We just finished a replacement of a 40 year old gas furnace for our basement and first floor. Our second floor has separate heating and cooling, only about 10 years old. My wife and I remodelled the 120 year old "worker's cottage" ( http://moss-design.com/worker-cottage/ ) style home in the mid 1990's. We kept our original furnace at the time. in 2001 we hired a crew to dormer the roof and finish the second floor (we had more money at this time and didn't have to do the work ourselves). At that time we installed separate heating and cooling in the second floor. We used a programmable, but non-connected thermostat.

Just this summer we replaced the old furnace for the first floor and basement. The furnace dated from the late 1970's and was not too efficient. We had central air added as well, along with some duct work changes.

I worked with the HVAC contractor to choose the best thermostat. We looked at all the options and the clear choice was a standard programmable thermostat. The benefits of a smart, connected thermostat were negligible. Once programmed, the standard thermostat adjusts and maintains the temperature perfectly on your schedule. It works well, costs less and is not vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

The benefits of a connected thermostat are few compared to a programmable, but the cost is much greater. Not really worth it.

Slackware does both of these.