Programmable Thermostats

I was browsing Amazon today and saw an ad for this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006ML9J4O/ref=amb_link_363389382_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-3&pf_rd_r=08TY1S0DZ9W1BP5E8QWA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1374036862&pf_rd_i=507846 It is a $250 electronic thermostat, that is designed to program itself. Before I say my point, something like this may be great for some people. And, maybe, if I was in a bigger place, maybe I'd appreciate it more. But here's my point: I have no use for a programmable thermostat, for the most part. I live in a small, well (surprisingly so) insulated place. I pay heating and air conditioning bills here. You need heat, and air conditioning starts getting pretty nice to have as temperatures climb. Sure, I could back off on the settings for these and save some money, but why? I pay these bills to be comfortable. Turning that dial up to 76 may save me a few dollars a month, but I am going to be less comfortable. So why do it? Turning the heat or AC down during the day sounds like a good idea, but if your place is well insulated (as mine is), what do you really gain? It cools down a bit during the day, but must work overtime when you get home. What have we saved here, exactly? And forget about AC. If it is hot enough that turning the AC down has an effect, you will be getting home to a warm house. On hot days, the AC runs 80-90% of the time (or near 100% on that heat wave of the year) by design. Unless you mind it being hot when you get home (and I do), this will save you nothing. For the record breaking month of July this year, my power bill was maybe $40 more than winter. You read that right. It's usually like $30 more. The big possible savings is when you are gone for multiple days -- in which case I turn it down/off anyway manually. The biggest thing is that most people have utterly no scientific measurement of the effect of the thermostat. They just assume it saves them money. While there is a valid reason to believe this (certainly, running anything less would cost less), the difference may be so minute as to be meaningless. If people see that their bill was less, they'll credit it to the thermostat. If it's more, well, then it was a particularly hot or cold month... There's no *real* comparison. If you save about $10 a month, and deal with some amount of discomfort doing so, is it worth it? I say no.