Today’s Amazon Gold Box holds a high-end Honeywell programmable thermostat for $50 shipped. It has a touchscreen, which of course makes it extra fancy.
In all seriousness, if you don’t have a good programmable thermostat, jump on this deal. The average household will save close to $200/year on energy costs by using a thermostat like this (assuming you set it up properly), so this is one of those things that truly pays for itself in very short order. And yes, there are cheaper ones, but Honeywell is pretty much the gold standard.
Why yes, I am passionate about thermostats. That’s… not weird at all.
I had two of these installed when I built a house a few years ago. They are AWESOME. I will say that the directions are less than stellar though. The guy who installed my HVAC is a long time friend and after he got everything installed and working, he showed me the basics of the thermostat. So then I ask about the programming. And he said, yeah, well I’ve looked at the book and you are on your own with that. Took me a while but now I’ve got it down and will re-do my settings every couple of months based on our schedule and the weather.