Here's my objection:

You say, "It would be great if it worked like this."

I say "It does work like this. Has done for decades. Nobody cares."

You say "But it doesn't work like this."

This is the part where I say

Look. The difference between a Nest and this is $230 worth of hipster bullshit. I say this having hated on how primitive and stupid thermostats are for going on 20 years. I actually rigged one very similar to this example to act as a dayparting timer for background music in a large chain of restaurants - the cheapest way for me to switch between two sources in over 2,000 restaurants was rigging the thermostat Macgyver style to do what I needed it to do. Its not that they're really versatile, it's that they're really fucking simple.

But hipsters are scared of things involving screwdrivers, and in love with things involving wifi, so yay. $250 thermostat. It doesn't "just work", it has to "learn" your behavior. Fuck you, Nest. Turn on when I tell you, turn off when I tell you, and go for the temperatures I decide. See, that's the part they don't really explain - you have to fuck with a Nest for about two weeks before it does its magic, while my $20 buddy is in the zone within ten minutes of me slapping it on the wall. And remember - three wires. Same three wires the Nest needs.

You wanna see innovative? here's innovative. Fuck your thermostat, I wanna know what all the power in the house is doing, and I want to know from everywhere.

Except that isn't innovative either. I think TED is a 3rd or 4th generation whole-house monitor. But since it's basically a scaled-down industrial energy monitor, rather than "the Internet of Things", and since you need to know how to change out a circuit breaker to use it, the hipsters aren't eating it up.

"Just working" means "but I want bells and whistles!" or "but there isn't enough hype!" THAT is what separates Nest from its competition - bullshit Kickstarter eMasturbation "sentiment."

And again - we do this every ten years.