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On the flip side I'm exactly their target market. My house has two heating zones - one for the main floor and one for the basement. In the winter the basement

by tw04 11y ago

On the flip side I'm exactly their target market. My house has two heating zones - one for the main floor and one for the basement. In the winter the basement defaults to 60 degrees because it's not a regular living space. That being said if I go down there to watch movies or play video games on my office computer... I don't want it to be 60 degrees. Rather than freeze for an hour while that zone heats up after manually setting the thermostat, I can just adjust it from upstairs. Is that lazy? Sure... but the convenience is worth a couple hundred bucks.

wavefunction 11y ago
Don't you still have to wait the same amount of time for that zone to heat up? I guess I value a couple hundred bucks differently. I guess I would just walk down the stairs, manually adjust the thermostat and walk back up, but then again my parents just told us to put sweaters on if we were cold.
- tw04 11y ago
  The amount of time wasted doing that every couple days walking from one end of the house to the other, and interrupting what I'm doing? Well worth the price of admission. I get it's not for everyone, but the annoyance factor alone makes it worthwhile. The same reason I have a smart garage door opener, so when I get to the end of the street and can't remember if I closed it or not, I can just pull out my phone and check instead of driving all the way home. Smart homes for me are about removing everyday annoyances. Is the price to entry higher than it probably should be? Absolutely, but that's the way it is with any new technology. I would be shocked if 10 years from now the norm for every new construction is anything other than a smart thermostat.
ghaff 11y ago
60 sounds like a pretty normal winter time temperature to me :-) (OK, I usually turn it up to 64 or so if I'm around.)
- tw04 11y ago
  It sounds cold to me when I'm playing a video game and not getting any blood flow to my hands.

by tw04 11y ago

wavefunction 11y ago

Don't you still have to wait the same amount of time for that zone to heat up? I guess I value a couple hundred bucks differently. I guess I would just walk down the stairs, manually adjust the thermostat and walk back up, but then again my parents just told us to put sweaters on if we were cold.

tw04 11y ago
The amount of time wasted doing that every couple days walking from one end of the house to the other, and interrupting what I'm doing? Well worth the price of admission. I get it's not for everyone, but the annoyance factor alone makes it worthwhile. The same reason I have a smart garage door opener, so when I get to the end of the street and can't remember if I closed it or not, I can just pull out my phone and check instead of driving all the way home. Smart homes for me are about removing everyday annoyances. Is the price to entry higher than it probably should be? Absolutely, but that's the way it is with any new technology. I would be shocked if 10 years from now the norm for every new construction is anything other than a smart thermostat.

ghaff 11y ago

60 sounds like a pretty normal winter time temperature to me :-) (OK, I usually turn it up to 64 or so if I'm around.)

tw04 11y ago
It sounds cold to me when I'm playing a video game and not getting any blood flow to my hands.