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by archiepeach 1854 days ago
I've actually had a really positive experience using a smart thermostat. The main benefit is having a temperature schedule, which my previous dumb thermostat didn't have. It's also handy being able to adjust the temperature from my phone whenever I'd like to. I find controlling it by voice kind of pointless. On the phone, you can easily see what it's currently at, then adjust it for the next e.g. hour, after which it'll switch back to the default schedule.
3 comments
larntz 1854 days ago
I agree being able to change the temperature settings from a phone would be convenient, but they've had "smartish" thermostats capable of relatively complex temperature schedules for at least 20 years.

No need for an internet connection or mega corp data collections.

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bagacrap 1854 days ago
can smartish ones detect when you leave home and turn down the heat until you get back? My nest can. This is great because my schedule is not the same every day.
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mikepurvis 1854 days ago
Most dumb thermostats also have next-hour-override functionality, though I will say I had a Nest at a previous house and also thought it was pretty decent. In particular, it was nice being able to turn it way down when going away, but then crank it back up when heading home but still 30 mins away.
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spaetzleesser 1854 days ago
You don’t really need anything “smart” for this. This is basically simple remote with timer. My $50 thermostat has adjustable schedule with override capability. No machine learning needed. The only thing that’s missing is the phone capability but I think that would be easy to add.
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magnetowasright 1854 days ago
Totally agree. I still don’t get the appeal of “smart” whatevers.

> No machine learning needed

Now this reminded me of the windows 10 update announcement proudly declaring that they were going to start using ‘machine learning’ to figure out if you were using your computer to minimise the disruption from their automatic updating. I’m still baffled by it. Why not solve the actual problem at hand - updates being really slow, risky/buggy, settings altering, and very disruptive even when scheduled, and users not having enough control over updating? I’m pretty sure ‘machine learning’ isn’t needed to determine whether a computer is being used.

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