Digital Thermostat

The NEST thromostat is probably what he is referring to. Cool gadget- markets on their website for $249.

Very cool. I just purchased. Www.nest.com.

Don't kid yourself into paying $300 for a digital thermostat to "save" money on your electric bill -- it would likely take ten years for that thermostat to pay for itself.

Buy it because it's cool. Buy it because it looks nice. But be honest with yourself -- the energy savings is negligible.

Energy saving may be not negligible, but I agree money saving is. Energy saving does not equate to money saving. 'Green' measures to save energy or save the environment are often more expensive than standard usage/wastage. That said, the website claims you can save 520 USD in 3 years. I suspect though that similar can be achieved with judicious attention to thermostats etc. I think really what one is paying for here is a cool gadget, ability to control better one's heating and cooling and minimize wastage, and also the ability to remotely control your home.

I just installed an Ecobee thermostat. It can be controlled from anywhere via iPhone or iPad. Very sleek, touch-screen, full-color interface.

I have to say, though, I installed it not so much for energy savings but more to take the constant thermostat wars in our household to new and more surreptitious levels. :-) It's much less obvious when I'm tinkering with the thermostat now, *evil cackle*.

Our electric bills were never that bad, but I'm convinced after doing a lot of thermostat research that certain thermostats can dramatically raise electric bills when you have electric heat. Honeywell, in particular, has thermostats designed to always keep the temperature within +/- 0.5 degree, which is horribly inefficient for a heat pump and will even shorten its lifecycle. It is also surprisingly hard to find a thermostat that will allow you to adjust or override the auxiliary heat settings. Some will automatically shift to aux heat for a two-degree change with no override. I think you could heat your apartment more efficiently by burning money. Aside from the cool gagdget aspect, I like that the Ecobee lets me control when and how the aux heat will run.

$300 is fair price go with it.

estimator.

The biggest advantage to a thermostat like the Nest (I have one) is tt you can monitor and change the settings from your iPhone. So you can turn on the A/C a hour before heading home, or turn it off completely while you are on vacation. At this point I would insist that whatever digital thermostat is being installed be able to be operated from your smartphone.

"I just installed an Ecobee thermostat. It can be controlled from anywhere via iPhone or iPad. Very sleek, touch-screen, full-color interface."

Why would you need to control the temperature of your home when you're not there?

If you want to turn down the A/C while you're at work, can't you just do it on your way out the door?

And what if you're apt to forget? Sorry, forgot that you were perfect. Or what if you want to let your cleaning persons work with the A/C or heat on?

If your cleaning "person" (lady) isn't bright enough to figure out how to turn up the heat or a/c they (she) probably shouldn't be trusted alone in your apartment to begin with.

And as far as forgetting -- well I guess you'd better take on a little bit of responsibility -- the kind you use to ensure you didn't leave the iron or percolator on.

Irons have auto shut offs, as do most modern coffee makers. Oops, forgot that you think paper check writing is secure.

Auto-shutoffs can -- and often do -- fail.

Glad that you don't get to define legal negligence.

If you are out, can you just call the doorman and ask him to fix the thermostat, and just tip him for his trouble?

My electric bill isn't too bad. I was more curious if the price per thermostat was reasonable.

So the worker from my building said that he would install a honeywell thermostat .... at $300 per thermostat, am I being overcharged? Should I even use the honeywell thermostat?