Thermostats

Programmable thermostats can trim about $180 a year from your energy bill by automatically reducing your heating or cooling when you need it least. Some thermostats tested by Consumer Reports were easy to set and use but others were so complicated that you might end up spending more on energy, not less.

That's why you won't find the Energy Star on any thermostats, which stopped certifying them in 2009 mostly because they were hard to use. New standards that factor in ease of use are being developed. But you don't have to wait. Manufacturers have made some thermostats less daunting by adding colorful interactive touchscreen displays.

Most thermostats can keep rooms close to the set temperature so our testers rated ease of use based on how simple each thermostat was to set up and make routine adjustments to before reading the manual and then, if needed, with the manual. All of the thermostats in our Ratings have basic pre-programmed settings.