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How to Upgrade your Nest Smart Thermostat to Nest v3
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May 30, 2025
When Xcel Energy sent along a new third generation Nest Learning Thermostat, we decided to pop off the old first gen unit and replace it. But it's not quite that easy to upgrade your smart wi-fi thermostat, as Dave Taylor of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ finds out when he gets a 3rd generation Nest through the http://www.XcelEnergyStore.com/ and saves $50 on the purchase!
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[Music]
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hi Dave Taylor here again and this time
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I want to talk about my Nest Thermostat
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that's this guy and I have a first
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generation Nest Thermostat so it's a
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couple years old at this point and they
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just released a third gen which is cool
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lots of nice new features and certainly
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a significantly upgraded design but you
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know it's expensive now the good news is
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Excel Energy for those of us in Colorado
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actually has a $50 rebate right now so
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that means that I picked up a new third
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generation Nest Thermostat haven't
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installed it yet for only 199 bucks
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that's pretty sweet deal in fact the
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Excel Energy store online has the best
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deal in Colorado because of that rebate
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so in this video I'm going to zoom in
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we're going to go through all the steps
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I'm going to show you how you go from a
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first gen to what will hopefully end up
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being our third gen thermostat sporting
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it's fancy new interface on my wall all
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right so before I even start though I
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need to go downstairs and I need to turn
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off the power to my whole furnace and
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air conditioning system you do not want
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that coming on while this is all being
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rewired cuz that can blow a fuse or blow
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a circuit board so let me walk down and
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I'll show you here we go it's it's a
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furnace room it's not very well lit or
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anything here's the big switch all I
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need to do is flip the switch all right
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now that the power's off we're ready to
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go and you can see that the nest is
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reporting correctly that there's a power
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issue no sweat we're going to just pull
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it off and takes a little bit of getting
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used to but give it a good pull and we
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can put that aside now you can see
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here's the wiring and here's what's
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really critical is to pay attention and
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really look closely at how you have
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things wired so I have Rh to Red w one
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to white but here's the funny one y1 is
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to Blue even though I have a yellow wire
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in there and then finally G is to Green
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I have written a handy little
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poit so now I will be able to keep track
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of what wires which and you can't quite
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see the whole thing don't worry about it
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I got it under control and by the way
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here's one thing they've done that's not
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super user friendly is they've changed
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the orientation of things so you can see
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this is the first gen here's what we're
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going to replace it with what do you
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notice that's different the screw holes
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are not on the sides they're on the top
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and bottom so hopefully the plate
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underneath it will work with this we'll
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find out let me just get that other
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screw
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[Music]
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off and Nest really includes everything
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even the screwdriver see it's a nest
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screwdriver how Swanky is
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[Music]
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that let's see and and that pulls the
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Whole Thing Off the Wall not actually
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what I expected I thought that black
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part would be part of it but okay so now
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we need to figure out how to get the
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wires out so the way this is supposed to
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work is that you lift this and then the
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wire comes out but I don't know whether
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the deal is that I just have too old a
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unit or not but it ain't working so
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instead handy wire
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clippers we'll simply clip the wires
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since we know exactly what order they go
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in and then we'll restrip to make it
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easy
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so let's get that fourth
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wire in the new unit they got a much
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much improved mechanism for putting in
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those wires so that's good and also
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notice things are in different order so
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I'm glad I wrote it down that way but
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let's go ahead and strip these wires and
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get them ready to go all right nicely
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prepped wires we're going to go ahead
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and fold the yellow one back since we
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don't need it and all these we're going
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to put through the
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middle and I guess we'll figure out the
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screws as we go a bit of a drag but
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let's see so now starting at the top RH
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is red and Rh is that one so we're going
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to make the Bold assumption that the
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labels are the
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same
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and push insert let go
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way way easier than the old one there we
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go looks like we're good I think I'm
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done with this piece of paper and we
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have our wires to wires let's let's pull
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the piece of paper back and double check
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so we have Rh to Red we have W1 to White
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we have y1 to Blue somewhat confusingly
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and we have G to Green so that all looks
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good the spirit levels right on maybe a
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tiny bit off good
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enough so this looks good let's go ahead
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and put the new unit
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on and if you look we just want to line
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things up so you can see there that we
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have this plug all we need to do is get
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it to line up with that fairly easy push
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it on and nothing happens why does
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nothing happen because the power's still
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off so let me go downstairs flip the
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power and we'll see what happens
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looks like it's all working let's set it
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up English whoops
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no English us
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it's a bit more
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stiff but it's
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okay
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connect there's my
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network and you don't really need to see
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my password so we'll just move on to the
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next thing nice and quick all right
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we're connecting fingers
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crossed all right we're online I think
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that's all we need to do what the people
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at Nest have told me is that it
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automatically figures out your
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configuration from the previous
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thermostat which is very nice cuz I
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don't really want to have to go and
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reconfigure everything obviously there's
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an
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update so that's it the new Nest
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Generation 3 or third gen nest whatever
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you want to call it is now installed I
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did the upgrade myself pretty easy
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really the key thing is turn off your
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thermostat power and then pay really
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close attention to how you all your
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wires set up on the old one so that you
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do exactly the same on the new one you
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can see this is the farsight analog
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clock so that's pretty cool but most
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importantly you can do this yourself and
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if you're like me in Colorado and you
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have Excel Energy as your power company
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you can go to the Excel Energy store and
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right now there's a $50 rebate so this
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thermostat only runs 199 bucks it's a
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pretty sweet deal now if you have a
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different kind of thermostat then the
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upgrade might be a little bit more
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tricky but still they have a lot of
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video online and of course that $50
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rebates for any Wi-Fi thermostat any
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smart thermostat at Excel not just the
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nest so you can check it all out at
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Excel Energy store.com this is Dave
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Taylor from as Dave Taylor and now that
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I have my Swanky new Nest Generation 3
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thermostat I think I'm just going to go
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and relax and actually clean up after
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all this mess but relax and enjoy my new
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thermostatic settings I'll see you in my
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next video
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
#Home Improvement
#HVAC & Climate Control