Centipedes , we fought our way up this mountain . We must not let ourselves fall down it . When you ' re king of the hill , everybody wants to see you fail . # NAVIGATE NIMBLY , AND KEEP MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN ! Edit as an AZ centipede , what can I do to help ? <| sep |> The savings can absolutely be there , but it largely depends on your usage patterns and personal habits . First , if you have somebody home all the time , then pretty much nothing going to help . If you are gone on very regular intervals and rarely are at other times , then an inexpensive programmable thermostat would be a more frugal choice , since you can just set your schedule and forget it . If , however , you have odd schedules that change and are out of the house at unpredictable times , then a smart thermostat like the Nest or Ecobee or the like absolutely can save you money . They learn your odd schedules at a much finer level than a typical 5 or 7 day programmable thermostat ever could so you get savings right there . Then , their away feature allows the thermostat to know if the house is empty or not and can dynamically adjust the temp based on that . That can also help quite a bit , if your patterns are like that . There is also an entire class of people for which a smart thermostat would be a frugal choice if only because they simply wouldn ' t program a programmable one and so using a smart one as if it was programmable would be worth it in the end . I have a Nest on all three zones in my house and have considered them worth it , if only for the convenience . They definitely save me money beyond what a programmable would , but maybe not enough to justify their cost . I don ' t purchase products exclusively to get the most frugal option , though , so I was getting the Nests regardless .