fully manual
I learned the central AC in my apartment should only be run fully manually. Allowing the thermostat to keep temperature increases the chances the AC will fail. A few years ago I had a lot of problems with it and maintenance couldn't find the cause(they replaced some parts to no avail, I gave up trying to get it fixed). The AC compressor would fail to kick in(not an expert just going by the lack of noise), and instead ice would build up inside. It would then take many hours(sometimes waited 24h) for the ice to melt before the AC would work again. I'd estimate there is a 5% chance of this failure happening on any given startup. Turning it on manually every time I can tell when this failure happens(if the compressor doesn't kick on within 20 seconds), then I turn it off, wait a bit and try again. When the temp gets to a level I'm comfortable with(I have many temperature sensors in different places) I turn the AC off again. I never use the heat function. I think this year I have caught it fail to start 3-5 times.
But to these smart thermostats, I suspect it's likely if there were no defaults the customers would set them similar to what they are set to now. It's clear the $$ savings isn't worth it to them, otherwise they'd change it themselves. Some power providers have incentive based electricity plans where the price can vary depending on time of day or whatever but I think most people just have the more basic plan that charges based on overall usage (probably in tiers) for the billing period.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
