{"id":844526,"date":"2026-08-03T14:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844526\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T14:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:25:11","slug":"the-delicate-art-of-making-a-1907-house-smarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844526\/","title":{"rendered":"The Delicate Art of Making a 1907 House Smarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the very end of 2025, my wife and I bought our first home, a 1907 Craftsman in the heart of Portland, Oregon. It\u2019s a beautiful old house, listed on the National Historic Registry, and is largely unchanged from the day it was built. This is exactly what we dreamed of in a house. It\u2019s loaded with history and vibes, mostly unmessed with across the decades. We\u2019re now simultaneously updating and restoring the home with a limited budget, big ideas, our own style, and plenty of sweat equity.<\/p>\n

The place we moved into was the level opposite of a \u201csmart home\u201d\u2014and figuring out thoughtful ways to integrate modern technology into this old house without sacrificing aesthetics or ruining the vibe is the guiding principle.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re only getting started, but after a busy six months of learning, researching, and working cutting-edge technology into a house from the Roosevelt administration (Teddy, not FDR), I\u2019ve kept a running log of the tech choices we\u2019ve made along the way. Today, our house is starting to feel simultaneously old and new, which is very much the goal. It\u2019s a lot of work, but I assure you it\u2019s also a wonderful time.<\/p>\n

Love WIRED? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to see more of us.<\/p>\n

A Smart Thermostat\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Photograph: Jordan Michelman<\/p>\n

Ecobee<\/p>\n

Smart Thermostat Enhanced<\/p>\n

Replacing the home\u2019s heating system was a day one fix\u2014our furnace was kicking off carbon monoxide and needed to be addressed immediately. We had a local furnace company in the basement before even moving in. But for daily use, we paired our spiffy new furnace with Ecobee\u2019s new, midrange Ecobee Enhanced smart thermostat, which has a larger touchscreen than the basic Essential model and built-in radar for motion detection.<\/p>\n

In making this choice, I consulted WIRED\u2019s in-depth review<\/a> of the Ecobee, which prioritizes the unit\u2019s ease of setup and intuitive interface\u2014this made a strong case for selecting the Ecobee over other similar smart thermostats, like the Google Nest, which lacks the Ecobee\u2019s presence sensors.<\/p>\n

The Ecobee gives us a monthly recap of our furnace usage and the average temperature in our home; walking into a low home-energy-score environment in a home that lacks insulation and gets drafty, having this monthly recap has been helpful already. Many states have a smart thermostat rebate program through local gas and power companies, and right now we\u2019re earning around $10 off each monthly bill for having a smart thermostat in the house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the very end of 2025, my wife and I bought our first home, a 1907 Craftsman in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75,2151,27967,404,1847],"class_list":["post-844526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-home","tag-household","tag-shopping","tag-smart-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}