On Monday, May 24, 2021 at 7:57:41 AM UTC-4, micky wrote:
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 control my Nest thermostat with my smartphone via the Nest app or with
my voice via my Echo Dot(s). The smartphone app works from anywhere.
I have 4 Dots, so that method works from anywhere in my house and garage.

Alexa, set the temperature to ___ degrees.
Alexa, increase/decrease the temperature. (changes by 2°F)
Alexa, increase/decrease the temperature by ___ degrees.
Alexa, turn the thermostat off.

Basically, anything that can be set at the thermostat can be set by the Nest
app on my phone, including the schedule. The Alexa method is a more limited..

It didn't/doesn't cost me anything. I paid $35 for the Nest through my utility
and I've gotten well over $35 in credits applied to my bill by participating in
"set-back" periods during times of high AC usage. I already had the Echo Dots
for other reasons, so all I had to do was add the (free) Nest skill.