Dropped $500 on a smart thermostat last March and my electric bill barely budged, but my neighbor's $30 programmable one cut his by 20%

I'm stuck wondering if the fancy features like geofencing and learning algorithms actually help in a 1,200 square foot house with old windows or if I just got burned by marketing hype, what's your experience with high end versus basic thermostats?

2 comments

2 Comments

karent751mo agoMost Upvoted

Hold on, I gotta disagree here. A high end thermostat with geofencing actually saved me a ton because it learned we left for work at different times each day and adjusted way better than any basic timer ever could. Maybe your neighbor's savings came from finally programming something at all, not from the thermostat itself being cheap.

simon_wood721mo ago

Feel your pain, seriously. I went through almost the exact same thing last year with a fancy smart thermostat in my drafty old house and saw maybe a 2% difference on my bills. All those learning algorithms and geofencing features sound great on paper but they don't do much when your windows are basically see-through (which mine totally are, ha). Your neighbor's basic programmable unit probably works better because it just does the simple stuff like setting back the temperature at night and when nobody's home. I think the high end stuff is mostly marketing fluff for smaller spaces with older insulation, you know? Honestly you probably would've been better off spending that $500 on some window film or caulking instead.