One task I have is to make sure a computer room stays below a correct temperature. The room has a history of overheating due to air-conditioner failure. So, I need an alarm for when this happens. The alarm system already exists. I just need to replace the old thermostat simply closes a contact if the temperature rises above a set point. Since I only need the feature of closing a contact if the temperature rises above a set point, I purchased the cheapest and most basic thermostat model I could find.Silly me. I thought this would be a rather basic product. It turns out that some enterprising engineer decided that an electronic means of measuring temperature was the way to go. The result is an overly complex circuit board made in a large overseas factory, with lots of tin & lead solder runs, lots of individual parts and powered by a non-renewable button cell battery. Apparently, the environmental cost of engineering, assembling, packaging, marketing and shipping all this made sense to someone.
So, I'm returning it and searching for a purely mechanical thermostat. Not because it doesn't work. It's because I don't want to encourage the use of overly complex solutions for solving simple problems.
