Your home’s most banal object gets the iTouch.

Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod, left Apple last year to revolutionize the thermostat. Hot, huh? But not too.

Did you know that heating and cooling costs take up half of our monthly household energy bills? That’s as much as the refrigerator, lighting, TVs, computers, and stereos combined. Thermostats are in control of all that usage. In the United States, thermostats determine 10% of our consumed energy usage overall, which equals some 1.7 billion barrels of oil per year.

The thermostat is boxy and stout and not nearly as sleek as a brand new Energy Star icebox, but it is an essential tool in the fight against climate change. Nevertheless, need it look so plain and utilitarian?

Heck no, says Fadell who founded Nest Labs upon his departure from Apple. In October, they released their first product: the world’s sexiest thermostat.

At $249 it’s expensive and, by some accounts, a bit tricky to install. Nest however, is smarter than your average thermostat in that it literally learns to program itself according to your real-life habits.

We encourage programming your thermostat, which can save you 20% on your energy bill, but proper programming requires you to adhere to a strict schedule: lower it when you go to work in the morning, turn it up when you come home, lower it again at bedtime. But you, yourself, rarely adhere to a strict schedule. You go out, sometimes all night, occasionally not taking the walk of shame through your front door until two, three days later. It’s not your thermostat’s job to guilt you; the Nest encourages an active social life.

It builds a schedule around your habits, and can figure out when you’re not there. You can also control it from your laptop and phone.

The Nest uses the same wheel interface as the iPod nestled in a stainless steel frame.

When the little green leaf appears, that means the system is in energy-conserving mode.

If you live in a mega green home and require more than one thermostat, install extra Nests and they’ll communicate with one another.

Considering the thermostats we’re used to:

The Nest is elevating the mundane one degree at a time.

Images: Nest; Passive Aggressive Notes

The post Meet Nest, The World’s Sexiest Thermostat appeared first on EcoSalon.

Thanks to eco-innovations like these, your daily chores just got a whole lot sexier.

Leave it to the English to elevate – indeed, ecovate – the Hoover. While certain blogs in the United States have questioned the durability and sustainability of the cardboard carpet sweeper pictured above, they are underestimating the tenacity of the Brits, who are especially persnickety and cheeky about the erotic art of vacuuming. Why, the last time I was at Victoria station (during peak hours, no less) there was a queue several commuters long waiting for a go at the new Dyson.

Here it is:

That ring does something extraordinary; even more noteworthy, perhaps, is the man pictured inside of the circle, Sir James Dyson. Yes, Sir. He’s the Elton John of the broom closet and the Jamie Oliver of the sitting room. Need further evidence that the English take vacuuming far too seriously to muck up the world’s first cardboard vacuum cleaner?

Meet 30-year-old James Brown, a.k.a. Mr. Vacuum Cleaner. Last year, he opened a museum dedicated entirely to the vacuum cleaner and can identify each brand by sound alone.

“I’ve been fascinated by vacuum cleaners since I was a small boy,” he told The Telegraph. “My mum probably thought I’d grow out of it, but once I got my hands on our Electrolux I knew I never wanted to let go.”

By the time he was a teenager, he had 30 vacuum cleaners to his name.

Keep the preceding information in mind as we take a closer look at the Vax ev.

Created by industrial design student Jake Tyler from the packaging of another vacuum model, industry leader Vax was so impressed with its spunky, urban, youthful and eco design that they are putting the model into production.

The 22-year-old from Loughborough University said, “I have really high hopes for the product. It is very cheap to manufacture.”

Its price tag for consumers, meanwhile, is still TBD. But as Paul Bagwell, Director of New Product Design at Vax, puts it, at this stage it’s a matter of innovation.

“With sustainability becoming an increasing concern for manufacturers, the Vax ev shows just what can be achieved when young designers are encouraged to think creatively and push the boundaries of product design.”

Considering the vacuums of our past looked something like this:

An eco-minded approach like the Vax ev elevates the mundane, and makes us consider vacuuming from an English point of view.

Images: The Daily Mail; Reuters; Helga Weber

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