> I don't much care if police or fire is dispatched while we're out of the house. That's what insurance is for. I much prefer having the ability to monitor myse

> I don't much care if police or fire is dispatched while we're out of the house. That's what insurance is for. I much prefer having the ability to monitor myself without an exorbitant monthly fee (I'm guessing it varies, but in my area it's typically about $100/month). It's mostly just to ensure I didn't drive off and leave the garage door open again anyways. I care, because it's the reason I have a security system in the first place. I don't care much for a system that simply tells me if I left a door open. Also, there are things insurance can't replace. I'd rather pay for the risk reduction of having a monitored system then have to go through losing a bunch of personally important but otherwise middling value stuff again. BTW, I only pay $58/month for full monitoring (burglar and fire), and could cut it to about $40/month if I shopped around. > I bought several high-end 5 or 7 day programmable thermostats. Looking at Home Depot right now most of those are still pushing $200. And they're "Indiglo" pieces of junk that will be almost entirely illegible in a year's time IME. I don't buy high-end thermostats. I put a $50 Honeywell (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywell-5-2-Day-Programmable-Thermostat-with-Backlight-RTH6350D/202216464 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywell-5-2-Day-Programmable-Th...) in my mom's house and it has worked flawlessly for six years. I have the same basic thermostat in my own house, though that one is almost 20 years old. If it failed, I would get another one of those $50 Honeywells (or build my own). I'm not going to buy anything in Home Depots "WiFi" or "Touch Screen" categories until those come way down in price. > The Honeywell Lyric for example can't turn on/off the fan on the device. You also can't schedule on the device. Need the app for that. And the app appears broken for a lot of users. The Lyric is a piece of shit and I would never buy it. > But back to thermostats. After reading the reviews this morning, unless you want to buy into a Kickstarter or something (with it's own risks), the market still seems to be mostly "garbage" IMO. Maybe the Ecobee is a decent Nest alternative? I dunno. I've had my Nest for about 5 years now. It's paid for itself. Hopefully I don't have to find out what else is out there anytime soon. I think I understand your "garbage" comment now. You are only looking at the advanced, connected thermostats. In that case, I agree that everything in that segment except Nest is crap. Thing is, I don't care about that segment at all. Other than remote control I don't see anything any of those thermostats give me over standard 5-2 programmables that justifies the extra $200.