the sounds of ladders clagging against the side of the house woke me up this morning. the guys my neighbors collectively hire to clean out our gutters came by today.

the nest thermostat is almost the same diameter as my old honeywell thermostat, so it nearly perfectly covers up the circular space on the wall, so no need to repaint to patch things up.

the nest thermostat seems perfect in every way - user interface, physical design, convenience, ease of installation, cool factor - except in the one way where it counts: temperature accuracy. i noticed that the thermostat temperature is actually 2-3 degrees fahrenheit higher than the reading on 3 different digital thermometers. this is a problem because it makes the house feel cooler. for example, 60° is where i set my lowest temperature. but by the time the thermostat reads 60° and kicks in the furnace, it's 57-58° already. i went online and saw many people complaining about this on nest's technical support forums. this would be an easy fix if consumers had the option to adjust the temperature reading; if i could lower the reading by 2-3 degrees, it'd be perfect. but for some reason nest doesn't have this feature, perhaps fearful it'd cause more problems than solutions. the cause of the higher readings (always higher, never lower) can be anything from drafty wall interior, spotty wifi, not having a common C wire furnace connection, and acceptable tolerance (in this case 4° shift from actual is an okay range for nest's technicians). i will have to look into this problem. my old honeywell manual thermostat never had this issue (in fact, in most cases, it was probably a degree cooler than actual temperature).

* light falls off, rip my pants