Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.

Yesterday was a “free” day, one of the handful of days off I have scheduled myself for between now and the end of the year (and we all know what happens after that…)

I had a few outside errands to run, and some yard clean-up to do, but it was also an excellent day to tackle two things I had been dreading–sorting out the networking electronics on a door lock and on our thermostat. I love connectivity; I hate setting up connectivity.

The door lock was by far the greater challenge. Our original builder’s special south-facing lock set was peeling, chipping, and crying for replacement. We had ordered an Emtech brand lock with a sleek outside touchpad and inside handles to complement our decor. A week ago, with the help of a power tool packing neighbor, I got the lock installed, and functional using the outside keypad. Just two problems. One, it made odd beeping sounds, and two, I could not connect to our home Wi-Fi network.

I was struggling with manuals and Internet videos when Barb decided to call Emtech’s telephone customer support. I inwardly scoffed–do companies even staff those lines anymore? As I expected a long, Muzak-tinged, hold ensued. Eventually, a friendly voice did answer and we described our difficulties.

The tech support person was patient and hardly laughed at my mistakes as we went through the entire procedure step-by-step. We detected one small error in my procedure–yes she said, I needed to remove and then reinsert all four batteries after doing a factory reset, not only the two I was taking out and putting back in to “save time.”

Our support person then transferred us over to customer support for Yale, the company that handled the network connectivity for the lock. Again, the agent was patient and helpful–and this time we uncovered a problem with our original installation of the lock hardware. We called in a local locksmith (showed up in ten minutes, charged us as if we were Powerball winners) and he took care of the necessary drilling and adjusting of the deadbolt.

Another call to Yale, a little tweaking, and Barb and I can now each operate our side door lock remotely. Will we ever use that superpower?

Why was I planning on spending the rest of the day working on our thermostat? Our system relies on wireless remote sensors to feed the main thermostat brain the temperature in various areas of the house. After Cooper chewed up one of the sensors a replacement was necessary. I found the correct gizmo online and it arrived on Sunday–with no information on how to get it to talk to the main thermostat. Yesterday I eschewed all self-attempts to install the device and just called the Honeywell Hotline.

Under the direction of a young man on the phone, I spent five minutes of tapping through items on the thermostat’s touchscreen menu, memorized and punched in one code number, and voila, the sensor was connected.

The only thing we have to do now is to keep it from our very curious dog with a propensity for chewing….

AND IF YOU HAVEN’T YET DONE SO, PLEASE VOTE!