I'm not big on complex apps to do simple things, but I have to admit I was thrilled this fall for two reasons, 1), every device that I care about in my house other than the wind up clocks (of which there are more than a few), as well as our cars, updated themselves to standard time without my intervention, and 2) this is surely the death knell for daylight saving time. (I've never set the clock on the microwave, fortunately they no longer blink 12:00)
Our utility company did a promotion a couple years ago and sold Nest thermostats for $9.95 each. I swapped all of ours out and now have no more batteries to go dead and no more time change to worry about. They are programmed now, and barring a huge electromagnetic pulse, I'll never need to look at the app again (until they die, anyway).
We don't have programmable thermostats and don't miss them. I tried them in the past but didn't find a lot of value add. Now, when we want heat or cool, we adjust the thermostat.
What I want is an extremely RELIABLE Internet connected device that gives me control over my garage doors and reports whether my garage door is open or closed. A couple of years ago, I did some research on devices like that, but there were too many reports of the device opening the doors without being commanded to do so.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
What I like about our Infinity thermostat is the vacation setting. I can set it up to adjust the temperature shortly after we leave on a trip and also have it adjust back to normal setting a short time before we return. The internet connection lets me make changes to that schedule if our plans change like they did on our last trip and we have to return home early (or later).
It will also alert me if anything goes wrong while we are away.
Lee Schierer
USNA '71
Go Navy!
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We've had 'simple' programmable thermostats for many years. At 1am temp reduces from 69 to 65, at 7am it goes up to 72 then 9am back to 69, until 1am and back to 65... Same but other temps in the summer for the AC. I guess it would be nice to be able change the thermostat on the fly with the phone, but, like Alexa and a whole lotta other tech stuff these days, that's just plain something I/we don't need
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ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
FOUR - CO2 lasers
THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
ONE - vinyl cutter
CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle
I’m sure that’s true in todays consumer market. But I’m not sure I would like working where the norm appears to be throw it out the door ASAP then do the QA later based on user complaints!
For the field I was in quality was king and sometimes execution speed was queen - budget and development time considerations were secondary: some clients seemed to have unlimited funds and the patience of the long view. I usually developed in C for the execution speed, especially since the computer hardware was relatively slow then.
On a few projects we didn’t rely on any libraries except for the bullet-proof low level I/O calls (no GUI like Windows, even in the background) - everything was built from scratch to assure things would always work the same. Testing was a huge part of the effort since an error might result in equipment destruction, or in one project, fatalities.
All that was good clean fun but I have to say I do enjoy this life: woodturning, moving dirt and logs with big tools, feeding critters, repairing fences, incubating peacock eggs, harvesting fruit and veggies, reading forum posts...
JKJ
Since I only adjust the thermostat about twice a year...to switch between heat and cooling, rinse, repeat the following year...the ability to change the settings remotely isn't all that valuable to me, either. But I do like the ability to look at things remotely. For the shop, I might actually make changes more frequently than the house, such as if I'm going to be "gone" for a long enough period of time that changing the setting makes sense. That's a mini split so no traditional thermostat, anyway, and the remote that comes with the system isn't useful because it has limited range that's much less than the depth of my shop. So I use the app.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
So how do you monitor the house temperature when your away? Perhaps you don't live in an area where it freezes? I can log into my Honeywell from Florida or where ever and check my home temperature, and if its set at 60 DegF and then now down at 50 its time to call the repair person. If its set on a vacation temperature setting and I decide to come home early perhaps at night, do I want to call my neighbor and get him/her out of bed.
Since Honeywell also monitors when my TStat checks in, when it fails to log in then Honeywell sends me an email so its either one of two things... power is off to the house or the internet has failed. If it does not check in the next cycle then its time for a phone call to one of my kids.
Last edited by Bill George; 01-14-2023 at 9:58 AM.
Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10
With no control I can not change the program time or temperatures. All I can do is switch off the schedule and run it up and down manually. Now that I am retired it seems a waste to turn the heat up at 5:30 Am. It would be nice if it did not turn down the heat around 7:30 am when we get up now.
Bill D
Bill, even when we were both working, at least one of us was working from home, if not both on a daily basis. There was no point to scheduling setbacks and there was never a situation that provided discrete zones that permitted keeping a workspace at a different temperature than the rest of the house. Our birds are also temperature sensitive, so that means no lower temps, either, at night during the winter. Being retired for five years now and with Professor Dr. SWMBO about to retire at the end of this academic year (and working from home anyway), nothing has changed.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
How did you monitor the temperature of your house back before Internet connected thermostats? I seem to recall devices that could turn on a light if the temperature dropped too low. I assume there were also devices that could call a number from an analog phone and give some sort of low temp warning too.
I am more worried about the thermostat manufacturer dropping support for the thermostat altogether rather than the app not working with old phone OS versions. My iPhone 8 is more than five years old and still runs the latest iOS so app versions are generally not an issue for me. Apple will probably drop support for the iPhone 8 later this year so I might finally need to look for a new(er) phone. Phone OS versions are a bigger issue with Android phones. A lot of Android phones, especially the cheap models, cannot upgrade to newer version of Android.