Do some thermostats really save money or does the unit just cost more during the “catch-up” period?

  They save approximately 9-11% during the summer, 15% during the winter if you use them to automatically adjust for energy savings while the house is unoccupied. They also are useful for people that enjoy different settings while sleeping. The better models have an intelligent algorithm built in. This allows hidden savings while assuring best comfort. This feature causes the thermostat to compute the best start time each day. It will finish the recovery at the exact time you specified, leaving the system idling for more hours each day. You won’t have to set it to come on 3 hours before you get home and waste energy during 95% of our summer. On these models you enter the time you arrive home, it figures it out magically.