I was a very early adopter of programmable thermostats (we didn't call them "smart" back then). We installed a Honeywell Chronotherm III in our condo c.1989. We did not live there long, but I was very happy with the functionality of the Chronotherm.

Since then, I have owned 3-4 programmable thermostats. None of them have had as satisfying a UX as that old Chronotherm. Why? The Chronoterm had 1 key function:

Skip Next Period

Very common use case. You are home sick for the day, and don't want the temperature to go down, like it is programmed for when the house is unoccupied during the workday. Or you have houseguests, and don't want to inflict your penny-pinching overnight setting on them.

Change To Last Period

Also very common. The Skip Next Period use cases above apply, except if you aren't on the ball and forget to choose SKIP in advance. Or you get home from work early. Or have insomnia and wake up early.

Sun Country Mystery Terminal at LAX

 I flew in and out of LAX on Sun Country recently. I very nearly missed my return flight, because of the weirdness of the Sun Country terminal location. The counter is terminal 1, so that is what it says on the reservation and even on their mobile tickets. But the actual gates are in the International Terminal, which requires a shuttle ride. 

If you check bags, I think you have half a chance of figuring this out, because your printed ticket indicates this. But if you are like me, not checking bags, and just relying on your mobile ticket, it is quite a mystery. I more or less stumbled in the right direction, and then eventually saw a Sun Country employee, who directed me toward the shuttle. I still wasn't sure I was doing the right thing, but wound up okay and making the flight.

Definitely a screwed-up system.

ACA Subsidies Should Be Means-Tested Against Wealth

This is a relatively minor thing, but it is not uncommon for middle-to-upper-middle-class early retirees to manage income in part to qualify for ACA subsidies. Strategies well-off people can use to reduce income:

• Tap Roth or HSA accounts for tax-free income.
• Take capital gains and use tax-loss harvesting to offset the gains.
• Use the breadth of the 24% tax bracket to take extra income in the last pre-retirement years, and live off that income in the pre-Medicare years.

To be clear, I don't fault people for using these strategies. They are playing the cards they were dealt. It is the rules of the card game that need to change. It seems like the subsidies should be means-tested to some extent against total wealth.

Bluetooth Needs A "Connect Automatically" opt-out, like wireless networks

I mostly work from home, and spend a lot of time on conference calls. Not infrequently, my wife will drive somewhere after I have started the workday. So guess what happens? Her car steals my Bluetooth connection, to both our dismay.

This is such a basic problem, I can't believe it hasn't been widely-solved at this point. Off the top of my head solution: Bluetooth devices should have a "Connect Automatically" checkbox, the same way that WiFi networks do.

That is the table-stakes solution. The enhancement would be to offer a third choice: Connect Automatically if phone is not currently connected to a different Bluetooth device.

Summary: 

1. Connect Automatically (the way it works now)
2. Connect Automatically if phone is not currently connected.
3. Do Not Connect Automatically.