Having just bought an Amazon Echo, I'm interested in up dating my wifi thermostat heating system to NEST. The Echo can then voice control my heating etc. I've watched some videos and it looks good and the general consensus is positive.

Has anyone got a Nest system and what are your thoughts? (looking at you Seacam)

I had one for a while, worked well. Had a new boiler installed last year and the installer wanted to use a different type of controller. The Nest is just gathering dust now.

Series 3 does water as well as heating.
I like
being able to have highly variable schedules
remote off/on (for when you are away)
motion sensor to turn to ecomode if no one is in the house during a period of scheduled heating
settings schedule viewable from a device or webpage.

Yes, that could be nice. Mine has a vacation mode but you can't tell it you'll be back for the evening so it will heat the house during the morning. Also if you have a change of plan you can't update it. Although apparently it was once possible to buy a module that allowed telephone control.

Can't see the point in that. It just means that the house will be cold when you come in. I've never lived in a house yet where the temperature could raised and lowered by a significant amount in less than an hour.

For your purposes, yes. I'm not sure how many people lead that variable a life.

One thing that might be nice for me would be a 'gone golfing' button. Something that tells the house I'll be out for five hours.

From what I gather NEST takes information from the local wether forecast and will adjust the on and off times to keep the house at your chosen temperature. And using a third party bit of software can even tell if you near home, and then turn the heating on.

I probably didn't word that too well.
I don't know how long it waits for 'no activity', but I was more thinking of the scenario where you set it to heat all day but you go off for a game of golf (as a random example) to make up a foursome and forget to turn it off. It will go to 'auto away' (or eco mode now) after a while - more info here https://nest.com/support/article/Lea...est-Thermostat

More than one person in my household !


Well, it will go to ecomode or you can change it on your phone app for immediate effect.

Ah. Yes that would be want I'd want except I'd want to know when it would decide to return to programming. On a cold day after I've been out playing golf the house could have cooled down to 17 degrees or worse. It would need to go back to heating no later than an hour before I arrived home. Since I usually golf within half an hour's travel of home that means it somehow needs to understand that when I get to the 14th hole it should start heating
If I remembered that would work. Trouble is if I don't remember I'll arrive back to a very cold house that won't be up to a civilised temperature for a couple of hours.

The advantage of the 'go golfing' is that it's a fixed and predictable interval. If press it when I leave the house at 10am it knows that I will be back around 3:30pm. That means it can probably cut the heating for three hours, maybe four. The trick is ensuring that in that scenario it doesn't wait until I step back inside the house.

Reverse engineer it and reprogram with your IT skills !