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@jrconlin no, honestly it's funny to me that you think this is good?
Hold should be a single thing that works a single way. You turn on hold and now it is a dumb thermostat until you turn hold off.
This scheme is needlessly complicated and opaque.
Honestly, nest had it right in that a temporary override would always stay until the next schedule point. The way ecobee is doing it is maddening. I'd like to see a combination of nest's temporary override and permanent hold. That seems obvious.
— Heh, no, not saying it's good, nor the fact that they squirrel away any way to make a change because "clearly they know better".
Just commenting that my older version kinda/sorta does what you want, but clearly yours doesn't because, improvements? Reasons?
Someone made it their OKR?
(FWIW, I have home assistant override the hold at midnight because I'd often forget it was in place and my house would be freezing cold in the morning, but that's not really a fix either.)
@jrconlin gotcha (and for clarity my boost isn't to make fun of you but to put out there how I think hold should work)
We're both grumpy old men in violent agreement.
Honestly, I just want a dumb thermostat I can control remotely (because I'm dumb and forget to set turn it down when I go away for a while.)
Someone else commented about a ZWave thermostat, which will probably be my next option.
@jrconlin I used to have a Sensi thermostat which was pretty good at being a dumb thermostat. The one I had (which is like... 10 years old now) worked like a normal thermostat but with wifi and an app you could drive around.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin in particular given your recent announcement of what you will retoot, it certainly came across as making fun of them initially.
Might be a good idea to edit the toot?
Das Ganon 
@TechConnectify My house has a schedule thermostat (with weekdays, Saturday and Sunday for different settings) and the temporary hold until next schedule point is exactly how that works too. I have no idea why you wouldn't do it that way.
And it's not *that* complex a thermostat.
Since I was in Italy at the beginning of October (and snow was on the horizon) I asked my grandparents to turn the furnace on and they were unsure on what the switch to do that was.
So ecobee sounds nuts
@DasGanon yeah, it's ridiculous. Nest behaves like you would expect any programmable thermostat to behave when you change the temperature: it will stay what you set it to until the next program point. But for some ridiculous reason, you cannot simply have it hold and become a dumb thermostat. Ever.
Ecobee, on the other hand, decided to give you way too much control over what it does with temporary overrides. But at least you can hold.
The best answer is exactly between the two.
@DasGanon like, I honestly cannot fathom why anyone would value "a two-hour hold" or whatever the hell Ecobee lets you do.
Presumably, you want it to follow the program you set up until you don't. So you make a change. But you want it to resume the program once that change has been over. But if you don't, then you put on hold mode.
I do not understand why ecobee has the granularity it does, and I do not understand why nest refuses to let you just turn it into a dumb thermostat when you want.
@TechConnectify yeah. Really I want my current one but with 1. The ability to look at weather and climate and go "hmm looks like it's going to be cold or hot, I'm going to fan or heat" and 2. "You know it looks like you're not in and we can make your house more efficient for heating/cooling"
I guess I can see the point of duration holds, like if I'm home for a bit, or whatever but like really the best option is a way to release when I'm wanting to leave, not set a timer
@DasGanon Right! And it is utterly maddening in my case that nest, on the newer thermostats, does not save separate schedules for heating and cooling.
My heat source is gas. Time of use savings are not a thing, so my program is a simple reduction in temperature overnight.
But when I'm using cooling? I want it to crank down low at night when power is cheap. Then I want it to be practically off during the day.
The old system let me keep two programs. Now I have to change it spring and fall.
@TechConnectify and the worst part is I could see that as a really simple option. Like say you set it to 60 overnight which uses less gas in winter but then in summer that just gets it frosty with AC.
And all it does is require the unit to look and go "should I heat or cool?" based on the outside temperature. And the schedule shouldn't need to wildly change for most people since they'll want it to be cheap when they're out and comfy when they're in.
@DasGanon I think this is what they were trying to do with the update. Because now you set comfort preferences or something, and you can define a heating and cooling set point. Then the schedule just changes between those presets.
But in my case, what I'm trying to do between summer and fall are just too different for that scheme to work. Plus, the heating and cooling set points can't overlap which requires changing presets, too.
@DasGanon in my heart of hearts, I think they're trying to make it so that you don't have to think as hard.
And I think that would be okay if it weren't for the fact that they removed the granularity that someone who /wants/ to think about it used to have.
Maybe 80 to 90% of people prefer the new way, but it is absolutely infuriating to me and I don't think the old system was difficult to understand at all.
@TechConnectify Yeah I get it but like it sounds like (at least with your anecdote) that it's now way harder for those who do want that granularity.
Maybe there's a security update or something involved but it's annoying that you can't just say "simple vs complex scheduling" and regain those features.
@TechConnectify @DasGanon For me, the 2-hr hold is useful for when it’s just a little cold / hot. My house is well insulated, though, and can maintain the inside temperature fairly easily.
Coupled with the lack of true winter, I think it is useful the way it’s designed, but will admit it is opaque.
@jdechko @TechConnectify and that makes sense. I will turn on hold if I'm working from home for example.
But like part of the "it's not really winter so I don't want to kick the furnace on" is really the time we should be using a heat pump and not having to worry about the thermostat in the first place
@jdechko @DasGanon I can't help myself from pointing out, though, that if your home is well-insulated, then it's not like it's going to run much after that two-hour duration once it's attained the setpoint you asked. I think just letting it resume the program at the next change is fine, plus - you could also just set it back down later.
Deciding a "default" behavior - or picking which one every time you do an override - feels like, well, too many options to me.
@TechConnectify That’s an excellent point that I was thinking about when reading @DasGanon ‘s reply.
At this point, it’s probably been more about continuing to do things the way I’ve been used to it without considering why.
In reality, I should review the schedule and confirm that what I set up ~3 years ago is still something that works.
@TechConnectify @jdechko @DasGanon Isn’t having a sensible* default but providing options for those that want something different a pretty good way to satisfy a broad audience of users?
*I acknowledge that “sensible” is doing a lot of work there.
@admanC @TechConnectify @jdechko while I would normally agree that this is "keyboard heating" behavior, this 1. Was the original default and 2. Wasn't that unreasonable a setup until this new version, according to Alec.
@admanC @jdechko @DasGanon Yes, but honestly my big concern here is that ecobee conflates overrides with holding.
I agree there should be an option for what you want it to do when you make an override to the program. But there also needs to be an option to **turn the program off** and make it be dumb.
That is technically accomplished with how ecobee has things arranged, but it is very confusing.
@TechConnectify @DasGanon after reading a lot of the discussion I have a theory on this: someone at Ecobee noticed many users didn't understand why they'd change the set point and then the program would "randomly" resume and didn't understand what Hold meant, so they came up with a way to make the behavior "more clear". And slightly missed the mark while also making the UI incredibly cumbersome...this is a why theory not suggesting it's good.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin that’s how my ecobee works? Maybe I’m confused. If I set it to a temp that’s not scheduled it will hold until the next schedule starts.
@monorailtimes @jrconlin I think you might be confused, yeah. I'm talking about how to make it behave as a dumb thermostat for an indefinite period of time.
On any other programmable thermostat in the world, you turn on hold. Then it ignores the program and becomes a dumb thermostat until you turn off hold.
Hold, in my objectively correct opinion [/s], is a binary state. It is either on or off.
Nest just doesn't have it, and ecobee makes it a nested behavior of an override.
@TechConnectify @monorailtimes @jrconlin I suppose it’s annoying to have to change a setting, but on my ecobee you can set hold to mean indefinitely or until the next schedule change. Or to have it ask you each time, which may be the default and the behavior that you saw?
@TechConnectify @jrconlin The Ecobee is literally the first thermostats I’ve ever owned (Grew up in Europe where each radiator has a manual dial you turn to decide how warm it gets) - So I have no bagge or context here, seriously.
To me the “hold for X duration” seems like a helpful feature. Some evenings the preset doesn’t quite hit the mark, and we want to turn it up for a bit. But I don’t want to have to remember to disable that fact as I go to bed.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin I guess what I don’t quite understand is: Are you saying you can’t imagine a scenario where this is useful? Or are you saying there’s a clearer way to communicate the requirement I just suggested?
@philip @jrconlin a little of both, actually. I don't see that as particularly useful because I run a program already, and I would expect it to maintain my temporary override until the next programming point. And that program point happens to change at bedtime.
But, I see its usefulness - the other problem, though, is folding "just stop being smart until I tell you to be smart again" into the same action.
*That* is what should be pulled out as its own function.
@philip @jrconlin basically, I want a toggleable action to turn its brain off and make it a dumb thermostat. That is what "Hold" does on pretty much every programmable thermostat ever. It is distinctly different from a temporary override because it is a *permanent* override.
I find it needlessly confusing to fold that into a subset of overrides. While I can appreciate having various time spans for the overrides, they are all still temporary and thus, to me, are not what "hold" even does.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin I’m not sure what a better word would be, but I will definitely concede that “Temporary hold” probably isn’t the best choice.
As a software developer by trade, it fits fine in my mental model, but I can see how it wouldn’t for other folks.
@philip @jrconlin Right. I guess, maybe some of this has to do with the people in charge of smart thermostats not having much experience with dumb-but-programmable thermostats.
I mean, Nest doesn't even let you make it be dumb. That alone is crazy to me - what do you do when you have a house sitter?
But bottom line, it's too much. My paradigm is "run the program" and "don't run the program" with "deviate from the program until the next set point" being the only necessary mid-point.
@philip @jrconlin and that is how every programmable-but-not-smart thermostat I have used works.
And I think it's very logical. Either you want to be running the program, or you don't want to be running the program. And if for some reason you want to deviate from it right now, you probably want it to resume the program so you don't forget to put it back on.
And if you don't want it to do that? You turn on hold. And now it's a dumb thermostat.
Other options seem contrived, honestly.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin Tangent, if you’ll allow: I once stayed at a hotel that had Nest thermostats, I assume to be cool and “in” with the tech scene (It was in Silicon Valley).
I had nothing aginst the product itself, but installing it in a place that is all about *different* people staying in the room on a nightly basis seemed… curious.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin Look man, this regressive sort of "thermostats should allow you to just set a temperature" madness isn't going to sell any fancy new AI chips in fancy new AI thermostats. Your thermostat is going to infer what you want, and don't you dare try to tell it. That would be cheating.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin I wonder... is this influence by the power companies so they can reduce people's thermostats (though I'm wondering why they couldn't just... allow "hold" and then when the power company requests less demand, just... show that's happening?)
@TechConnectify wait isn’t this how the ecobee works when you just adjust the temperature? I thought when just adjust the temperature it says “(new temperature) until 9:00pm” (or whatever the next scheduled change is
@woodne that is one of many ways it *can* work but there are other things you can choose, too.
And the way my parents' model works, if you want it to actually *hold* a temperature, you need to go into the settings and tell it that when you change the temperature manually it should hold onto that forever.
Which, to me, makes very little sense. That needs to be a separate feature with a separate toggle.
@woodne Yes, that's what I mean,
I appreciate those two and four hour options (I guess... can't say I'd used them) but this is not what HOLD means to me.
That may be my bias from earlier thermostats, but bottom line - what I'm asking for is a feature that says "be dumb until further notice" and that doesn't feel like it belongs in a sub-menu like this.
@TechConnectify @woodne perhaps you’ve answered elsewhere, but isn’t setting this to “Decide at time of change” and then choosing “Until I change it” effectively this? And it’s not like you have to dig into this more than once.
@TechConnectify I have an Ecobee 3. Hold is a single button and holds indefinitely. Seems like I’m not going to be able to”upgrading” to an Ecobee 4 or later.
@mrfrobozz yeah, I don't remember what their model is but it's something "lite" I think. Maybe even 3 lite.
It's awful whatever it is.
@TechConnectify The thermostats I use [1] have three modes you can easily change in between:
Manual: you dial a temperature. Full stop.
Auto: follow a preconfigured (and customizable) week program, e.g., "on Mondays at 4 pm, set temperature to 21°C". You have a volatile override by dialing in a different temperature, that will be reset on the next scheduling point.
Vacation: you dial a temperature and then set an end date and time. Manual mode until that moment, auto mode afterwards.
@TechConnectify I guess that is what you want? From your original thread I found it really hard to understand what you are missing / complaining about.
As a non-native English speaker, I hope I used "dial" correct. What I mean is: "turn the big round thing in either direction until the display shows the temperature you want to set it to".
[1] HomeMatic HM-CC-RT-DN, from their discontinued original series. https://www.eq-3.com/products/homematic/detail/homematic-wireless-radiator-thermostat.html
I have no experience with their new "IP" series.
@TechConnectify looking at some of your other replies, a picture with the steps might help.
Tap the left button once, to toggle between "auto" and "manual" mode. Tap it a third time, to start programming "vacation" mode: first enter start and then end date and time, each confirming with middle button.
While at it: middle button to "boost": 300 seconds at max opening.
Right button: quick set day/night temperature in "auto" mode, as temporary override until next schedule time.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin I’m so confused. Sometimes, it seems like you want a manual setting to last until the next schedule, and sometimes indefinitely. Is that right? But you don’t like the Ecobee solution of choosing which at the time of the manual setting and would instead just like a completely separate “Hold” toggle, with the manual change being until the next schedule unless that toggle is enabled? Okay, that seems fine, but just enabling the “choose” seems plenty good.
@TechConnectify @jrconlin It sounds like it is moving closer to my Honeywell thermostat which I consider good. When making a change, the default is temporary hold until the time of the next change. You can adjust that clock time with plus or minus, if you want a longer or shorter temporary hold. Or you can change another toggle to permanent. It’s very easy to understand and it uses the “hold” language for both cases. I don’t get why “temporary hold” would be confusing.