Review: Newfangled Nest thermostat is hot [telecom]

Sigh. The once ubiquitous Honeywell round-dial mercury switch thermostat was a wonder of simple design. Its use was simple and obvious and, once installed and calibrated, required no manual to learn how to use.

I don't necessarily know what my schedule is, and my apartment can just wait for me to return home without my giving it a specific time. In winter, when I go out, I can set the heat for a lower temperature. When I return, I turn up the heat, even though I have to wait a bit for it to warm up. Before I go to bed, I'd turn it down.

My current apartment has an older model programable thermostat. Unlike typical Honeywells programable thermostats, its use is simple and obvious. Typically, I use the programable settings only for setting the heat to rise before I get up in the morning. Otherwise, I've typically overriden the programmed setting with the "hold temperature" button.

Honeywells these days come with two thick manuals. A friend bought a townhouse with a programmable Honeywell thermostat but didn't receive the manual. I've looked at it repeatedly and cannot find the model number. He cannot figure out how to set it without the manual.

Sometimes, like the mousetrap, the original designer just knocked it out of the park by making things easy to use.

The problem with new inventions these days is that it's no good building a better mousetrap: the world doesn't beat a path to your door if all you can do is tell it how to kill mice.

The way to success in the online, cellular-connected, data-driven world is to build a mousetrap that reports on the exact date and time the guest of honor was dispatched, assures young cell phone users that it was done in an environmentally-friendly way, and automagically notifies the mousetrap cleaning service to come by and render the remains invisible.

As for thermostats, the "old" is, well, "OLD". Out of date, not data-driven, subject to the whims of fashion and the insatiable need for Gen Z consumers to feel as if the whole world can be controlled from the palm of their hand. That kind of need usually arrises from being in charge of very little in one's life: the idea of a programmable thermostat that can be reset by commands from thousands of miles away strikes me as being something that a servant has use for; a device that can be manipulated again and again the same way that proto-yuppies who want to feel like they'll be in charge someday will find themselves manipulated by the whims of government and corporate managers who see fit to demand schedule changes and mission changes and loyalty changes on a regular basis.

I think remote-control thermostats should come with a warning: "Cannot affect termperature outside your dwelling! Has no magical properties! Cannot make your life less confusing, your salary higher, or your boss more intelligent! DO NOT PLACE ON THE OUTSIDE OF A BUILDING! THIS DEVICE DOES NOT CONTROL THE WEATHER!!!"

Bill Horne Moderator

.........

In theory it may make energy use a little more efficient if it can convince those people that leave the heating/cooling on in their premises (even when they are not there) to remotely turn it on prior to their intended arrival time.

However, if it is used by those people who currently only turn on the heating/cooling when they do arrive, then it will increase energy use as they will have things running prior to their arrival.

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

That's what I still have in my house. It works quite well, even as my furnace has been replaced twice because of old age.

No manual, no learning curve.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com