Because I'd rather keep my coat on for an extra twenty minutes with my ten-dollar thermostat than pay hundreds for the ability to hang it up immediately.
(Actually, I hang it up immediately anyway. 65°F is not particularly uncomfortable.)
Huh? A malfunctioning thermostat is not likely to be sending me an e-mail. A non-malfunctioning thermostat is not going to drop the temp below what I told it.
My ten-dollar thermostat handles those months just fine.
Not many have fail safe over temp. I think I saw at least one.
Greg
If it takes just 20 mins to warm your house up from
50 to 65 you're furnace is way over-sized.
An internet capable one will inform you that the temp has fallen below what it's set for, ie that the furnace is not responding because it;s out of fuel, broken, etc.
If you followed the scenario, there are people who go away for varying amounts of time. I for example, go on ski trips, where I can be gone from a few days to a week. Now to have the house at a reasonable temp with a dumb thermostat, we'd have to leave it at 65 for a week. With an internet capable one, we could set it to 50, then change it to 65 two hours before we return. I don't know exactly how long it would take to recover $250, but clearly having a house at 50F for a week when it's 20 outside is going to save a decent amount compared to having it at 65F. And then there is also the savings in resources, instead of wasting energy.
What ever did we do before we had the internet?
Did we have an epidemic of northern and high-altitude vacation properties that were damaged because of malfunctioning hvac systems?
Maybe people winterized these homes so it wouldn't matter if the furnace failed?
Maybe there are less expensive telephone-connected devices (that are not thermostats) that can call you if the ambient temperature falls below some preset level? And such devices existed years before the internet became popular?
In fact, it wouldn't be too difficult to wire up a temperature sensor and add it as a separate zone of a security system (which presumably most vacation properties would already have). If the temp falls below a threshold, the zone opens and triggers the security system to call the pre-programmed phone number and communicate the trouble-code. You can do the same with a smoke alarm.
Even cheap electronic thermostats have the ability to program different settings for each day of the week.
So in your example, you set the temperature for 6 days of the week to
50F, and set the 7'th day (the day you return) to 65. This works almost equally well if you're gone for 7 days (or less) or any multiple of 7 days.At worst, you've got one day out of 7 where the temp is 65 instead of
Same argument could be made for every other modern convenience as well.
Sure, remote dialers and such that report temperatures out of range have existed for 50+ years. So what? The reporting capability is just one feature that you can get with an internet capable thermostat. It was not the main point. Being able to turn up the temp when you're two hours away from home was the application. There are crude devices available that will do that too, via dialup. But few people would choose one of those over an internet capable thermostat. You are probably the exception.
Sure you could do that if you have a monitored security system. A lot of people don't. And again, the thread was about warming up a house when you are going to be going there, not about temp warning specifically. Being able to monitor temp is just a side benefit of an internet thermostat.
How about this scenario. You leave on a two week trip. After leaving, you can't remember if you turned down the thermostat and set it on hold. With the internet system, you can do it via the internet.
Wow, you figure that out? If you've ever tried to program them, most are a real pain in the ass. It's bad enough to do it once and most people are not going to want to program it with a new program just because they are going away for a week. And then have to re-program it on their return.
Factor in that it's been explained to you many times now that some of us don't know if we're going to be away for 4 days or
7 days when we leave. Say you have a vacation home. When you leave, you think you know for sure that you'll be back in 5 days or 7 days? How about if you think you'll probably be back in 10 days or 3 weeks? The internet thermostat fits that purpose perfectly. You can have the house up to temp for your arrival.You probably argued that cell phones were a waste too, didn't you? Why, people could just wait to the next available phone booth.
Crap. I warm my house up *TO* 65F. I generally don't touch it anymore but when I was in Vermont the thermostat was set to 58F night and weekdays and 65 in the morning and evening. Here I just set it to
65F and leave it (heat pump). Actually, I think the upstairs is set to 62. My fingers are getting cold. ;-)Absolutely. It would cost me a fortune, too, because the resistive heat would kick on.
I'm seriously thinking about one of the WiFi thermostats for the house we're selling.
When you're not there? How does that work?
If I am not there and cold weather occurs, the thermostat does exactly the sme thing it does when I am there: keeps the temperature from going below where I set it. Only when things actually get cold.
I never have to heat "just in case" it might get cold. I just heat if it DOES get cold.
Actually, now that you mention it, some of the moderate-priced items have a mode that holds a particular temperature for some number of days and then goes back to th regular program.
Again, that's nice if you know that you'll be returning in X days. Which is an entirely different situation then when you go on trips of varying duration and don't know exactly how long they will be. Or have that vacation home that you might go back to in 1 week or maybe not for 3 weeks. Everyone does not live like you do and some of us are willing to pay a little more for convenience.
So I call my (friend, relative, neighbor, co-worker, etc) who I've already arranged for them to check on my house every once in a while (or at least gave them a spare key) and ask them to check on the thermostat setting.
I suppose - if you're a loner, have no relatives or friends, etc.
Cell phones are an addiction. Not sure if you'd call that a waste.
I don't have one.
The world has been doing that for what - 50-60 years before the cell phone arrived?
Seemed to work OK then.
Because they're addictive - like crack or cigarettes.
I don't know who is paying $300 for a cell phone when their up-front cost is subsidized by the phone companies.
It would mostly be europeans, with significantly more vacation time, that might have a "problem" like that.
Americans - if they go on vaction at all these days, do so on a strictly planned time-table.
I would guess that if you have such a life of leisure, and take variable-length vacations at your vacation home (a vacation home that you still own that hasn't been repo'd by the bank), anyone in that situation probably doesn't much care if they save $1 a day on the utility bills by not having a precisely-controllable hvac system.
At the end of the day, it's still a toy.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.