query: When were thermostats invented?
passage: Thermostat
Possibly the earliest recorded examples of thermostat control were built by the Dutch innovator Cornelis Drebbel (1572–1633) around 1620 in England. He invented a mercury thermostat to regulate the temperature of a chicken incubator.[3] This is one of the first recorded feedback-controlled devices.
passage: Cardkey
They were once a division of Greer Hydraulics, Inc., and in January 1999 they were bought out by Johnson Controls, a company whose founder invented the electric room thermostat in the late 1800s.