Thermostat

If you haven't joined the Internet of Things (IoT) train yet, now's the perfect time to get on board. Smarts have been crammed into pretty much every household appliance, with more options than ever. New Atlas rounds up some of the best IoT gadgets to smarten up your home this holiday season.

Nest announced a new version of its learning thermostat Tuesday, the first major update to the product’s hardware since 2012.

Nest Labs has added yet another layer of automation to its smart thermostat by way of integrated support for Automatic's Connected Car Adapter. The partnership will enable those that own both devices to program the climate of their home based on the location of their vehicle.

Google paying US$3.2 billion for smart thermostat company Nest gave an indication of the company's vision for the connected home. Now it has integrated control of the thermostat with its Google app, letting owners control their Nest via voice commands and enabling location-based services.

The team behind the Zen thermostat believe that most competitor smart thermostats actually end up being more complicated and overloaded with features that go unused. To that end, the Zen thermostat has been designed with real simplicity in mind, in both form and function.

Honeywell has announced a new thermostat, Lyric, that tracks the user's location via their smartphone and adjusts the temperature of their home accordingly. It figures out when a household is empty and when residents are on their way home. Users can expect reduced energy usage and costs.

The success of Nest's smart household devices has caught the eye of Google CEO Larry Page. In a clear statement that it believes the future of the home is a connected one, the company today announced its acquisition of Nest for US$3.2 billion.

The second generation of Tony Fadell's Nest Learning Thermostat will be shipping soon.

The Radiator Booster is a temperature-activated fan, that draws warm air out from behind a radiator and into the room.

The Nest Learning Thermostat is capable of self-programming itself via its user's habits, activity sensors and Internet-gathered weather information, thus increasing energy savings without much effort on the user's part.

BeepEgg is an egg timer that cooks along with your eggs, and plays music to let you know when they're ready.

Energy-saving Wattbox is designed for easy use and encourages homeowners to save energy via simpler controls and intuitive learning.