The Smart Thermostat That Started a Cold War in My Marriage

My wife and I have different temperature preferences. I like the apartment at 72. She likes it at 76. This was manageable with a dumb thermostat — whoever walked past it last won. But I made the mistake of buying a 'smart' thermostat, which turned a minor domestic disagreement into a full-scale cold war.

The Honeywell T5 requires you to manually program schedules. So I programmed it: 72 during the day when I'm working, 74 at night for sleeping. My wife reprogrammed it: 76 during the day, 78 at night. I reprogrammed it back. She reprogrammed it again. We were both secretly adjusting the schedule through the app like rival nations adjusting their nuclear arsenals.

The geofencing was supposed to solve this — detect when we leave and adjust accordingly. It detected when I left about 60% of the time. The other 40% it assumed I was home and kept the apartment at 72 while we were at the beach. We came home to a freezing apartment and an electric bill that looked like a phone number.

The Nest Learning Thermostat does something revolutionary: it learns. It watches when you adjust the temperature, when you're home, when you sleep, and programs itself. After two weeks, it knew our patterns better than we did. It compromised on 74, which neither of us loved but both could live with — the Henry Kissinger of thermostats.

The energy savings are real. Google claims 10-15%. Our bill dropped about 12% in the first quarter. At $280, it paid for itself in six months. And the cold war ended because neither of us programs it anymore — the robot decided.