s typical stainless steel enclosure in favor of a new plastic design, and the display appears to be much lower quality than the crisp LCD screen on the third-generation Nest model.
Why is everyone so excited about a new Nest Learning Thermostat that appears to be a big step backwards in terms of materials and overall design? Because it appears as though this is the new lower-cost Nest thermostat that the company is reportedly working on behind closed doors.
Here’s the image of the upcoming new model:
I might just move on from phones altogether… pic.twitter.com/6WyLEeUD6A
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 19, 2017
A Bloomberg report from back in March stated that Nest was at the time working on a new thermostat that would be released with a list price of under $200. Since then, we’ve heard more of the same from multiple sources. While release timing for the new model is still something of a mystery, we’ve heard that it will likely be out in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season.
