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My Dream Thermostat

by leontrolski on 11/21/24, 5:34 PM with 26 comments

• by flanbiscuit on 11/21/24, 6:11 PM

  I get where they are coming from, a simple interface like that would nice. It's annoying having to dig through menus to set a schedule when most people set the same exact schedule: a daytime temp and a night time temp, with slightly varied times on the weekend. I know I do. If you need more finer grained control, then this is not for you.

  The place I'm renting has this thermostat: https://www.honeywellhome.com/us/en/products/air/thermostats...

  here's a video showing how to program the one I have: https://youtu.be/-yGtoDOXpPY?si=PQgv1wO8-ztz2-xt&t=58

  To program it you need to tap: Menu -> select -> arrow button -> select -> select -> select .... and at this point I stopped tracking because you get the point

  Not saying that the "Dream Thermostat" is perfect, but it's heading in the right direction.

• by rickdeckard on 11/21/24, 5:57 PM

  Nearly all of this is provided by my (fairly standard European) Thermostat from Junkers, where you can define a "warm" and "cold" temperature-setting, and then set timeframes to switch between those settings for each weekday (individual or ranges like Mon-Fri).

  Exception is the "Make it a bit warmer for 2 hours" button (which leaves alot of room for interpretation and error, i.e. what is "warmer", should the 2h start while still heating up, WILL it even heat up within 2 hours,...), but that is more or less achieved by just rotating the dial, as whatever is set will be overwritten when entering a new timeframe...

  Nothing fancy in there, no Wi-Fi or anything, just a display, a dial and a few buttons under a lid.

  I configured this once, and all I do is move a switch from "automatic" to "permanently cold" in summer to stop it from switching to heating

• by 0x457 on 11/21/24, 5:46 PM

  > It seems to me that using home assistant to implement this is fairly feasible.

  Is this too much to ask for one thing to do everything it supposed to do and not self-host some python nightmare?

• by AndrewDucker on 11/21/24, 9:21 PM

  My Hive thermostat does exactly that.

  Per radiator.

  With as many times as I like (so the kitchen comes up to 19c during the week from 7-8 in the morning and from 6-8 in the evening).

  Oh, and it turns off when the window opens, and back on when the window shuts. So my wife deciding she wants it cold doesn't cost us a fortune.

• by Mindavi on 11/21/24, 5:41 PM

  It seems to me that using home assistant to implement this is fairly feasible.

• by orev on 11/21/24, 7:44 PM

  The biggest limitation for thermostats is the user interface. Most require digging through cryptic options, or they’re very expensive with a nice screen interface.

  I think there’s a market opportunity for many of these types of devices to implement Bluetooth networking to provide a web interface usable on a phone. This avoids the need for expensive screens, since we all already have one in our pockets.

  The main motivation stopping this is the desire vendors have to capture the market and get everyone signed up to their own app, so they can try to lock you in.

• by RASBR89 on 11/22/24, 10:47 PM

  I have a Honeywell thermostat with companion app. It’s trivial to configure compared to traditional thermostats, even the UI on the device itself is pretty simple.

  Problem is with the proposed thermostat here is thst it’s covering a single type of schedule. These products need to be able to cater for all sorts of variations.

  At least with mine when you configure in the app on your phone it is very clear what you’re choosing.

• by jeffbee on 11/21/24, 5:43 PM

  Isn't this a $20 Honeywell-level set of features? Mine definitely does all of the things implied by the mock.

• by sss111 on 11/21/24, 5:42 PM

  Nest has all of this and more. You can set a schedule for every day/hour.

• by bwanab on 11/21/24, 6:03 PM

  Part of the problem here is that not everyone has the same weekend arrangement. To work with that you need flexibility which causes UI complexity.

• by JasonBorne on 11/21/24, 5:40 PM

  Are you my old roommate who needed to change the room temperature every 30 minutes?

• by gniting on 11/21/24, 5:43 PM

  I achieve the same (and more) on my control4 system through programming.

• by asdz on 11/22/24, 7:36 AM

  You can automate that with HomeAssistant + Broadlink IR remote

• by sammyo on 11/21/24, 9:12 PM

  Just want to turn it on a half hour from arriving home.

• by nunez on 11/22/24, 6:01 AM

  Ecobee does this well imo