My smart thermostat made my house hotter last summer and I'm still mad about it

I bought a Nest thermostat back in April thinking it would help me save energy and lower my carbon footprint. But after the first heatwave in June, I noticed my AC was running way more than usual. Turns out the "smart" scheduling feature kept overriding my manual settings because it thought I was home when I wasn't. I spent three weekends fighting with the app before I finally just disabled all the auto features and set a fixed schedule. The thing cost me $250 and it actually increased my electricity use by about 15 percent that month. Has anyone else had a similar experience with these smart home gadgets not living up to the eco-friendly promises?

2 comments

2 Comments

brooke7116d ago

Ugh yeah maybe your thermostat’s 'learning' is just bad at reading actual occupancy sensors.

allen.cole15d ago

Pretend the thing is haunted and call it a learning disability. Maybe if I wave a sage stick around my ecobee it'll finally figure out that I'm not actually in the living room just because my cat walks by the sensor. Honestly at this point I'm ready to just slap a piece of tape over the thing and set a manual schedule like it's 1999. But then I'd miss out on the joy of coming home to a 62 degree house because my thermostat decided I was "away" for three hours when I was just taking a nap. So yeah, this whole smart home thing is basically just glorified guesswork with a fancy screen.