Social Presuppositions in a Thermostat

By Ed

Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 10:59 AM

I just bought a dauntingly complicated fancy-pants touch screen thermostat for our house. But Honeywell has encoded so many social presuppositions (into a thermostat!) that I can't believe they're able to sell them. The device assumes that you have a regular daily schedule with wake up times, departure times, return times, and sleep times. It lets you adjust those times and the heating/cooling temperatures that you want for the different times.