My thermostat recently died so I had to replace it. Looking at my local Home Depot and Lowes, I could spend $300 for the Nest or $24 for programmable weekday/w

My thermostat recently died so I had to replace it. Looking at my local Home Depot and Lowes, I could spend $300 for the Nest or $24 for programmable weekday/weekend device. I would have been happy to pay a premium for better technology, but a 12x premium was more than I was willing to go. Additionally, the Nest would have only been used 3-4 months of the year. I live in the dry southwest and I use (and prefer) evaporative cooling. None of the all in one thermostats can control evap coolers. If Nest wanted to innovate, they could build a remote control box to add this functionality, then I might consider it a better value.