It's Nearly 2021. What Do We Like For Learning Thermostats?

I'm perfectly fine with turning off my lights with switches on the walls.   I resisted that fad years ago, and I am fine without the new version of it.

ProDarwin said:

Placemotorsports said:

My coworker is the opposite.  He has everything in his house hooked to his phone.  He has a raspberry pi loaded and a Shelly control app on his phone that he can turn on his lights in every room, see how much power his hot water heater is using, Nest thermostat controls, it's pretty slick.

It can't be pretty slick, but its also pretty pointless.  What is he doing with that info?

The only thing I like about those setups is the ability to program some lights to come on/off on timers when I'm gone on vacation.  But that's solved with a $5 timer from Lowes.  

When all of these competing systems agree on some common standard, or are integrated into the fusebox/house at some point, then I will consider going that route.

It's not totally pointless. 
 

My son-in-law has a similar setup.  He controls it mostly through Alexa.   One nice feature is the ability to program "scenes".  So, for example, they figured out how they want the lighting when they watch TV.  DR off, Hall on low to eliminate glare, wall scones on dim for simple room lighting, etc.  They could walk around the rooms and make all those changes manually, but now all they do is say, "Alexa. Movie night lighting", and all of it changes automatically. 
 

Not sure if they have a separate customized setup for "Intimate moments".  Lol!

It's not something I want, but I can see the advantages.

...they also have AirBnB guests coming and going. They know what is happening through the app when they are away. (Lights on, doors opening, etc)

For them, it's a really good tool. 

ProDarwin said:

Placemotorsports said:

My coworker is the opposite.  He has everything in his house hooked to his phone.  He has a raspberry pi loaded and a Shelly control app on his phone that he can turn on his lights in every room, see how much power his hot water heater is using, Nest thermostat controls, it's pretty slick.

It can't be pretty slick, but its also pretty pointless.  What is he doing with that info?

The only thing I like about those setups is the ability to program some lights to come on/off on timers when I'm gone on vacation.  But that's solved with a $5 timer from Lowes.  

When all of these competing systems agree on some common standard, or are integrated into the fusebox/house at some point, then I will consider going that route.

I think he just does it cause he can basically.  To each his own

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

...they also have AirBnB guests coming and going. They know what is happening through the app when they are away. (Lights on, doors opening, etc)

 

For them, it's a really good tool. 

Yeah, there are definitely uses for it.  

I think 99% of uses right now fall into the 'because you can' category though.  Saying "Alexa, its sexy time" to save yourself the hassle of manually turning off a light definitely falls into that category for me.

Remotely (as in not-at-home) changing things, monitoring the house, etc. seem to add value.

In reply to Cooter :

Mine came with a remote sensor and it works great.

Just a three month update, with a small gift at the end.  

I am happy with the Ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control.   At first I used the included SmartSensor in my bedroom, but ultimately decided to place it in our step daughter's room, as she is at home all day spending much of her time in her room on her computer with her college classes.  I have a IR temperature gun that I can check temperatures in  our own bedroom without invading anyone's privacy, so this makes it much easier to match temperatures between the upstairs bedrooms with the vents.

Speaking of which, I have paired my Ecobee with Beestat.  This allows me to view graphs of the temperatures in each room over the hours (up to a week), to see how each room responds to the heating cycles (and air conditioning when it gets warmer) and outside changes in the weather.  As I mentioned earlier, our home is a split level, and the main thermostat is in the living room on the main floor, and the the SmartSensor in upstairs, where the bedrooms are.   This has made it very easy to set the dampers and vents to make the upstairs as comfortable with the living room.  I still use the IR temp gun from time to time to check for temperature variances between rooms, and  especially between the main floor and the lower area of the house, which is partially below grade, and the crawl space, which has the furnace and water heater in it.  (I have sealed off the vents to the crawlspace and partially insulated the crawlspace with tips I learned right here on GRM)




Which leads me to the "gift".
I just discovered ecobee has put the Two Pack of SmartSensors on sale for $49.99 for a pair with free shipping.   They are normally $79.99, and I had resigned myself to just using the single remote sensor, as I am too cheap to pay $80 for more sensors.   I will play around with locations for these additional sensors, possibly (probably) even putting one in the attached garage for a while (forever).