As an ultra runner, I'm used to conserving energy when I run. But being energy stingy doesn't end when I kick off my shoes at the door. I also like saving energy (and money) at home with the way I use electricity. In fact, I like it so much it's my profession - teaching others how to save both money and energy by being more efficient with it. So last week when I was to attend a conference of 1000 realtors at a convention center and have a booth to share some easy ways to save energy at home I was in my element. But this conference had a theme and I am a sucker for themed events. In middle school I was the one who took spirit day to a whole other level, and I was a teacher! For instance, one day, on Dress Like a Pirate Day, the principal told me she caught me limping across campus in my knickers and tights during planning period when no one else was out of class, because I stayed in character all day, even when no one else was around.
So the theme of this conference was Back to the Movies, as in Back to the Future. They even had an exact replica Delorean car from the movie brought in on the convention floor.
There were booth decorations and character costumes. There was even a costume contest. I was hooked. But what would I be? What movie character goes along with energy, is cool and could be something I could create in a week? I thought of The Flash. He's a lightning bolt in a red spandex suit but it didn't seem right. I remembered Iron Man from the Avengers. He's played by Robert Downey Jr. in the film version. As a billionaire weapons investor he damages his heart in a battle and has to create a glowing round orb embedded in his chest to keep his heart functioning. That would be cool I thought. I could get a flat flashlight and tape it to my chest. But I saw a couple of Iron Man suits for sale in the local costume shops and they just oozed cheap.
I needed something more authentic. And how would I connect it to energy savings? And that's when I had a realization.
As I tried to come up with a winning idea that could also help teach people about saving energy I realized that my digital Nest learning thermostat on the wall at home looked eerily similar to Iron Man's Arc Reactor chest gizmo. What if there was a way to use my thermostat as my arc reactor?
Almost as if the film gods were smiling down upon me, the character's name in the film is Tony Stark. We shared the same last name. It was fate!
So I went about finding out how I could use my Nest thermostat as part of my costume. I first searched the internet. Surely someone else has thought of doing this. It turns out they have. One guy decorated his wall with a giant decal of Iron Man and placed it over his Nest thermostat so it looked like Iron Man was coming into his home to save energy as well as the day.
One fellow asked Nest on Twitter about trying to create a costume with his Nest and quickly got shot down, saying that such a use was not possible.
The response from Nest was correct, the unit will ask to be put back on the base to use but that doesn't mean it isn't possible to have it look like it is working when wearing it, or so I hoped. The next day I called Nest support. They're a cheery group and the few times I've called with general questions about my product they've always been extremely helpful. Wait times were minimal which is a huge plus for a company that offers 24/7 free customer support. As soon as the operator answered my call, I reassured him that I was his "weird call" for the day. I wanted to do something very different with my Nest and went on to explain my costume goal. I let him know that I was fully aware this wasn't the recommended use of their product and that they probably couldn't suggest anything officially but perhaps they had some ideas of how to trick the unit. He did let me know that the Nest has a very small battery and would need to be powered in some way. That was helpful. And I was onto my first solution. Powering the unit.
When you take the Nest thermostat off its base, it immediately asks you to put it back on the base to resume working. Remember, when it's not there, you won't have heat, a/c or a fan until you put it back! On the back of the Nest there are two small ports.
One is where the rectangular wiring harness from the base plate clips in and the other is a small mini USB port for a charging cable in the event that you'd need to charge it from an outlet. Mini USB cables are different from Micro USB. Micro have the angular shape, mini is more of a flat plug.
So first I had to get a mini USB to standard USB cord. But thinking through how I would wear this thing, it couldn't be a regular straight plug because there wouldn't be any room for the cord to plug in if this unit was flush against my chest. I needed a plug with a right angle on it. Luckily, there are enough wackos out there like me looking for oddly shaped things that this isn't that hard to find. For $6 I had my 3' cord in hand from a local electronics store.
To mount the unit on me, I needed something secure and strong as the unit is glass and metal as well as expensive. I didn't want to have to explain to my wife as awesome as my costume was, we needed to buy a new Nest because my arc reactor fell out of my chest and shattered on the concrete floor of the convention hall while doing a mind-blowing stance.
I considered using metal automotive bands and some straps around my chest but I found a much better system in my own closet: a chest harness for my GoPro camera. This is an elastic chest harness called the Chesty that's a cross between a gun holster, a brassiere and the top half of overalls. In the center of the chest there is a hard plastic plate where the GoPro camera normally mounts but in this case, I decided to attach the Nest directly to the plastic plate with tape. I didn't want to harm the Nest with adhesive from duct tape or packaging tape so I opted to use blue painter's tape which wouldn't leave residue behind.
With the Nest plugged into to my right angle USB cord, and the unit taped to my chesty, things were starting to look up. But Nest was right, the screen was illuminating an error message that said to return unit to base to resume operation. I wanted the screen to be blue and to show a temperature. So while it was off the base, I tried adjusting the dial
and hold your horses, it lit up blue and showed a temperature! And it was off the base! I couldn't believe it and I ran around my neighborhood showing people how cool it was. After about an hour the battery in the Nest died and I had to return it to the wall to charge.
For several days after that I couldn't get it to do the same thing. I called Nest again. This time the tech on the phone didn't have any ideas for me and passed me on to the senior level tech support who very efficiently stated a corporate line about how this wasn't the intended use of their product, that I was of course welcome to do whatever I wanted with it but that they were in no way responsible for my actions, that they had neither the training nor the information to help me in this unauthorized use of their product and to have a nice day. I explained that I knew all of this and that the purpose of my costume was to encourage 1000 realtors to use less energy and most of them will be seeing the Nest for the first time. Wouldn't it be cool if it worked when they saw it? The message was lost, but I wasn't. I knew it could work.
For starters, the Nest needs to be connected to a wifi network at all times to display a typical screen. In my home it did that both on the base and off because it was still connecting with my wifi network. Once I got a certain distance from my home it lost the network and the screen went back to error mode. To get around this, I considered using the wifi network of the convention center but the only way to connect to a new network is while it is installed on the base. You can't toggle around on the screen to select a network if it isn't on the base at the time. So I needed a portable wifi network that could travel with me. And that's when I (and my media tech pal in the office) came up with the idea to connect my Nest to my iPhone using the phone's hotspot. By turning on Hotspot, which is free with some data plans, my Nest instantly picked up the network and I easily typed in the hotspot's password into my Nest while on the base. Now that it was connected, I could remove it from the base and carry it with me and it should continue to display the standard blue screen with temperature, but not at first. At first, it tells you it needs to go back on the base. With some experimentation, I found that if you let it go to sleep for a few minutes, then swivel the dial from the back of the unit, it will wake up in normal blue mode. It may take a few tries but it will work.
The morning of the convention, I did all of this. I had two battery packs: one for the iPhone to keep it charged throughout the day and the other for the Nest while plugged in with the mini USB cord.
For outfits, I considered the casual look that Tony Stark is often seen wearing while in his lab but there was a problem with that look for my event. When I went to unload my materials the night before the event, I was blown away to see that other booths had ordered custom decorations for the theme. We're talking life sized dinosaurs, Minions, Star Wars inflatable characters, baseball backdrops for A League of Their Own. My booth was a white tablecloth and a shiny green fabric hanging from a frame behind it. I was doomed. What would it look like to have an off-duty superhero wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt while standing at a formal looking blank table? Terrible.
So if I can't change the table, I'll just change myself. I got out my tuxedo. A billionaire weapons developer would look perfectly natural in a tuxedo at a white table. To showcase my arc reactor, I would just prop my tuxedo shirt open a bit in the middle to let my little light shine. For added authenticity, I stopped by WalMart and picked up a plastic Iron Man mask and light up gloves with sound effects.
To wire the Nest, I had the charging cable go down my shirt, into my pants and into my pants pocket through the little hole that is there in tuxedo pants to keep your shirt pulled down. The battery pack for my Nest was in my pocket and my iPhone and its battery pack were in my jacket pocket. I left the house at 7:30am and everything was working great. By the time the event started at 10am I was all set and even though most realtors didn't know who Iron Man was, those who did - and those who also owned a Nest thermostat - were completely blown away at my outfit. I had people bowing down to me. I had women ask if my body was really 78 degrees, as was illuminated on my Nest. "Oh no honey," their friend would say, "He's much hotter than that." And with that they would both lick their finger and point it at me making the required extinguishing sound of finger on hot stove, "Ptshhhh". One small issue with this setup is that the Nest is designed to always try to save energy. As such, it constantly goes to sleep so to keep it illuminated, you have to swipe the screen about every 30 seconds or whenever you want people to notice the giant glowing blue light on your chest. I also didn't design a very good way to keep my shirt pulled open but that wouldn't have been very hard with a few safety pins or some well placed tape inside my shirt.
After a few hours of teaching people easy ways they can save energy at home and giving away a few hundred energy saving products, it was costume judging time. About 15 of us had to do a catwalk on the stage in the center of the convention hall. I was up against some stiff competition. Han Solo, Chewbacca, a 5-year old girl in a Darth Vader dress (my favorite), Magic Mike, Elvis, Dorothy, and others. My Nest had worked perfectly from 7:30am until 2pm when the judging started but as I took my first step on the stage, I looked down and my Nest had turned white and displayed the error message, "Please return Nest to base to operate." In my moment of need, it had somehow lost the connection with my phone. Apparently that didn't matter too much because when it came time for the results, first place for Best Costume went to... Iron Man!
This is a fun costume that isn't hard at all once you know how to pull it off. If you want to skip the mask and gloves, and if you already have a chest harness, a Nest, and a cheap battery charger, the real cost is only $6 for the mini USB cable. The mask was $10 and the gloves were $20 if you want to get the full meal deal.
So there you have it - a fun way to use your Nest thermostat. Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done!
Speaking of doing the impossible, I'm on a bit of a quest as well. As a ultra distance runner, I'm over halfway to becoming the first person to cross all 50 states on foot. I cross one or two states each year and so far I have crossed 34 states, running from one side of a state to the other, often using trails and backroads and always running alone. If you'd like to help make the remaining 16 states possible, click here to go to my GoFundMe page and make it happen! Only $46k to go and I can finish the list! StatesRunner.com for more info. Thanks!
So the theme of this conference was Back to the Movies, as in Back to the Future. They even had an exact replica Delorean car from the movie brought in on the convention floor.
There were booth decorations and character costumes. There was even a costume contest. I was hooked. But what would I be? What movie character goes along with energy, is cool and could be something I could create in a week? I thought of The Flash. He's a lightning bolt in a red spandex suit but it didn't seem right. I remembered Iron Man from the Avengers. He's played by Robert Downey Jr. in the film version. As a billionaire weapons investor he damages his heart in a battle and has to create a glowing round orb embedded in his chest to keep his heart functioning. That would be cool I thought. I could get a flat flashlight and tape it to my chest. But I saw a couple of Iron Man suits for sale in the local costume shops and they just oozed cheap.
I needed something more authentic. And how would I connect it to energy savings? And that's when I had a realization. As I tried to come up with a winning idea that could also help teach people about saving energy I realized that my digital Nest learning thermostat on the wall at home looked eerily similar to Iron Man's Arc Reactor chest gizmo. What if there was a way to use my thermostat as my arc reactor?
Almost as if the film gods were smiling down upon me, the character's name in the film is Tony Stark. We shared the same last name. It was fate!
So I went about finding out how I could use my Nest thermostat as part of my costume. I first searched the internet. Surely someone else has thought of doing this. It turns out they have. One guy decorated his wall with a giant decal of Iron Man and placed it over his Nest thermostat so it looked like Iron Man was coming into his home to save energy as well as the day.
One fellow asked Nest on Twitter about trying to create a costume with his Nest and quickly got shot down, saying that such a use was not possible.
When you take the Nest thermostat off its base, it immediately asks you to put it back on the base to resume working. Remember, when it's not there, you won't have heat, a/c or a fan until you put it back! On the back of the Nest there are two small ports.
So first I had to get a mini USB to standard USB cord. But thinking through how I would wear this thing, it couldn't be a regular straight plug because there wouldn't be any room for the cord to plug in if this unit was flush against my chest. I needed a plug with a right angle on it. Luckily, there are enough wackos out there like me looking for oddly shaped things that this isn't that hard to find. For $6 I had my 3' cord in hand from a local electronics store.
To mount the unit on me, I needed something secure and strong as the unit is glass and metal as well as expensive. I didn't want to have to explain to my wife as awesome as my costume was, we needed to buy a new Nest because my arc reactor fell out of my chest and shattered on the concrete floor of the convention hall while doing a mind-blowing stance.
I considered using metal automotive bands and some straps around my chest but I found a much better system in my own closet: a chest harness for my GoPro camera. This is an elastic chest harness called the Chesty that's a cross between a gun holster, a brassiere and the top half of overalls. In the center of the chest there is a hard plastic plate where the GoPro camera normally mounts but in this case, I decided to attach the Nest directly to the plastic plate with tape. I didn't want to harm the Nest with adhesive from duct tape or packaging tape so I opted to use blue painter's tape which wouldn't leave residue behind.
With the Nest plugged into to my right angle USB cord, and the unit taped to my chesty, things were starting to look up. But Nest was right, the screen was illuminating an error message that said to return unit to base to resume operation. I wanted the screen to be blue and to show a temperature. So while it was off the base, I tried adjusting the dialand hold your horses, it lit up blue and showed a temperature! And it was off the base! I couldn't believe it and I ran around my neighborhood showing people how cool it was. After about an hour the battery in the Nest died and I had to return it to the wall to charge.
For several days after that I couldn't get it to do the same thing. I called Nest again. This time the tech on the phone didn't have any ideas for me and passed me on to the senior level tech support who very efficiently stated a corporate line about how this wasn't the intended use of their product, that I was of course welcome to do whatever I wanted with it but that they were in no way responsible for my actions, that they had neither the training nor the information to help me in this unauthorized use of their product and to have a nice day. I explained that I knew all of this and that the purpose of my costume was to encourage 1000 realtors to use less energy and most of them will be seeing the Nest for the first time. Wouldn't it be cool if it worked when they saw it? The message was lost, but I wasn't. I knew it could work.
For starters, the Nest needs to be connected to a wifi network at all times to display a typical screen. In my home it did that both on the base and off because it was still connecting with my wifi network. Once I got a certain distance from my home it lost the network and the screen went back to error mode. To get around this, I considered using the wifi network of the convention center but the only way to connect to a new network is while it is installed on the base. You can't toggle around on the screen to select a network if it isn't on the base at the time. So I needed a portable wifi network that could travel with me. And that's when I (and my media tech pal in the office) came up with the idea to connect my Nest to my iPhone using the phone's hotspot. By turning on Hotspot, which is free with some data plans, my Nest instantly picked up the network and I easily typed in the hotspot's password into my Nest while on the base. Now that it was connected, I could remove it from the base and carry it with me and it should continue to display the standard blue screen with temperature, but not at first. At first, it tells you it needs to go back on the base. With some experimentation, I found that if you let it go to sleep for a few minutes, then swivel the dial from the back of the unit, it will wake up in normal blue mode. It may take a few tries but it will work.
The morning of the convention, I did all of this. I had two battery packs: one for the iPhone to keep it charged throughout the day and the other for the Nest while plugged in with the mini USB cord.For outfits, I considered the casual look that Tony Stark is often seen wearing while in his lab but there was a problem with that look for my event. When I went to unload my materials the night before the event, I was blown away to see that other booths had ordered custom decorations for the theme. We're talking life sized dinosaurs, Minions, Star Wars inflatable characters, baseball backdrops for A League of Their Own. My booth was a white tablecloth and a shiny green fabric hanging from a frame behind it. I was doomed. What would it look like to have an off-duty superhero wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt while standing at a formal looking blank table? Terrible.
To wire the Nest, I had the charging cable go down my shirt, into my pants and into my pants pocket through the little hole that is there in tuxedo pants to keep your shirt pulled down. The battery pack for my Nest was in my pocket and my iPhone and its battery pack were in my jacket pocket. I left the house at 7:30am and everything was working great. By the time the event started at 10am I was all set and even though most realtors didn't know who Iron Man was, those who did - and those who also owned a Nest thermostat - were completely blown away at my outfit. I had people bowing down to me. I had women ask if my body was really 78 degrees, as was illuminated on my Nest. "Oh no honey," their friend would say, "He's much hotter than that." And with that they would both lick their finger and point it at me making the required extinguishing sound of finger on hot stove, "Ptshhhh". One small issue with this setup is that the Nest is designed to always try to save energy. As such, it constantly goes to sleep so to keep it illuminated, you have to swipe the screen about every 30 seconds or whenever you want people to notice the giant glowing blue light on your chest. I also didn't design a very good way to keep my shirt pulled open but that wouldn't have been very hard with a few safety pins or some well placed tape inside my shirt. 
After a few hours of teaching people easy ways they can save energy at home and giving away a few hundred energy saving products, it was costume judging time. About 15 of us had to do a catwalk on the stage in the center of the convention hall. I was up against some stiff competition. Han Solo, Chewbacca, a 5-year old girl in a Darth Vader dress (my favorite), Magic Mike, Elvis, Dorothy, and others. My Nest had worked perfectly from 7:30am until 2pm when the judging started but as I took my first step on the stage, I looked down and my Nest had turned white and displayed the error message, "Please return Nest to base to operate." In my moment of need, it had somehow lost the connection with my phone. Apparently that didn't matter too much because when it came time for the results, first place for Best Costume went to... Iron Man!
This is a fun costume that isn't hard at all once you know how to pull it off. If you want to skip the mask and gloves, and if you already have a chest harness, a Nest, and a cheap battery charger, the real cost is only $6 for the mini USB cable. The mask was $10 and the gloves were $20 if you want to get the full meal deal.So there you have it - a fun way to use your Nest thermostat. Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done!
Speaking of doing the impossible, I'm on a bit of a quest as well. As a ultra distance runner, I'm over halfway to becoming the first person to cross all 50 states on foot. I cross one or two states each year and so far I have crossed 34 states, running from one side of a state to the other, often using trails and backroads and always running alone. If you'd like to help make the remaining 16 states possible, click here to go to my GoFundMe page and make it happen! Only $46k to go and I can finish the list! StatesRunner.com for more info. Thanks!
Loved reading the full story on this incredible costume. Way to go, Brian!!!
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The reviews above for thermostat is pretty handy. Now I can make a decision to buy this one or leave for better one. Heating and Cooling Toronto
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