So, a while back I got a new air conditioner installed in my house, and I got this theromstat named the "ComfortLink II XL824". What kind of a clusterfuck name is that? But that's really only the beginning of this shit.
Behold, man's inhumanity to man.
A thermostat should really only need 4 buttons. One for turning the AC on and off, one for turning the fan on/off, one for turning the temperature up, and another for turning it down, and that's it. But then there's shitty products like this that think they're being "cutting edge" and 'hip" for jamming a crapload of dumb options into a product that really doesn't need any of it.
My first gripe with this thing is that, like every other thermostat made after 2017 because everything needs to rip off Apple, this thing is a touch screen. Why does everything want to be a touch screen these days? I don't need to see a bunch of greasy finger prints when I want to see the temperature. But that's not even BEGINNING to explain how atrociously ass this fuck fest is.
So, as you can see from the screenshot above, there's no buttons on the device. It's all touch screen. So if you manage to break the touch screen somehow, you're really gonna be down shit's creek without a paddle. Another complaint I have is the touch screen is way too unresponsive. Sometimes it takes 3-4 presses to make it do what you want. And each press takes like one second to actually register.
Anyway, the main UI is alright in terms of appearance. It tries to rip off the Android UI, and it tells you the temperature, both inside and outside for some reason. Is this a thermostat, or a weather machine? Can I get a 5-day forecast on this?
So anyway as we can tell there's no real options on the home screen here. Except for the barely visible "75" on the right side which lets you "control" the temperature. At least that part is somewhat easy, but the rest.. oh boy.
Where is the option to turn on/off the fans/AC/etc? Would you believe it's not in the home screen, but you have to go through a confusing menu and press three separate things to do this simple task that most thermostats can do in one easy press? Wow! But lets talk about this "Menu". When you "touch" it, here's what you get.
W-what? What the hell? What is all this? Is this a thermostat, or a freakin' smart phone? Again, I really have to ask: Why are there so many options for a fucking thermostat?! Schedules? Nexia? Service? What is all this?! Where are the fan controls? I wonder if I can install a Tetris app on this.
Alright, I'm going to explain to you what all this shit actually is:
- Settings - Because a Thermostat needs these for some reason! There's an incredible vast amount of unnecessary settings, such as changing the display or setting up access restrictions, because god forbid someone touches your thermostat. It also lets you activate a "Simple" mode, which will make the XL824 slightly more tolerable. But not by much.
- Schedules - For some reason this thermostat lets you set up schedules which you can use to change when the house cools down or heats up or when to turn the AC off/on, etc. It's an unnecessarily difficult thing to use and honestly it isn't worth it.
- Weather - So this thing comes with a Weather app, for some reason, and you can use this to set up your local weather and get a 5-day forecast (hey, my question was answered!) and even get a very basic radar which doesn't animate. But that requires connecting this thing to a WiFi network (more on this later).
- System Info - Get your thermostat version (you read that correctly).
- Smart Optimization - It "smartly" optimizes your indoor temperature and system performance.
- Nexia - More unnecessary garbage that exists solely to collect data on you. It's a pain in the ass to set up and requires you to register for a "mynexia.com" account and give them all your information. Sweet!
- Humidity - Lets you control your house humidity, if you need too for whatever reason.
- Ventilate - Lets you ventilate your house I think? I don't know, I never opened it.
- Service - Same thing as above, I've never opened this stupid app so I don't know what it actually does.
- Reboot - There is actually an option in the settings to reboot the thermostat. LOL
The worst thing about this thing is that it has a screen saver! Yes, a fucking screen saver on a thermostat. What's REALLY annoying is that this screen saver hides the entire menu, the only thing that is visible is the temperature. Nothing else. No indoor humidity, no outdoor temperature, no nothing as it is obscured with a black background. To top it off it bounces all around which makes it really difficult to actually look at the thing.
What is this powered by? Windows 98? Why in the hell is it bouncing around? Why is there even a screen saver? Why is there no way to turn this off?!! Seriously! There is no setting to turn this off. But what's funny is there is an option to turn off the screen, instead of having the bouncing temperature. Why would you want to disable the screen on a thermostat? When I look at one, I want to see the temperature in my house, I don't even need to see that extra garbage like the weather outside of my house or radar or whatever, not tap a fucking thing 4 times to wake it up and see what's going on.
Final verdict is: It's a piece of shit, it sucks and I wish I could chuck it in the garbage and be rid of it forever. "Internet of Things" is a total and utter mistake and anyone who approves of it needs to be fired off into the Sun.
