Quirky’s ‘Norm’ Thermostat Takes On Nest For Smart Home Climate Control
The lowly home thermostat is fast becoming an important seller for smart home companies. Nest put a spotlight on it with the Wi-Fi connected Nest Learning Thermostat and Honeywell, a longtime thermostat maker, has been pumping out flashy touch-screen competitors. Now Quirky is getting into the mix with Norm.
Quirky, famous for crowd-sourcing unusual tech products, built Norm to connect to its Wink wireless smart home system. In fact, you’ll need to buy a Wink product in order to make Norm work. Even so, the prices for Quirky’s smart home products are starting off well below those of competitors like Nest. Norm starts off at $80, while the necessary Wink Hub comes in at $50. The Nest Learning Thermostat, on the other hand, is $249.
The Norm thermostat replaces your existing thermostat. You can tap it to raise or lower the temperature, but Quirky is clearly expecting you to rely mostly on the smartphone app and Norm’s automatic temp adjusting capabilities. The thermostat can base its temperature control on whichever room it’s in, or it can use other sensors (such as the Wink Relay, a $300 smart home controller) to determine the average temperature of certain rooms. One of the more interesting features is Norm’s support for monitoring your energy usage. The stats appear on the Wink smartphone app.
Quirky is calling Norm the “Death of a thermostat,” which sounds like a bit of a stretch, but it’s certainly smarter than an ordinary thermostat and is priced to give Nest a run for its money.
Quirky, famous for crowd-sourcing unusual tech products, built Norm to connect to its Wink wireless smart home system. In fact, you’ll need to buy a Wink product in order to make Norm work. Even so, the prices for Quirky’s smart home products are starting off well below those of competitors like Nest. Norm starts off at $80, while the necessary Wink Hub comes in at $50. The Nest Learning Thermostat, on the other hand, is $249.
The Norm thermostat replaces your existing thermostat. You can tap it to raise or lower the temperature, but Quirky is clearly expecting you to rely mostly on the smartphone app and Norm’s automatic temp adjusting capabilities. The thermostat can base its temperature control on whichever room it’s in, or it can use other sensors (such as the Wink Relay, a $300 smart home controller) to determine the average temperature of certain rooms. One of the more interesting features is Norm’s support for monitoring your energy usage. The stats appear on the Wink smartphone app.
Quirky is calling Norm the “Death of a thermostat,” which sounds like a bit of a stretch, but it’s certainly smarter than an ordinary thermostat and is priced to give Nest a run for its money.
