Let’s skip the energy supply side this week and talk about thermostats used for cooling. Let’s broaden the discussion to include both programmable thermostats and “smart” or “learning” thermostats. The Nest falls into the latter group. Speaking for the Nest, which I have controlling my heating and cooling, it will learn user patterns by when, and to what level, the user changes temperature setpoints. It also secretly learns the users’ occupancy patterns by keeping an infrared eye on them. For instance, if the thermostat is in a heavy traffic area, it will learn to expect a lot of traffic, and…
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