Looked into connected thermostat... (Score: 2, Interesting) by number6x@pipedot.org on 2016-07-28 14:36 (#1NRSH) We just finished a replacement of a 40 year old gas furnace for our basement and first floor. Our second floor has separate heating and cooling, only about 10 years old. My wife and I remodelled the 120 year old "worker's cottage" ( http://moss-design.com/worker-cottage/ ) style home in the mid 1990's. We kept our original furnace at the time. in 2001 we hired a crew to dormer the roof and finish the second floor (we had more money at this time and didn't have to do the work ourselves). At that time we installed separate heating and cooling in the second floor. We used a programmable, but non-connected thermostat.Just this summer we replaced the old furnace for the first floor and basement. The furnace dated from the late 1970's and was not too efficient. We had central air added as well, along with some duct work changes.I worked with the HVAC contractor to choose the best thermostat. We looked at all the options and the clear choice was a standard programmable thermostat. The benefits of a smart, connected thermostat were negligible. Once programmed, the standard thermostat adjusts and maintains the temperature perfectly on your schedule. It works well, costs less and is not vulnerable to cyber-attacks.The benefits of a connected thermostat are few compared to a programmable, but the cost is much greater. Not really worth it. Re: Looked into connected thermostat... (Score: 1) by genericuser@pipedot.org on 2016-07-28 15:33 (#1NS02) The benefits of a connected thermostat are few compared to a programmable, but the cost is much greater. Not really worth it.That's my feeling as well. It *might* be handy to be able to be able to preheat the house if I'm going to be getting home early or something, but in reality that a) almost never happens, and b) isn't a big deal.I could actually do this almost 20 years ago with some custom X-10 stuff I had rigged up, but I never used it then so I doubt I'd use it now. Re: Looked into connected thermostat... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2016-07-29 12:25 (#1NVZ9) The one place a connected thermostat comes in handy is with vacation or rental property. I have a place in Florida and believe me, you want that place cooled down when you arrive. But you also don't want to run the A/C for 20 days when it is unoccupied. A connected thermostat is perfect for this. Also the system can monitor the temperature and send notifications if the current temperature goes outside of set boundaries (handy for avoiding frozen pipes or other extreme temperature disasters). As for securing it against outside unwanted control, so far sticking the entire system behind a VPN has worked good. So the thermostat (which has pretty lousy security) is not exposed directly to the internet; it sits behind a firewall and can only be accessed via VPN.
Re: Looked into connected thermostat... (Score: 1) by genericuser@pipedot.org on 2016-07-28 15:33 (#1NS02) The benefits of a connected thermostat are few compared to a programmable, but the cost is much greater. Not really worth it.That's my feeling as well. It *might* be handy to be able to be able to preheat the house if I'm going to be getting home early or something, but in reality that a) almost never happens, and b) isn't a big deal.I could actually do this almost 20 years ago with some custom X-10 stuff I had rigged up, but I never used it then so I doubt I'd use it now. Re: Looked into connected thermostat... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2016-07-29 12:25 (#1NVZ9) The one place a connected thermostat comes in handy is with vacation or rental property. I have a place in Florida and believe me, you want that place cooled down when you arrive. But you also don't want to run the A/C for 20 days when it is unoccupied. A connected thermostat is perfect for this. Also the system can monitor the temperature and send notifications if the current temperature goes outside of set boundaries (handy for avoiding frozen pipes or other extreme temperature disasters). As for securing it against outside unwanted control, so far sticking the entire system behind a VPN has worked good. So the thermostat (which has pretty lousy security) is not exposed directly to the internet; it sits behind a firewall and can only be accessed via VPN.
Re: Looked into connected thermostat... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2016-07-29 12:25 (#1NVZ9) The one place a connected thermostat comes in handy is with vacation or rental property. I have a place in Florida and believe me, you want that place cooled down when you arrive. But you also don't want to run the A/C for 20 days when it is unoccupied. A connected thermostat is perfect for this. Also the system can monitor the temperature and send notifications if the current temperature goes outside of set boundaries (handy for avoiding frozen pipes or other extreme temperature disasters). As for securing it against outside unwanted control, so far sticking the entire system behind a VPN has worked good. So the thermostat (which has pretty lousy security) is not exposed directly to the internet; it sits behind a firewall and can only be accessed via VPN.