I recently replaced our digital CH timer/thermostat with a good old fashioned twiddly knob bi-metal thermostat that goes "click" and lights up.
It felt like "coming home". My wife and I both hated the digital timer that just wasn't intuitive in any way.
Anyone else deliberately "downgraded" anything recently in exchange for user friendliness?
Tim
Our c/h thermostat is one of your old bi-metallic clicky types. It's fairly new, replacing a similar model that fell apart a year or so ago. I also have two old Sangamo-Weston time clocks salvaged from a skip at work many years ago, like this:
Certainly not! I know what you mean about not being intuitive, but the added features of a digital stat/timer greatly outweigh any disadvantages in my view.
Well we have another timer (which I wouldn't be without) but in practice, I found the capability to program different temperatures for different times/days was a function that I didn't need.
Tim
Yes, the digital had no features that were any real use, and it didn't last.
NT
Thinking about doing that with my immersion heater timer.
a bit like the above. Thinking of gettign amore manual one.
so I can have it come on when I want it rather than at a time.
If it's something you regularly have to twiddle, it's not doing its job.
In message , Tim+ writes
I would have preferred to keep that type but the one we had required a neutral to work effectively and I could only supply that by improper use of the earth wire.
Indeed, the digital one was failing badly. Poor set up by incompetent users no doubt but the interface was so awful it was a nightmare to program or over-ride if the mood took us.
A digital programmable one isn't a bad idea in principle but the execution was poor and it provided functionality and complexity that we really didn't need.
Tim
I replaced a digital timer in a let with a manual 24hour one as the interface on the digital one was unusable.
Jonathan
In message , Tim+ writes
My father, aged 94, has one of those on his heating. The thoughts of him trying to use anything else just don't bare thinking about!!!!!!!!!!!
His should be calibrated in either on/off or if you want to take it to extremes, off/warm/hot/Saharan. I doubt if he has paid attention to, even if he could see them, the temperature markings in years. Modern technology is all well and good, but whey change something that has served us well for decades?
Are you refering to his wife ;-)
My immersion heater timer I'd like to be able to switch on for 1/2 hour for a top up, but there's only a manual button you push to over ride the timer. I used to really like the little switches you could push in at anytime day opr not on the spot. Now I have to remmebr to switch on and switch off again, and thre's was a button you could push so it stayed on an hour and switched off again.
Not recently, but my beloved £35 microwave still has just a power and a time knob and a button to open the door. Oh a a 3 way knob that says 'grill' 'microwave' and (gasp!) 'microwave AND grill'!
What more could anyone want, Colin?
there are certinly wall=plate timers which allow 1/2 hour, 1 hour or 2 hours and show you where they are in the cycle.
The point of a thermostat is that you shouldn't need to "twiddle it" other than perhaps to turn it down a couple of derees if going out - digital ones make this easy usually.
Is the OP using it as a thermostat or as an on - off switch?
I like the "Holiday Mode" function on my digital roomstat. I know that when I am away that the house will not get too cold - but it will be nice and warm when I return. I don't feel the need to twiddle at all. With the mechanical stat there was too much hysterisis and I was usually feeling chilly before it clicked back on.
That's what many seem to do.
Not for user friendliness but just for pure style.
I am just about to change the spotlights in the computer room for a Mazda Netaline.
I have got the blue one
My parents went with the Atlas
which, IIRC, had a filament bulb as the ballast.
Chris
I have to say that I have never seen one of those. Cheers for that.
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