[NikolaNovak]

Didn't this used to be solved by the simple and incredibly efficient method of having a bathroom heater?

One thing I don't understand about Nest et al is - virtually no houses have actual zone cooling or heating. So when we say "make bathroom 21c at 8pm" we are actually saying "heat up entire house until bathroom is 21c at 8pm". Turning on electric heater in bathroom for 30seconds seems incredibly more convenient and efficient.

[gwd]

> Didn't this used to be solved by the simple and incredibly efficient method of having a bathroom heater?

Bathroom heaters don't heat instantaneously; so you either have to remember to turn it on manually (introducing your own fudge factor, as described above), or start your bathing process with a colder-than-you-want room.

> One thing I don't understand about Nest et al is - virtually no houses have actual zone cooling or heating.

UK regulations require individual rooms' temperatures to be able to be set individually. For most people, this can be done with a valve on the radiator; these valves can be "smart" and integrated into the whole "smart heating" system. For underfloor heating, this typically requires an actual wall thermostat in every room -- which is what I've got. :-)

(Hence why I also want to let the temperature in my son's room drop during the day when he's not there, but come up to 17C in the evening so he's reasonably warm under a blanket.)

[NikolaNovak]

Right; I was born in Europe and per-room heating was the norm; but I've lived in North America for last 30 years, and this is apparently still not something we have figured out - in Canada, vast majority of houses have central furnace with central fan. I've had several HVAC professionals come and despite my "Shut up and take my money!!!" attitude, basically none of them wanted to even bother giving me a quote to install something smarter and more granular (and why would they, when they can make good honest living doing routine work swapping furnace and AC control boards etc).

[gwd]

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a place in the US where you could control individual rooms. With forced-air heating, it seems like all it would take would be a way for the room thermostat to open and close the vent.

[KptMarchewa]

Is 17C considered reasonable temperature in home in UK?

[Nextgrid]

Depending on your budget, a lot of houses/flats in the UK can barely get above that even with heating on full blast. So I’d say yes unfortunately.

[gwd]

Overnight when you're under your blankets? I grew up in the US, and my mom always turned the temperature down to 60F (~15C) overnight.