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[–]magnora7 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Yeah I figured as much, since literally like 90% of TVs became smart TVs overnight. Same as those amazon echo listening devices. There's a reason the're so cheap and ubiquitous. Same with the Nest thermostats. I don't know why in the fuck a thermostat needs an internet connection.

[–]useless_aether[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

so you can heat up your home just before you arrive, or for managing it for others, like airbnb, there is a potential to save energy

[–]magnora7 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

so you can heat up your home just before you arrive

My thermostat is 20 years old and has a "time of day schedule" to do this.

Airbnb makes sense though, although the people could just turn it up themselves when they arrive, and that's a pretty limited use-case. A normal person doesn't need remote control of their home thermostat imo, especially when it comes at the cost of probably being spied on all day

[–]FormosaOolong 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, but this can be done with a programmable non-"smart" thermostat.

[–]happysmash27 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah :) , I prefer a simple dumb thermostat with a local network connection that is managed by my own computer with my own, self-compiled, open source software.

I like dumb, simple things that do simple, dumb tasks that can be integrated into a larger system, in accordance with the UNIX philosophy. I wish more things were advertised as this, because I have spent many hours looking for computer peripherals without fancy, bloated annoying, Windows-only configurator tools. For things that use GUIs, it would be nice if these things had preferences widgets instead of massive separate programs that don't integrate with the rest of the system at all.

This gives me yet another business idea, since somehow the free market almost never gives me what I want, at least without lots of resistance…

Edit: Added emoticon at beginning so that my initial tone wouldn't be interpreted as too critical.