I don't doubt that there are many solutions that are great feature-wise. What I want is something easy that works. It's now mindless to connect a Windows 7/OS

I don't doubt that there are many solutions that are great feature-wise. What I want is something easy that works. It's now mindless to connect a Windows 7/OSX/whatever computer to a WiFi network, but setting up such a network in one's own home in a secure way is too much to ask of my relatives. The innovation isn't in features, it's that you don't have to work in IT to have enough knowledge to configure it. Home networking is not a problem most people want to think about. They just want it to work. We have a "dual fuel" HVAC system. It switches between electric and gas for heat depending on the outside temperature (electrical heat is very efficient in fall/winter given our relative fuel costs). The HVAC guys had all sorts of suggestions on how to tweak out additional savings by adjusting various parameters (temp for fuel cross-over, +/- range allowed in home, etc.) and were very excited about the possibilities. I just wanted the control unit to figure out what some reasonable settings were and to monitor performance.