[masraum]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

More "technology for technology's sake" IMHO. The last thing on earth I want is my house connected to the Internet. I do have a couple of smart thermostats that I've played around with connected to the main boiler aquastat that are technically wifi capable, but I've used that system maybe once in the last two years (I usually run wood and pellet stoves - I utterly hate burning oil, even at $1.50 a gallon). Absolutely, positively no good whatsoever can come from Big Data (especially Google, who now owns Nest) having access to or control of - wholly or partially - my home. No way. Just my $0.02.

I'm OK with Smart stuff, but I want mine to be able to work 2 ways, via the Internet and/OR via my home wifi and a controller or app at the home. I don't trust most of the folks that make smart stuff to have good security on their phone home website, and don't want a bunch of 14 year olds or Chinese or Russian hackers playing with my lighting or thermostat when they are bored. I had a smart/wifi thermostat at home. The great thing was that I had an app on my PC that would control the thermostat and didn't even have the thermostat phoning home. I don't need to make changes when I'm not at home, but it's nice to be able to program from an application rather than the screen on a thermostat.