"micky" wrote in message
...
Last summer I spent a lot of time trying to decide on a better way to
control my furnace. I wanted to be able to turn it off without going to
the basement or the living room on a day like today, when it was in the
60's all night and will stay at 65 to 68 all day long, and to turn off
the AC on a day when it will be no more than 80 all day long.

I looked into wireless themostats. I could keep it by my bed, atlhough
they are as big as 2 decks of cards. Or ones that are controlled by a
cellphone. For that, I could use my cellphone or even, I think, my
previous cell phone with no SIM card since it could just use the wifi
iirc. Of course I'd still have to keep that phone charged and I'd have
to wait when I turned it on, and the control unit at the other end costs
money.

All choices looked inconvenient at best and not worth the money.

Finally it dawned on me, and I just interrupted the thermostat
connection at the furnace, ran a wire from the furnace up the laundry
chute and mounted a mini-toggle-switch on the metal panel that surrounds
the chute's opening in the 2nd floor hall. Works perfectly and would
have cost only $4 except I already had the wire, the switch, and the
wire-nuts.

I prefer fully integrated with something like HomeKit. That way you
can control it any way you like, with a switch which requires no wires
or batterys, just uses the kinetic energy of the button press, use your
voice or even have it completely automatic, using the weather forecast
and reported temperature to decide when to have it on or off.