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c/hvac-technicians•raym68raym68•1mo ago

Shoutout to the wild west of smart thermostat installs out there

Been running more residential calls lately and man, the stuff I see with these smart stats is wild. Just had a lady call because her house was a sauna, turns out her grandkid linked the thermostat to an Alexa and it was taking voice commands from the TV. The thing was set to 85 because a cartoon character said 'it's getting hot in here'. Took me an hour to find all the connected apps and disconnect them. Now I ask every time if they have kids or smart speakers. It's a whole new part of the job I never trained for.
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3 Comments
hugopark
hugopark26d ago
I started putting a piece of tape over the microphone on the thermostat itself. It stops the voice control from working locally, so at least the TV can't set it off. Then I make sure the app is only on the homeowner's phone, not a shared family tablet.
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singh.thomas
Imagine radio ads controlling your home temperature.
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grant.finley
The radio ad part might be the only way I'd figure out my thermostat.
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