So, something interesting. I have the ecobee. With that device, there is no way to set the AC to come on at a specific time. I have looked into this quite a bit and can find no solutions.
With my power company we have a time of use plan, and between 3pm and 8pm are our highest prices on electricity usage. Ideally I would run the AC during those hours for 10 minutes each hour and keep the house at a more even temp. As it is now, I go from a 75F setting at 2pm to an 82F setting at 3 where it remains until 8PM.
The problem is the AC takes a longer time to recover at 8 and we are pretty uncomfortable from 3 to 8. To combat this I tried something a bit different. There is a setting to keep the air circulating with just the fan on. I have the fan running 24/7. Also I changed the temp for that time period from 82 to 80. We have been more comfortable as you can imagine. The hit to the power bill was 6 bucks more this month than the same month last year. I think Six bucks is worth it. OH, and according to Sense, my fan uses 100 watts an hour to use. No perfect but not bad.
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