One of the best smart thermostats I've tested is not made by Ecobee or Amazon

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ZDNET's key takeaways

The Google Nest Learning Thermostat is available for $280 and comes with a Nest Temperature Sensor.The fourth-generation smart thermostat learns behaviors, trends, and patterns and can adjust settings accordingly. The Nest Temperature Sensor can go in a different room in your home to balance your indoor climate.The only drawback is that many users will likely need a third party to install the Nest Learning Thermostat. While it's easier to install than other smart thermostats, the Nest still requires basic wiring and electricity knowledge.

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A smart thermostat is one of the best investments you can make in your home, whether you want to enter the smart home world or not. These devices let you conveniently adjust your home's temperature from your smartphone, and many suggest different adjustments to your climate settings, helping you save on your utility bills.

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Google was a pioneer in the smart thermostat market, and its Nest lineup of thermostats has proven to be future-proof and innovative, maintaining popularity for years. The recent launch of the Nest Learning Thermostat (fourth generation) proves that Google continues to nail the market.

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The Nest Learning Thermostat's fourth-generation launch arrived nine years after the launch of the third generation, which speaks to how relevant the older model remained over the past decade. Few smart home devices perform as well or better after nine years. Google launched an inexpensive alternative, the Nest Thermostat, without the learning capabilities, in 2020.

Google calls its newest thermostat "the smartest, most advanced" yet. The company redesigned it to look like a large smartwatch face on your wall. It looks more like a piece of art and less like home hardware.

The Nest Learning Thermostat loses the previous generation's colorful display and user interface, opting for a sleeker, simpler design on its full-color screen. It's available in three colors to match your decor: Black, Silver, and Gold. 

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Installation is pretty easy, as it doesn't require a C wire. The new thermostat includes a Trim Kit in the box to cover any imperfections on the wall or the footprint of a dinosaur thermostat. If you don't feel confident enough to install it, you can always hire a Pro installation expert to set it up.

The Nest Learning Thermostat immediately begins learning your home's heating and cooling cycles. As it learns your preferred temperatures, it suggests small tweaks to favor energy efficiency, which can result in lower utility bills. 

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Each Nest Learning Thermostat includes a Nest Temperature Sensor, an unobtrusive device meant to go into a separate home area to help the thermostat balance temperatures or follow automations. This sensor can go in "problem areas," which would be my home's guest room, where the temperature varies drastically from where the thermostat is. It can also be used in priority areas, like a baby's nursery, to maintain a comfortable temperature.

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

Aside from learning from your preferences and occupancy patterns, the new Nest Learning Thermostat can leverage the outside temperature to help efficiently cool or heat your home. For example, imagine your Nest Learning Thermostat is set to 71 degrees in your home. If the outdoor temperature is 78 degrees outside at 4:00 p.m. and it's expected to drop to 65 degrees by 6:00 p.m., the Nest Learning Thermostat may shut off your HVAC system to let your home cool itself naturally.

If this happens, you'll see a message saying, "Turned off cooling because outdoor temps will naturally cool your home and save energy."

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This is not only great for transitioning moments of a typical day, like going from morning to midday and afternoon to night, but it's perfect for maintaining energy efficiency during seasonal transitions when the time of day greatly impacts the temperature, like from winter to spring or summer to fall.

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

The Nest Learning Thermostat lets you enable its presence sensor through the device's built-in sensor, but you can also allow phone locations to determine when someone is home. This entails giving the Google Home app access to your phone location, which can automatically trigger the thermostat to go into Away mode when it detects phones have left the house. (You can still set the Away mode while your phone is home.)

Visually, you have four display options for when you approach the thermostat in the Google Home app: Farsight, which shows the temperature; Analog Clock, which shows a sleek set of hands to show the time without numbers; Digital Clock, which is reminiscent of the Google Pixel's watch face; and Weather, which shows an animation of the current weather outside.

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After testing all these modes for a few days, Weather quickly became my favorite. I like seeing the outside temperature and weather when I'm headed out the door, which is more important than ever when I have three little ones to care for. A quick glimpse at the Nest Learning Thermostat tells me how soon the temperature will rise, if my kids need a school jacket, and whether rain is expected soon.

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

This Nest Learning Thermostat is gorgeous, turning what is typically a mundane device into a piece of decor on your wall. I have two systems in my home, so I already have two thermostats: a Nest thermostat downstairs and an Ecobee one upstairs. I replaced the latter with the new Nest Learning Thermostat to round out a Google Nest-powered indoor climate. 

The new Nest Learning Thermostat is so beautiful that it felt wasted in my bedroom, so I asked my husband to swap it out for the Nest Thermostat downstairs within a few days of testing and bringing the older one upstairs.

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I already loved my 2020 Nest Thermostat, even without the learning capabilities. I like that it gives me helpful, actionable data and looks great even now, four years later, with a mirrored surface and presence sensor that turns on the screen when I approach. The 2020 thermostat mastered the balance of a future-proofed device you will like seeing on your wall daily.

That said, the fourth-gen Learning Thermostat is more visually appealing, smarter, and more compatible than its predecessors. 

ZDNET's buying advice

Google is cementing its place in the smart home for years with the new Google Nest Learning Thermostat for $280. Aside from being a beautiful piece of tech that works, it's one that you can count on working for years -- or maybe even decades.

The third-generation was already a very popular product, but the newest devices give you everything you'd want in a smart thermostat, plus learning capabilities to map out trends and give you insight into some areas of improvement.

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I've only tested the Google Nest Learning Thermostat for a few weeks, so I haven't been able to compare year-over-year how it can save you money. That said, I'm looking forward to continued testing and will provide periodical updates as I do.