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Nanny State Test: Company Locks Thermostats of 22K Customers, Cites 'Energy Emergency'

PatMiles

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Full Member
Minuteman
Feb 25, 2017
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For many Americans, the summer of 2022 has been a blistering hot and humid miserable existence. It’s just one of those years when one truly appreciates the comfort provided by something as simple as an air conditioning unit. How did we live without them?

But for some 22,000 Xcel Energy customers in Colorado who wanted to be a little more comfortable on Tuesday when the thermometer was pegged at 90+ degrees, a bizarre message flashed on their thermostats indicating they’d lost the ability to control the temperature in their own homes.

According to KMGH-TV, “Energy Emergency” was part of the message that flashed on thermostats as temperatures skyrocketed and Xcel customers desperately tried to crank the A/C.

“Temperature locked temporarily during energy emergency. Due to a rare energy emergency that may affect the local energy grid, your temperature slider has been changed from 8:00 pm – 8:00 pm because you enrolled in a Community Energy Savings Program...


Wouldn't be a bit surprised that there will be a small surcharge for the lockout.
 
My home was built in the mid 70's and plan to keep it retro. No a single smart appliance in the house with the exception of the TV which most of the features have been disabled. Manual t-stat, no Alexa, Rhumba or voice activated appliances. If only I could find a simple flip phone that is only a phone.
 
There's the tstat and likely a box outside hardwired to the compressor.

Don't link your tsat and have your HVAC guy disconnect that stupid box. We never signed up for that shit but the folks who owned the house before us must have.

I never linked our new thermostat and when we replaced the furnace/AC our HVAC guy was like "you don't want this hooked up to this box, do you?"

I was like fuuuuck NO
 
There's the tstat and likely a box outside hardwired to the compressor.

Don't link your tsat and have your HVAC guy disconnect that stupid box. We never signed up for that shit but the folks who owned the house before us must have.

I never linked our new thermostat and when we replaced the furnace/AC our HVAC guy was like "you don't want this hooked up to this box, do you?"

I was like fuuuuck NO

We replaced ours last year, same story. No we don't want that.
 
Saw this yesterday. This is why I won’t have one of these pieces of shit. It’s only a matter of time that it’s explicitly tied to some score and your heat is “accidentally” turned down/off
 
laugh-nicholson.gif


R
 
because you enrolled in a Community Energy Savings Program...
In Texas I got an email offering $50 to allow them to bumb temperature when grid is tight.
I said fuck no...
Several months later.. we had a tight grid condition and those fuckers put my upstairs thermostat into "away mode" which did the same thing. Ugg. It immediately went to normal when I touched it.. but pissed me off. I still have the old one if I need it.
You can also just connect two of the wires to force it to engage if you really needed.
 
In Texas I got an email offering $50 to allow them to bumb temperature when grid is tight.
I said fuck no...
Several months later.. we had a tight grid condition and those fuckers put my upstairs thermostat into "away mode" which did the same thing. Ugg. It immediately went to normal when I touched it.. but pissed me off. I still have the old one if I need it.
You can also just connect two of the wires to force it to engage if you really needed.

Just say NO to "smart" devices for your home that are internet connected.
They WILL be used against you or used to spy on you.

I don't see how having some fancy internet connected thermostat would make your life any better than a standard programmable un-smart thermostat.
 
Colorado? I guarantee you 75%+ are liberal Democrat scumbags who are all in on the "save the planet", global warming, green energy bullshit. So you know what, fuck em. I don't give two fucks if they freeze or bake. This is a problem 100% created by them and the people they elected.
 
Colorado? I guarantee you 75%+ are liberal Democrat scumbags who are all in on the "save the planet", global warming, green energy bullshit. So you know what, fuck em. I don't give two fucks if they freeze or bake. This is a problem 100% created by them and the people they elected.
If they want to save the planet then they should drink the Jim Jones Kool-Aid and help everyone.
 
This is EASY guys.
Take their $50-250 incentives.

We had the same problem with a corporate edict on thermostats.
Simple solution: Moved the medium sized Xerox machine 10’ to be directly under the thermostat, with the exhaust fan blowing hot air straight up to the bottom of the thermostat.
The room went from a warm 82 degrees to a chilly 65, even though the thermostat said 82.

******* If you don’t have a spare Xerox, put a 10 watt incandescent light bulb in a trouble light and hang it immediately under the thermostat.
Your welcome.
 
Colorado? I guarantee you 75%+ are liberal Democrat scumbags who are all in on the "save the planet", global warming, green energy bullshit. So you know what, fuck em. I don't give two fucks if they freeze or bake. This is a problem 100% created by them and the people they elected.
It's ok, from what I understand they are already baked when they're freezing. Chill Dude.....
 
The girls don't sweat because they don't shave their pits in Colorado...
 
Said it forever.

This is why you do not have a “smart home” or sign up for that foolishness with the power company.
Yup. I wonder when/if, people will finally get the hint. These companies/.gov, think they know what's "good" for you. Technology can be a very good thing. BUT....when it's used in nefarious ways.... can be very BAD. Mac;)
 
A year ago or so I heard someone knocking on my front door. Now understand I live in a rural area and everyone who knows me always come to the back of the house so immediately I get a little suspicious. Well its these two young men from the electric company trying to sell me on this smart technology. I politely tell them I am not interested yet they persist. I told them no not so politely the second time and informed them they were trespassing and leave the property while also mentioning my neighbor has some not so friendly pit bulls so better be careful if you go by his place. Funny I never heard from them again.
 
Colorado? I guarantee you 75%+ are liberal Democrat scumbags who are all in on the "save the planet", global warming, green energy bullshit. So you know what, fuck em. I don't give two fucks if they freeze or bake. This is a problem 100% created by them and the people they elected.
No, we are like most other blue states where one city decides what's best for the state.

If we got rid of Denver a couple other towns, we would be red as fuck. Once you leave city limits, all you saw were trump flags before the last election. Most still have theirs up.

Doc
 
The older I get, the more and more i'm starting to hate technology, because it's getting to the point where it's being used against us.

Don't suppose there's anything stopping these folks from removing the fancy wifi thermostat, and hooking up an old school thermostat that uses a simple switch and a spiral spring like what I use for heat in the shop with the pellet stove. But like others have said, most of those folks are most likely liberals, and we know they lack the brain power to do anything besides drink lattes and be entitled worthless fucks.

Branden
 
There's the tstat and likely a box outside hardwired to the compressor.

Don't link your tsat and have your HVAC guy disconnect that stupid box. We never signed up for that shit but the folks who owned the house before us must have.

I never linked our new thermostat and when we replaced the furnace/AC our HVAC guy was like "you don't want this hooked up to this box, do you?"

I was like fuuuuck NO

They had that shit in base housing at Mountain Home, AFB back in the mid 90s.
That nonsense was programmed to apply at 2pm and go off at 5.

Hottest part of the day in the desert of SW Idaho.

Let's just say it stopped working at my house...
 
I'm curious about the thermostats that are being remotely controlled....couldn't they be replaced with a non remote style unit or disconnected from the 'net?

I can't imagine myself being held hostage by my provider unless it was mandatory.

VooDoo
 
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They signed a contract. I bet that in the fine print of that "agree to terms" there's a penalty for jumping ship.
I'm curious about the thermostats that are being remotely controlled....couldn't they be replaced with a non remote style unit or disconnected from the 'net?

I can't imagine myself being held hostage by my provider unless it was mandatory.

VooDoo
 
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I'm curious about the thermostats that are being remotely controlled....couldn't they be replaced with a non remote style unit or disconnected from the 'net?

I can't imagine myself being held hostage by my provider unless it was mandatory.

VooDoo
Absolutely they can be switched.
The convenience of being able to pre-warm or cool your home when inbound from being gone saves $’s and sweat. Even if mandatory and locked down they can be tweaked to provide the temp you want:

- Small heat-producing item under the thermostat
- Parallel-wired manual thermostat with selection switch

But the easiest may be Blacklisting (on your WiFi router) the energy company trying to remotely control your thermostat
 
I used to put a heat lamp on a timer under the thermostat to kick the ac on.

This was before “smart” thermostat’s.
 
So FYI from someone who's wife had to enjoy an 80 degree house while I was out of town because of this bullshit:
  • I installed these myself (they are like $300 each too) a few years ago because I wanted the convenience (yeah lesson learned) of remote control from my phone while I was traveling.
  • I didn't opt in to shit, confirmed by XCel and in my XCel account page where all these "services" were listed as off/opted out, the blamed Ecobee. I have never received any credit or refund.
  • Ecobee blames XCel and says only they can turn it off
  • I will be ripping these off the wall and replacing with analog dials
  • The so called "emergency" was nearly 3 hours from where I live.
  • Fuck XCel, fuck green energy, and fuck everyone who keeps enabling this kind of crap (including myself for installing these in the first place).
 
There's several WiFi thermostats available if you need the remote availability. They are not controlled by the power company. It's a Bluetooth connection to your phone.
I have had good reports on this model from customers that I have installed them for.
PXL_20220808_132739307.jpg

Amazon for around $160
So FYI from someone who's wife had to enjoy an 80 degree house while I was out of town because of this bullshit:
  • I installed these myself (they are like $300 each too) a few years ago because I wanted the convenience (yeah lesson learned) of remote control from my phone while I was traveling.
  • I didn't opt in to shit, confirmed by XCel and in my XCel account page where all these "services" were listed as off/opted out, the blamed Ecobee. I have never received any credit or refund.
  • Ecobee blames XCel and says only they can turn it off
  • I will be ripping these off the wall and replacing with analog dials
  • The so called "emergency" was nearly 3 hours from where I live.
  • Fuck XCel, fuck green energy, and fuck everyone who keeps enabling this kind of crap (including myself for installing these in the first place).
 
Oh hell no. Not only don't I have any "smart" appliances but when my desktop computer isn't in use it's turned off and half the time when I leave the house the phone is on the coffee table. Two of my vehicles have carbs and points & condenser ignitions.
Yeah I'm a Luddite.

You talk about this, and I think part of it in fun and part of it for real. But it is really 100% real. (If you wanted to be 100% serious sorry I did not read you that way)

Years ago gasp 60 Minutes did a thing on taking control of your car with a computer. They had a guy sitting at a table and one of the reporters is driving a cone course in a parking lot, the guy at the computer made the steering quit working, the brakes stop, the radio come on, window wipers, squirt fluid on the windshield, up and down windows....all sitting in the parking lot.

I saw another video where a guy was in St. Louis in an office building, and he did the same thing to a car someone else was driving around St. Louis, they said he would do nothing to the car that would make it "unsafe" like mess with the basic controls of the car, but he turned the radio on all the way up, put the windows down and made them stay down, turn the heater on in the summer at full blast.

That video was actually on youtube for a bit, but quickly vanished. This is some flat scary shit, your mind can really race to see issues on this.

I am sure special agent X is reading my post (hi special agent, I don't know how to do any of this I promise) but can you imagine doing something like this to a car that some .gov types drive. I am sure they have that bypassed in those cars somehow.
 
This is EASY guys.
Take their $50-250 incentives.

We had the same problem with a corporate edict on thermostats.
Simple solution: Moved the medium sized Xerox machine 10’ to be directly under the thermostat, with the exhaust fan blowing hot air straight up to the bottom of the thermostat.
The room went from a warm 82 degrees to a chilly 65, even though the thermostat said 82.

******* If you don’t have a spare Xerox, put a 10 watt incandescent light bulb in a trouble light and hang it immediately under the thermostat.
Your welcome.

We have the same basic problem where I work in a few areas. The t-stats in the rooms can give you a swing +- 4deg, so you don't have a great deal of control. Women take the cold differently then men, I know it is a shock but men and women are actually built differently down to the cell level. Many women will be cold where the men find it comfy. In one of our areas that has to be manned 24x7x367 if a female is in that room she gets cold, they started to bring in space heaters, this made the room warmer, and that made the AC try even harder to cool it off. To the point they blew breakers. A little communication, and some policy changes (like being allowed to wear a jacket over your stuff, but you had to take off the jacket if you went into the jail) helped fix the issues.

Strange how these impossible issues can be solved with a bit of thinking and real communication.
 
In many commercial buildings we install a dummy stat on the wall for people to play with. They can turn it up or down all they want. It doesn't operate the system. But it makes them feel better.
In one office we put four different dummy stats around in different places and there's only one system for the place
 
So FYI from someone who's wife had to enjoy an 80 degree house while I was out of town because of this bullshit:
  • I installed these myself (they are like $300 each too) a few years ago because I wanted the convenience (yeah lesson learned) of remote control from my phone while I was traveling.
  • I didn't opt in to shit, confirmed by XCel and in my XCel account page where all these "services" were listed as off/opted out, the blamed Ecobee. I have never received any credit or refund.
  • Ecobee blames XCel and says only they can turn it off
  • I will be ripping these off the wall and replacing with analog dials
  • The so called "emergency" was nearly 3 hours from where I live.
  • Fuck XCel, fuck green energy, and fuck everyone who keeps enabling this kind of crap (including myself for installing these in the first place).

This is how they get you. Oh yea that would be so great, we are all out of town the dog is at the kennel, I can turn down the house and save some money, then in the car back from the airport I can cool it off before I get there, great idea and (I SAVE MONEY).

That is the hook they use. It is the same hook they use for electric cars as well.

I have a guy at work who is a pretty strong lefty, he is seeing the light now, but still very "green" and all that stuff. We tease each other quite often. I hung a Trump sticker in with his patch collection, he donated to biden under my name (ass hole you know how much crap I get now)....but fun stuff like that, just playing.

He did solar on his house, he said he is getting an electric car as soon as this current availability issue gets fixed, told him he has a few more years to go till the next pres election, oh come on, yea your right the D's will never allow a free and fair election again.....see fun stuff.

But he put solar on his house and "sized it" to charge his new car as well as take care of his house. Sounds like a good plan, yea, wife works 10 miles from work and I have a patrol car, cool. You should have a zero electric bill now.....what no? You should if you "sized" your solar array for charging an electric car that does not exist yet then you should be making more electricity then you could use in your house, does evergy buy it back?

The look is priceless.

That all said, back when I raced cars you could always find my trailer and motorhome, it had a HUGE pole on it with a wind trubine on it. That would power the motorhome with everything but the AC. On my shop I have solar and that same turbine and it runs the LED lights, and a heater for my water in the shop.

There are places where it will help, but it is not the magic bullet everyone makes it out to be.
 
They had that here in the 90's. The HVAC and the water heater were connected to it.
I made quite a few dollars disconnecting that stuff.

Ha, forgot about the water heater bullshit.
They did that to base housing at MacDill.
I did housing maintenance right after I retired. (Loved that job)
Water heater was married to the A/C and heating system.
Too many troubles with it in a state where you might need heat overnight and AC during the day.

We disconnected all of them.
 
You talk about this, and I think part of it in fun and part of it for real. But it is really 100% real. (If you wanted to be 100% serious sorry I did not read you that way)

Years ago gasp 60 Minutes did a thing on taking control of your car with a computer. They had a guy sitting at a table and one of the reporters is driving a cone course in a parking lot, the guy at the computer made the steering quit working, the brakes stop, the radio come on, window wipers, squirt fluid on the windshield, up and down windows....all sitting in the parking lot.

I saw another video where a guy was in St. Louis in an office building, and he did the same thing to a car someone else was driving around St. Louis, they said he would do nothing to the car that would make it "unsafe" like mess with the basic controls of the car, but he turned the radio on all the way up, put the windows down and made them stay down, turn the heater on in the summer at full blast.

That video was actually on youtube for a bit, but quickly vanished. This is some flat scary shit, your mind can really race to see issues on this.

I am sure special agent X is reading my post (hi special agent, I don't know how to do any of this I promise) but can you imagine doing something like this to a car that some .gov types drive. I am sure they have that bypassed in those cars somehow.

Did you ever wonder how all these folks seem to die in crazy car accidents where it seems like they just race off directly into destruction?

Any guess as to if maybe that recently deceased Hollywood actress that was planning on making a documentary about how Hollywood is top to bottom filled with pedophiles suddenly had her car accelerate to top speed and crash?
 
I recently replaced my50 y/o thermostat with a $20 analogue unit. Sometimes it pays to be poor
 
Did you ever wonder how all these folks seem to die in crazy car accidents where it seems like they just race off directly into destruction?

Any guess as to if maybe that recently deceased Hollywood actress that was planning on making a documentary about how Hollywood is top to bottom filled with pedophiles suddenly had her car accelerate to top speed and crash?

Not one doubt in my mind at all. IMHO you are a fool if you buy into these "accidents"