"One thing I've noticed is that the thermostat's 'learning' feature hasn't really impressed me. It still makes some weird choices sometimes..."
Yeah, I totally get what you're saying about the learning feature. When we first got ours, it kept deciding we were away just because we weren't walking past it every five minutes. Drove me nuts for a while until I realized you can actually disable or tweak the sensitivity of that feature in the settings—have you tried messing around with that yet?
Also, you mentioned your house is pretty new and efficient already, which might be why you're not seeing huge savings. We installed ours in an older home with a less-than-stellar HVAC system, and honestly, the difference was noticeable pretty quickly. Maybe the real value of these smart thermostats depends heavily on your home's existing setup?
Either way, even if the savings aren't massive, I still think there's something kinda cool about having your home respond to you...feels a bit futuristic, doesn't it?
Agree with you there—the learning feature's definitely hit-or-miss. I've noticed it struggles with irregular schedules, like weekends or holidays... ends up guessing wrong half the time. Still, tweaking the manual schedule settings helped smooth things out quite a bit.
I've had a similar experience with mine. When we first moved into our new house, the thermostat kept assuming we'd be home all weekend and would heat the place unnecessarily. Took a bit of trial and error, but manually adjusting the schedule made a huge difference. It's not perfect, but definitely better than before... and I still think it's worth it overall for convenience alone.
Had a similar issue when we upgraded ours last year. At first, I was pretty skeptical—seemed like just another fancy gadget that looked good but didn't really deliver. When we first installed it, the thermostat kept trying to "learn" our schedule, but it was way off. Like yours, it assumed we'd be home all weekend and cranked up the heat unnecessarily. I remember waking up one Saturday morning sweating and thinking, "Did we just pay extra for this?"
Anyway, after a few frustrating weekends, I finally sat down and manually adjusted the schedule. Took a bit of patience, but once I got it dialed in, things improved dramatically. Now it actually anticipates when we're home or away pretty accurately. Still not perfect—sometimes it'll randomly decide we're home early and start heating the place—but overall it's been worth it.
One thing I do appreciate is being able to control it remotely. Last winter we were away skiing for a weekend, and on the drive back I realized I'd forgotten to turn the heat back up. Pulled out my phone, adjusted the temp from the car, and by the time we got home everything was cozy again. That alone made me feel like it was worth the hassle.
So yeah, they're not flawless by any means, but if you're willing to put in a little effort upfront, smart thermostats can definitely pay off in convenience and comfort.
"Still not perfect—sometimes it'll randomly decide we're home early and start heating the place—but overall it's been worth it."
Yeah, I've noticed ours does something similar. Last month, we were visiting family for a week, and halfway through the trip I checked the app out of curiosity—turns out our thermostat had decided we were home and was happily heating an empty house. Had to manually override it from my phone. It's definitely convenient overall, but sometimes I wonder if it's trying a little too hard to be clever...
