A 1907 Craftsman smart thermostat retrofit in Portland began with a much less glamorous problem than home automation. A WIRED writer said he and his wife bought the house at the end of 2025, then learned its furnace was emitting carbon monoxide. The couple hired a local furnace company to replace it before moving in, according to WIRED’s first-person account.
The writer described the house as a largely unchanged 1907 Craftsman listed on the National Historic Registry, though those details were not independently verified in the available evidence. Their stated aim is to restore and update the home without stripping out the look that made them buy it in the first place. That is an aesthetic preference in this project, not a general preservation rule.
For routine control after the furnace work, the household installed Ecobee’s Smart Thermostat Enhanced. WIRED describes the device as unobtrusive in the dining room and says the choice was an attempt to add current technology without making the old house feel like a gadget showroom.
Why did the owners choose an Ecobee thermostat?
The writer said Ecobee’s occupancy sensing was a deciding point over a Google Nest option. Ecobee says the Enhanced uses radar-based sensing, has a larger touchscreen than its Essential model and can be controlled through iOS and Android apps. The company also says separately sold SmartSensors can help it account for occupied rooms.
Google’s Nest lineup is not one uniform product, either. Consumer Reports says the Nest Learning Thermostat is designed to learn preferred temperatures and occupancy patterns for schedule adjustments, while the lower-cost Nest Thermostat is programmed through Google Home or at the device and can also detect occupancy. The WIRED account does not report a side-by-side test of either product.
What do the thermostat reports actually show?
WIRED’s writer said Ecobee’s monthly recap of furnace use and average indoor temperature has already been useful in a house he described as drafty and lacking insulation. That is one household’s early experience, not evidence that the thermostat reduced its bills or fixed the building’s envelope.
Ecobee says its Home Energy Reports can display HVAC runtime, temperature and humidity across daily, weekly and monthly views. The company also offers monthly comparisons involving runtime savings and efficiency. Those reports describe system operation and comparisons generated in Ecobee’s app; they should not be read as direct measurement of a home’s utility consumption.
The writer also reported receiving about $10 off a monthly bill through a smart-thermostat utility program. That discount is specific to this household’s utility arrangement, and WIRED did not establish that similar offers are available elsewhere.
The narrower lesson from the account is procedural. The writer put a reported safety issue ahead of the technology purchase, then selected one wall-mounted control whose appearance he felt fit the room. Ecobee markets savings of up to 26% on heating and cooling costs for the Enhanced, but that is a manufacturer claim, not a demonstrated result for this Portland Craftsman.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
