Before the Nest there was exactly one excellent thermostat user interface: the oldschool rotary GE type like you probably have. I waited many years for a good

Before the Nest there was exactly one excellent thermostat user interface: the oldschool rotary GE type like you probably have. I waited many years for a good programmable equivalent, and had to endure the endless stream of crap with hard to see LCD screens and tiny confusing buttons with tiny labels so you never knew which one made the heat go up. (And which one turned off the thermostat or changed some critical setting). Nest finally delivered that, and now look at all the copycats. It's kind of similar to what happened with the iPod and iPhone. I don't really care for the "learning" feature but the 2 other features I find critical are 1) ability to schedule, and 2) remote control. It's nothing you really need, but it's nice to have. I can program the temp to go 10 degrees lower overnight, and have the heat ramp up 30 minutes before we get up. I can have the blower run 15 minutes every hour without heat or cooling to make sure air circulates around the house. You could do that by hand but it would be more manual and cognitive work.