Internet of Shit watch: Honeywell server outage means "smart" thermostats are inaccessible

For weeks, Honeywell Home customers have been complaining about outages with their Honeywell "Total Connect Comfort" apps, which allow them to remote control their smart thermostats; several days ago, customers started complaining that the app had stopped working altogether.

Honeywell says that the outage only lasted for a few hours on Tuesday, and adds that its products can still be manually set by people who able to physically access them.

Honeywell's smart thermostats are sold on the basis that they can be remotely controlled, and Honeywell's customers include many people who cannot readily access their thermostats: people with mobility issues, and landlords and their property managers who manage several properties at once.

Honeywell customers say that they found the company unresponsive to complaints about the reliability of the app in the days and weeks before the outage, and dispute the company's claims about the short, limited duration of the outage.

Despite Honeywell's assurances, one customer told Business Insider they first encountered issues four days ago, and had run into issues earlier in the month before that. There are also multiple Honeywell customers complaining on social media about technical problems before Tuesday.

Honeywell's 'smart' thermostats had a big server outage and a key feature stopped working entirely - and customers were furious [Rob Price/Business Insider]