smart home

Is the Smart Home Here?

  • June 17, 2015
  • By MR COOL

Is our smart home finally here?

Futurists have promised smart home technologies and systems for a very long time. They’ve also promised flying cars, jet packs, and personal helicopters.

Some of those things (hint: it’s not the jet packs) are finally here.

Your Smart Home with Nest (and MrCool, of course)

Heard of Nest?

If not, you need to get acquainted. Nest is a company developing high-tech, smart alternatives to traditional home technologies. Their best and brightest example is the Nest Learning Thermostat.

Programmable thermostats have been around for years. In theory, they allow your central air system to work more efficiently. When you’re home, it’s running. When you’re not, it dials down to save energy and cash.

This is great, but the programming part of the programmable thermostat has always been the hard part. They were not, to put it simply, easy to figure out.

How is the Nest Learning Thermostat different?

The Nest Learning Thermostat programs itself. All you have to do is teach it your schedule for a few days by turning it up or down as needed, and it will learn what you need and when. That learning really pays off when your annual heating and cooling bill drops 20%.

And that’s not all Nest has to offer.

Nest Protect

You have a smoke alarm in your home. Most people use their smoke alarm to terrify the dog every time something burns on the stove. Another great thing conventional smoke alarms do really well is wake you up in the middle of the night, because, let’s face it, that’s the only time when a smoke alarm battery could possibly gets low.

It’s like they want us to hate them.

But smoke alarms are definitely here to stay. Today, fires are more dangerous, and can completely consume a room in as little as five minutes.

Nest Protect is the alternative. Nest Protect is a smart smoke alarm designed to alert you when there’s an actual threat, and it does so in an innovative way. If the Nest Protect detects a fire in the living room, it will sound an alarm and speak in a clear, human voice. It tells you, clearly, where and what the danger is. It will even send a message to your smart phone or tablet. You’ll know the moment disaster strikes whether you’re home or not.

Plus, it doesn’t beep interminably when the battery gets low. It just sends you a heads-up on your phone, so you can change the battery comfortably before you’re asleep.

And MrCool?

Of course, we aren’t going to leave ourselves out of this smart home equation. Select MrCool systems are Nest Thermostat compatible, and we go a step further. If you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can control our newest MrCool units from your smart phone or tablet with a fingertip.

Smart home technology doesn’t have to be hard, annoying, or complicated. It can now be easy, simple, and convenient.

We’re in the future after all.


21 thoughts on “Is the Smart Home Here?”

  1. Are you evolving the systems that currently don’t support Nest to do so in the future? Will my Olympus ceiling cassette eventually allow me to use a Nest?

    1. No, they don’t. Typically, mini-split systems are not connected to a traditional thermostat, since there is already a thermostat built into the mini-split air handler.

      1. ” Select MrCool systems are Nest Thermostat compatible”

        “No, they don’t. Typically, mini-split systems are not connected to a traditional thermostat, since there is already a thermostat built into the mini-split air handler.”

        So which is it? In the article it says they are, then here you say they’re not.

        So are Mr. Cool systems nest themostat combatible or are they not?

  2. There is information on the Mr Cool site that says the products are evolving to work with Nest.

    I know mini splits don’t connect to traditional thermostats, but I assumed that both Nest & Mr Cool cloud services could sync to allow the Nest to control the DIY mini split. That’s how most “works with Nest” products work.

  3. People want nest support. I was going to go with a DIY mr cool but the lack of nest support turned me off. I now have a HVAC installer coming to fit a Mitsubishi unit with nest support.. it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard of a thing for you to develope especially with just a cloud based connection… Give your customers what they want!

  4. “If you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can control our newest MrCool units from your smart phone or tablet with a fingertip.”

    What units and how? I have the newest MrCool Universal. What do I need to do to control it from my smart phone?

    1. All MRCOOL mini-splits can be used with the SmartHVAC app. The Universal would need to be paired with a smart thermostat for WiFi control capability.

  5. I just purchased your 2-3 ton universal heat pump HVAC and I am looking for the wiring diagram for the nest learning thermostat can you provide that to me ?

  6. So, without the ability to connect a DIY system to Nest, is there any other way to control the units REMOTELY? I have a rental unit, and while I understand I can control the units with the app, it’s my understanding I have to be on the wifi network to do so. I thought I’d be able to control the units from other locations.

    1. The Universal is not designed to support zones. While you may be able to get it to work with some specific engineering, it would not be supported by us.

  7. Years have gone by since the last reply.

    Any updates on nest? We have the Gen4 4zone 36k.

    Our issue with wanting nest isn’t phone control, but rather better temp regulation especially in heating comfy mode. Our rooms with the new ceiling cassettes cannot seem to accurately gage the room temp as they can only measure at the very top of the room. No matter how I calibrate it is always warmer at the unit, especially when comfy mode turns the unit off and there is no more circulation. The room gets cold and the unit still thinks it’s well above the comfy set point.

    1. Unfortunately, the Nest thermostat will not work with our mini-split systems. As for the temperature regulation issue, please give us a call at 270-366-0457 as soon as you possibly can.

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