SMART THERMOSTATS: Nest’s Plan to Stop Brownouts Before They Start.

Living in Texas is unimaginable without air conditioning, especially on steamy summer afternoons. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough power to go around—and when the energy companies suggest that residents not cool it during those hours, people ignore the pleas.

But recently Les Bowles, a retired American Airlines pilot living in a suburb not far from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, became part of a possible solution. He is a beta tester for a program called Rush Hour Rewards, wherein a lusciously designed thermostat with artificial intelligence and an Internet connection eases his domicile into a zone of thrift and earth-friendliness. True, temperatures can inch into the mid-to-high seventies—but the thermostat orchestrates the AC so the increase sneaks up on him. If he does get uncomfortable he can always override the procedure and lower the temp, but he hasn’t done it yet; he says he’s learned to trust the wisdom of the thermostat in such matters. Overall, he’s come to love his thermostat. “I’m kind of overwhelmed and amazed,” he gushes. And his power bill, he reports, hasn’t been as low for decades, when he was a much younger man living in a basement apartment.

The Nest isn’t very expensive, considering. Roger von Oech likes his.

There’s only one problem with plans like the one above: “The bottom line is people don’t like their utilities.”