That "smart" thermostat I installed three months ago just locked me out at 2 AM

Woke up sweating in the dark in my apartment in Columbus last Tuesday. The screen said "updating firmware" and wouldn't let me override anything. I had to dig out the breaker panel at midnight and kill power to the whole HVAC to reset it. Now I'm back to using the old manual dial thermostat I pulled out of the basement. It's ugly but it never pulled that nonsense. Has anyone else had a smart home gadget just straight up fail when you needed it most?

2 comments

2 Comments

andrew69314d ago

Honestly, did you check if the thermostat had any kind of "emergency override" setting in the app before you had to kill the power? I feel like companies should be forced to include a physical button or a hardware switch for exactly this situation, but they never do because they want everything locked down. It's like they don't trust us with our own stuff, even though we're the ones paying for it. If you hadn't found the breaker, what were you supposed to do, just roast?

ben40214d ago

Totally feel you on this, @andrew693. It's maddening when a simple fix like a physical switch gets replaced by some buried menu option you can't find in a panic. Companies act like we're gonna break our own stuff but then leave us with zero real control when something glitches.