[Maakuth]

My guess is that most of the savings come from the auto-away feature that's apparently backed by some sensors (motion detection?). I don't doubt that auto-away could save energy as most people probably don't either care or remember to adjust their thermostats when leaving home.

I don't think that the auto-adjustment really is that much more annoying than programming a regular dumb thermostat. Of course the end result being annoying depends on the algorithm design more than anything else.

[glenra]

They sense three things: (1) light, (2) motion (close-range) (3) motion (wide field/longer range). Presumably if nobody turns on the lights at night or walks past in a while, it decides nobody is home and gradually lets the temperature drift closer to the "nobody is home" range. Then brings it right back up as soon as it senses activity.

It makes sense to start out selling this as just a thermostat, but I wonder how long it'll be before they add a "burglar alarm" module?