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Comment by StephenHerlihyy | Hacker News Reader

Living in a cold room with an evil presence is better than roasting in hell with an angry wife.

This is why I hate digital thermostats. With the old classic round Honeywell thermostats you could turn the dial a fraction of a degree when nobody was looking and "boil the frog" to get a reasonable temperature. With digital thermostats, you can only change the temperature in discrete steps which will be immediately noticed.

>Why does it say 74?? I had it set to 75!!1!

Use home assistant, and program in a second stealth thermostat controlled by the first, that allows you to 'nudge' the values.

It's what I did, not because of relationship reasons, but the hvac and furnace thermostat disagreed on what temperature 23C should be so I had to tweak it.

Have you considered just not living with people you think so little of?

I have an analogue thermostat in my home, but vacations (in rental properties) with the in-laws turn into thermostat wars. I particularly don't appreciate the ones that use proximity sensors to light the thermostat display's backlight. Whoever came up with that idea was a genuine asshole.

Besides, would you really break off a relationship over something so petty as temperature preference? The people who find somebody who's literally perfect for them must be very rare, I think most people have to make small sacrifices and concessions.

I agree, everyone makes small sacrifices and concessions to the people they live with, and I would never break up with someone over such a small issue as temperature preference. But trying to trick your partner or housemate into thinking you haven’t changed the temperature? That’s the kind of strategy you use when you’re stuck with someone you can’t communicate with, or don’t respect enough to want to communicate with, or have given up on communicating with. At that point I’d be packing my things.

The flip side is that, if you do hammer out an agreement on what the thermostat should be set to, with an analog thermostat, you can have arguments about whether it is actually set to that.

"We agreed it would be set to 74!"

"It IS set to 74!"

"No, it's set to like 74.2 or 74.3 or something! The little pointer is not pointing directly at 74, and you know it!"

>Why does it say 74?? I had it set to 75!!1!

This is where you start explaining what hysteresis is and wait for their eyes to glaze over before changing the subject ;)

You can still spin the damn encoder.

A younger me would have had the same gusto. Age has taught me that attempting to improve the AC, in ways that my family can neither appreciate or understand, is merely going to lead to disaster.

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