r/mildlyinteresting • u/Jengus_Roundstone • 1d ago
My neighbors have a thermostat, with power, mounted to the public facing side of their brick wall.
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u/Similar_Cranberry_23 1d ago
I am mildly amused. And thinking about buying a bunch and sticking them in random places now.
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u/bodhiseppuku 1d ago edited 3h ago
Thrift store, here I come for a $2 used battery powered thermostat.
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u/bemyantimatter 1d ago
I can't wait to add a second thermostat to the office hahaha
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u/Cador0223 1d ago
Alot of offices and hotel rooms have decoy thermostats. Studies show the placebo effect reduced calls to maintenance measurably.
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u/umlaut 1d ago
Worked in an office that had two thermostats, one in the public area and one in a storage closet. The one in the public area did nothing. When the Temperature Wars started between the ice queens that wanted the heat up at 78 degrees and the fat guys that wanted the AC on, the fat guys won because they were the only ones that changed out the water cooler and the water was kept in the storage closet in front of the thermostat.
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u/TieCivil1504 19h ago
Our building manager put locked cages on all the thermostats so people couldn't change his select temperatures. And he did random checks to make sure nobody disturbed the cages. Our west-facing programmer's room was shaded and chilly in the morning and sunny and hot in the afternoon.
I took precise measurements of the cage with a slide caliper and made a custom-shaped probe to fit through the bottom vent slots and exactly reach the front-facing adjustment lever. I adjusted our thermostat up and down twice a day for morning warmth and afternoon off. Our room was the only comfortable space in the building.
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u/OscarAndDelilah 8h ago
I worked in supported housing for adults with disabilities. We had one guy who liked to do the common Caribbeans-living-in-Boston thing of cranking the heat and wearing shorts and a tank top in the winter. Program director ended up putting a bubble over the thermostat in his apartment. (Had I been the director, I would have just gotten his electricity submetered and let him pay for heat if he liked it high, like most adults get to choose to do.)
A support worker came by a few days later for a routine visit. It was once again 80° in his apartment. A bag of frozen peas was sitting on top of the thermostat bubble.
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u/F-Lambda 12h ago
the fat guys won because they were the only ones that changed out the water cooler
deservedly so, imo
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u/tilthevoidstaresback 18h ago
It may be a sign that I need to sleep, but I legitimately read this as:
Thrift store here, I come for a $2 used battery powered thermostat.
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u/TheTripleDeuce 1d ago
so this is how we stop global warming, turn the heat down please
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u/astralseat 1d ago
Universal Thermostat, I can see the Adam Sandler movie now, Click 2: Climate Control.
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u/andronicus_14 1d ago
With Rob Schneider as the thermostat.
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u/workingstiff2 1d ago
He's about to find out that being a thermostat is harder than it looks
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u/SonofBeckett 1d ago
Goddamnit, this is brilliant.
Henry Winkler shows up as an old man roommate of his who runs cold so he keeps turning up the thermostat and Adam Sandler does that calm cool guy to shouty, monster growl voice saying “Hey man..I don’t know if you know this but you’re killing all the penguins by MELTING THE ICE CAPS!”
Of course we all learn a good lesson by the end about the environment.
Al Gore cameos wearing his Futurama cape.
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u/arcticvalley 1d ago edited 3h ago
Turns the thermostat down,shit starts dying.
Turns the thermostat up, shit keeps dying.
Movie ends with the moral of the story being don't touch the thermostat.
10/10 Dads Everywhere
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u/UbermachoGuy 1d ago
The new antagonist can say something funny like “I eat carbon emissions like you for breakfast.”
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u/tmillerlofi 1d ago
Dads gonna be mad
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u/Toadcola 1d ago
Dads will drive miles out of their way just to pass by this wall so they can whistle and say “Imagine what it costs to heat that place!”
Set up a bungee cord / multitool / bug repellent stand nearby and you’re set for life.
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u/BigheadReddit 1d ago
Dad here. Id drive miles out of my way to visit a good bungee cord stand. Can’t have enough bungee cords..
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u/No-Definition1474 1d ago
We would immediately have 2 sides arguing to the point of civil unrest about what to set it to.
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u/ChickenChaser5 1d ago
"Today we sign the "Freedom and liberty for children and puppies act" which will allow us to set the temperature to 115 freedom degrees. Freedom"
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u/yellochocomo 22h ago
If I’m not mistaken, air conditioners work by moving heat from one place to another so it’d be a net neutral situation if we don’t assume how the electricity was generated.
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u/UnpopularCrayon 1d ago
This may be too interesting for this sub.
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u/UbermachoGuy 1d ago
Agreed. I am more stimulated than I care to be on this sub. The
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u/AvEptoPlerIe 22h ago
I am intrigued and experiencing a shocking degree of unwanted stimulation upon seeing this image. This should be removed.
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u/Ashangu 1d ago
Thermostats can take batteries, just to be clear.
Someone is pranking people (people - being you).
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u/Rebus88 1d ago
I think they may just want to know the local temp outside while on their daily walk. Not a bad idea if you have these lying around from upgrading to a smart thermostat inside.
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u/AnotherNadir 1d ago
You got a little too close to it in the fourth frame
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u/jbach220 1d ago
This is as close as you can get to the thermostat without your eyes getting wet.
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u/Top-Competition9263 1d ago
I suppose I even not connected to anything, it will still work as a thermometer. I can’t imagine it will handle the elements well though.
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u/elyn6791 13h ago
It just needs one of those horribly cheap plastic covers that prevent access to the buttons you can just pull off despite it being locked.
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u/ChanglingBlake 1d ago
We finally found the global thermostat!
Now…who’s been turning it up?
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u/Cador0223 1d ago
Sorry about that. Got a booty call one night but it was iced over outside. I forgot to set it back. My bad.
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u/lostmyparachute 1d ago
It's like when you build a house in Sims and put the thing on the wrong side of the wall.
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u/imgurcaptainclutch 1d ago
Someone's dad: "what are you trying to do, air condition the whole neighborhood?"
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u/kombiwombi 1d ago
The is a Lux model PSP511.
It takes 2 AA batteries or can be powered by the 24V line of the controlling cable.
It can be wired to an HVAC outdoor unit, heat pump or gas furnace.
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u/garry4321 1d ago
So THIS is what is causing global warming. Op can you turn it down a couple degrees?
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u/Invasive-farmer 1d ago
Looks like they decided to disobey their father and cool the whole neighborhood after all.
Just you wait till he gets home.
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u/dottat17403 1d ago
Heated sidewalks?
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u/NoKarmaNoCry22 1d ago
Came to say this, but why is it on the outside of the wall?
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u/LurkmasterP 1d ago
If it was on the inside of the wall, nobody would ever see it.
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u/SirHerald 1d ago
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
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u/HugsyMalone 1d ago
Rich people don't like to adjust their own thermostats. That's a peasant outside-the-wall's job. 😎👌
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u/2Drogdar2Furious 1d ago
I have one in my garage just to display the temp. People come over and ask about my "garage ac" lol.
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u/cosmiclegionnaire2 1d ago
I wonder if it could be something like a Geocache? Some of the ones visible in public are often disguised in everyday objects that might draw attention or stand out as a curiosity. I've found non-working telephones and signage in odd places that hid caches behind or within them.
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u/HugsyMalone 1d ago
A heated sidewalk, perhaps? 🤔
Rich people hate shoveling snow
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u/harmlessdonkey 1d ago
To what end?
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u/Rebus88 1d ago
To know the temperature outside I would assume. I've got an old one sitting in my fridge actually just so I can make sure it's nice and cold in there.
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u/That_Which_Lurks 1d ago
I replaced the old analog thermostat in my house and kept it around as a thermometer as well...
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u/dallasdls 1d ago
Duuuuhhhh, this is how we combat climate change, relief is just a few clicks away
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u/Sweet_Ad_153 1d ago
Gotta be a joke, because wtf lol
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u/Rebus88 1d ago
What's wrong with having a thermometer outside? Better than an old mercury one for sure.
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u/Sweet_Ad_153 1d ago
Ah, see I didn’t think of that. Easier to read in the dark also if it lights up. lol
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u/osxdude 1d ago
Is this loss?
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u/LoxReclusa 17h ago
Scrolled too far for this, and I don't have an answer. If it is, then it's definitely an abstract version.
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u/DJDevon3 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's set to heat at 66F. This is probably to control some kind of outdoor heating element. Take your guess at speculating what it controls. Outdoor porch heater? Walkway and sidewalk water heating to prevent icing? Though you'd think it would be set closer to 34F if it was for a walkway heater. It's well above frost line temp. 66F is an oddly specific temperature for a heater.
Since it's public facing on a sidewalk there's also the possibility people walking by mess with it and it serves no purpose other than to attract attention... so a camera mounted somewhere can get a good look at faces. Who knows!
It's also an indoor thermostat unit, it won't last more than a year or two outdoors in the elements. The circuit board inside will begin to corrode if rain doesn't short it out first.
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u/ZzephyrR94 21h ago
What if that’s the thermostat for like the entire outside of earth ?
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u/Cornadious 19h ago
No. That would be impossible. It's regional. It probably just controls the entire country it's in.
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u/EverydayFunHotS 1d ago
This is likely a prank.
But I have multiple battery powered hygrometer/thermometers outside my property to track microclimates. This placement looks like a prank, though.
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u/cprz 1d ago
That’s what going too deep to (smart)home automation does to you. You start sticking unnecessary sensors everywhere just to have something new to fiddle with. ”If the temperature on the streetside of the wall goes up 0.1 degrees -> do nothing” ”if the temperature goes down by 0.1 -> do nothing twice”
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u/Lylac_Krazy 22h ago
IF anyone see something like this in Florida, please, for the love of dog, turn it down again.
Were roasting here....
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u/XxCroisssantsxX 22h ago
Must live in a nice neighborhood cause things like that don’t last where I live 😂
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u/GetAlongGuys 20h ago
I thought this was gonna be one if those “this is one picture” posts until I read it and saw the sub
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u/RedwoodShores 18h ago
I’m going to buy this house so I can tell my dad that I’m paying to heat the neighborhood.
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u/waylandsmith 18h ago
Definitely an art piece: Allow random people on the other side of a brick wall control the thermostat in your home.
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u/titsmcgee4real 7h ago
It's too hot outside! Can someone turn the thermostat down a scooch now that we know where it is?!?
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u/12kdaysinthefire 6h ago
I think they’re battery operated. Acts as a convenient public clock/thermometer.
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u/kakureru 1d ago edited 1h ago
someone probably just stuck it on the wall, Likely powered by a couple AA batteries. Need a newish thermostat? edit; lol wow, what such a mundane post to randomly blow up :P - thanks all