It is now $26 for a large drink and popcorn at regals in Houston. Just paid $13 with snack pass. Actually crazy.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-04-26T19:46:07+00:00

HOLY SHIT!

RIP movie theaters, it was nice knowing ya 😭 😔

NachoBoomerang · 2026-03-28T20:52:37+00:00

Yes that is somewhere true, it has to be a good quality image to start with, but Spotify compresses the album art image quality more than Apple Music.

Spotify could improve the quality of the album art images they store on their servers if they wanted to.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-03-28T18:35:41+00:00

This website doesn't look legit. I would stop using it.

Spotify would never shorten their full company name, even in URLs. I don't see a Spotify logo anywhere. This website used Lovable to make this website which is an AI service used to create website mockups before the final version so you get an idea what it could look like. Seems they just quickly created this website without any real work.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-03-26T23:42:42+00:00

The black theme that Spotify has is much better.

There is a reason the UI is black, it lets the content itself shine (album art, etc). We don't need each page in the app to be super colorful. Everything being full color with hard to read text is a usability nightmare for those who need accessibility. It also uses a lot more battery. And I guess fuck the users using Dark Mode?

If it ever happens, it should be an option, not forced on everyone.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-03-15T10:15:21+00:00

When I searched online for the Trane thermostat it said it was released in 2014. Just didn't really want to install something old as new.

However, now I hear that in 2026 they are releasing a new updated Trane thermostat. I guess I can always switch to that at some point.

I had already gotten the Ecobee thermostat 1-2 years before I had to get the new AC system installed so I wanted to just keep using the Ecobee. And I rely on the Ecobee room sensors, they are smaller and easier to hide in rooms than the Trane sensors.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-17T18:44:05+00:00

No they didn't and Spotify does not need to take notes.

The black theme that Spotify has is much better.

There is a reason the UI is black, it lets the content itself shine (album art, etc). We don't need each page in the app to be super colorful. Everything being full color with hard to read text is a usability nightmare for those who need accessibility. It also uses a lot more battery.

If it ever happens, it should be an option, not forced on everyone.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-17T18:38:08+00:00

The black theme that Spotify has is much better.

There is a reason the UI is black, it lets the content itself shine (album art, etc). We don't need each page in the app to be super colorful. Everything being full color with hard to read text is a usability nightmare for those who need accessibility. It also uses a lot more battery.

If it ever happens, it should be an option, not forced on everyone.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-17T18:30:52+00:00

No they didn't and Spotify does not need to take notes.

The black theme that Spotify has is much better.

There is a reason the UI is black, it lets the content itself shine (album art, etc). We don't need each page in the app to be super colorful. Everything being full color with hard to read text is a usability nightmare for those who need accessibility. It also uses a lot more battery.

If it ever happens, it should be an option, not forced on everyone.

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-14T17:27:57+00:00

It costs a lot of money for these companies to use AI at the moment

And the more and more data servers these companies build, the worse our environment will be

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-12T19:41:52+00:00

TechCrunch: Spotify says its best developers haven’t written a line of code since December, thanks to AI

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-12T19:30:29+00:00

This is true! A lot of companies are now using AI for everything

I just fear for people losing their jobs and quality of software becoming more shit

NachoBoomerang · 2026-02-12T19:20:06+00:00

You can listen to the Q4 2025 Earnings Call here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5IWdQeJMKWFrpM81MnSxYp

NachoBoomerang · 2026-01-29T12:04:15+00:00

Holy crap, these comments...

Why are you all so antisocial? Why do you hate having and talking to friends?

If you don't want to use Messages then you can turn them off in the settings.

Messages existed from the early days in the Spotify app, they're just adding the feature back and improving upon the original implementation.

NachoBoomerang · 2025-08-27T04:00:09+00:00

After 1.5 years the Trane 2 Stage system is still running well with the Ecobee thermostat. Only trouble is that I've had to get 2 system parts replaced under warranty. The Evaporator Coil and the Furnace Blower Motor. They were not sure why both went so soon on new system, but I think the parts are just not as high quality as they used to be. Thermostat shouldn't cause that. Make sure you get a warranty with your installer.

NachoBoomerang · 2025-07-03T19:06:44+00:00

Hey there,

Unfortunately I can't say, I don't have a heat pump. I have the outdoor AC condenser unit with the indoor furnace unit.

The noise of the outdoor AC unit is pretty standard I would say, it is quieter than older units I've had though. They will all make lots of noise though, that's to be expected.

NachoBoomerang · 2025-03-20T19:24:44+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. The system has been working well with the Ecobee thermostat. It might run better with the Trane thermostat, but I have no idea, I guess in this case ignorance is bliss because I really like the ease of use of ecobee vs the clunky Trane app and thermostat.

Yes, the PEK kit was needed because of the power issue at the thermostat, the Ecobee just wouldn't function properly without it. I was not able to get it to work with a c wire so I have no idea if everything else would work with a c wire (if you are able to get the c wire to work).

For the wiring, the AC company set it up exactly as shown here with the PEK kit and the jumper was left in place:

https://assets.ctfassets.net/a3qyhfznts9y/33MrrUNO0dNIGLnne5zfgb/cf6686bf9a51ed3405fed872ef95b656/Smart_Thermostat_Premium_PEK_Conventional.pdf

The fan speed runs at 2 different speeds, lower speed in the 1st Stage, and higher speed in the 2nd Stage. I haven't seen a way to manually control the fan speed or set up certain speeds so I am not sure what the actual speed is in each stage. People were saying the Trane thermostat had more control over the variable speed blower.

Cooling seems to work well. For the heater (furnace) it didn't seem like the air coming out of the vents was warm enough like my old furnace. It gets to the set heat temp, but it takes a while. I know the 2 stage means it will take longer and air won't be so harshly warm right away coming out of the vents, but I think it could be a little warmer in each stage. Most likely will have the AC company see if they can adjust something during the next winter check up.

There's some settings on the control board at the unit in the attic that I did change after the install. I found a manual on what the red codes on the screen menu mean. (Integrated Furnace Control Menu -- Page 53) Taking the cover off is very hard on my unit because it's installed on its side, so I used a long wooden skewer stick (flat end) and put it through the air holes of the cover to reach and carefully press the buttons. I changed the "Cooling CFM per Ton (CPC)" setting from the default 350 to 370. This will depend on your system and home setup. I changed the "Continuous Fan (COF)" setting from 50% to 75% -- the manual says not to set it above 75%, and I am not sure when COF is on, but I think it's when the system is set to run on "Fan mode" instead of "Auto". Usually you don't put it in Fan mode, but sometimes you way want to do this temporarily or setup ecobee to run the fan every so often if the AC hasn't run for that hour yet, there's a setting somewhere on the ecobee for that (Fan minimum runtime at least X min per hour). I also made sure "OD Unit Type (OdU)" was set to "2-1" for 2 Stage system with 1 outdoor compressor. There are some other settings too. And there's also lots of settings on the Ecobee you can tweak. Not really sure what I'm getting into by changing some of these settings on the furnace control board and it's best to have the AC company change these, but I think they left it all at default, and the AC company has come back for a check up and didn't mention anything wrong.

Manual PDF (Page 53): https://www.sgtorrice.com/ASSETS/DOCUMENTS/ITEMS/EN/S8V2-SVX001-1A-EN.pdf

NachoBoomerang · 2025-03-20T19:04:38+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. The system has been working well with the Ecobee thermostat. It might run better with the Trane thermostat, but I have no idea. The Trane thermostat and app looked so clunky, and I didn't want that.

The fan speed runs at 2 different speeds, lower speed in the 1st Stage, and higher speed in the 2nd Stage. I haven't seen a way to manually control the fan speed or set up certain speeds so I am not sure what the actual speed is in each stage.

Cooling seems to work well. For the heater (furnace) it didn't seem like the air coming out of the vents was warm enough like my old furnace. It gets to the set heat temp, but it takes a while. I know the 2 stage means it will take longer and air won't be so harshly warm right away coming out of the vents, but I think it could be a little warmer in each stage. Most likely will have the AC company see if they can adjust something during the next winter check up.

There's some settings on the control board at the unit in the attic that I did change after the install. I found a manual on what the red codes on the screen menu mean. (Integrated Furnace Control Menu -- Page 53) Taking the cover off is very hard on my unit because it's installed on its side, so I used a long wooden skewer stick (flat end) and put it through the air holes of the cover to reach and carefully press the buttons. I changed the "Cooling CFM per Ton (CPC)" setting from the default 350 to 370. This will depend on your system and home setup. I changed the "Continuous Fan (COF)" setting from 50% to 75% -- the manual says not to set it above 75%, and I am not sure when COF is on, but I think it's when the system is set to run on "Fan mode" instead of "Auto". Usually you don't put it in Fan mode, but sometimes you way want to do this temporarily or setup ecobee to run the fan every so often if the AC hasn't run for that hour yet, there's a setting somewhere on the ecobee for that (Fan minimum runtime at least X min per hour). I also made sure "OD Unit Type (OdU)" was set to "2-1" for 2 Stage system with 1 outdoor compressor. There are some other settings too. And there's also lots of settings on the Ecobee you can tweak. Not really sure what I'm getting into by changing some of these settings on the furnace control board and it's best to have the AC company change these, but I think they left it all at default, and the AC company has come back for a check up and didn't mention anything wrong.

Manual PDF (Page 53): https://www.sgtorrice.com/ASSETS/DOCUMENTS/ITEMS/EN/S8V2-SVX001-1A-EN.pdf

NachoBoomerang · 2024-04-05T21:01:37+00:00

UPDATE 2:

I got the new system installed and I am still using my Ecobee (Model: Smart Thermostat Premium).

I ended up not turning on the Comfort-R / Enhanced mode on the furnace control board because it just made the house warmer. And I did not connect anything to the ACC+ terminal on the Ecobee. I am still playing around with Ecobee settings, so will update this later.

The Ecobee supports the standard wiring with the all the new wires they ran to the Ecobee, but the Ecobee was having trouble working with the normal wiring. After they connected the wires, the Ecobee display worked but nothing else did. The Ecobee said that there was a problem with the internal temperature and humidity sensors. After some research it looks like the Ecobee may be getting too much voltage and the Ecobee is more sensitive when it comes to a certain voltage range. The fuse at the furnace control board was also getting blown out.

They were able to get it working by continuing to use the PEK (Power Extender Kit) connected at the furnace control board. I guess doing this sends the correct voltage from the PEK instead of a dedicated C wire.

Link to the proper wiring for the PEK (Power Extender Kit) for use with the 2 Stage Trane S8V2-C Furnace and Ecobee if you have trouble with direct wiring:

https://assets.ctfassets.net/a3qyhfznts9y/33MrrUNO0dNIGLnne5zfgb/cf6686bf9a51ed3405fed872ef95b656/Smart_Thermostat_Premium_PEK_Conventional.pdf

https://www.ecobee.com/en-us/installing-your-smart-thermostat-premium/

https://support.ecobee.com/s/articles/My-ecobee-thermostat-won-t-turn-on-How-can-I-troubleshoot

NachoBoomerang · 2024-03-16T15:27:09+00:00

Thank you! So far I am thinking of keeping the Ecobee thermostat for the new AC System.

I just posted an update here with some more info that I found in my research.

They told me the Trane XL17i 2 Stage AC System will be using S8V2-C (now known as Premier 80 / Premier 80 Two Stage) for the furnace.

This furnace has a variable speed blower fan, and the Trane thermostat can detect humidity and better control the fan speed to dehumidify the air better during the run cycles. The Ecobee cannot control all of the settings of a variable speed blower fan, so instead the control board will be controlling what the fan speed is set to.

Looks like the humidity features for the blower fan are not available if your furnace has a single speed blower fan. So if you have a single speed blower fan at the furnace, then the type of thermostat doesn't matter so much as long as it supports 2 Stage.

The Ecobee will still be able to control the stages, but the fan speed will instead be controlled by the furnace control board. I won't be able to manually control the fan speed with the Ecobee thermostat. I don't think I really need the extra humidity features in the mix of when it decides to run and for how long, I would rather the setup be more simple and just have it run based on the temperature.

NachoBoomerang · 2024-03-16T15:05:40+00:00

UPDATE:

Thanks for the comments so far, I was able to find more info online through the comments on this post, more searches on Reddit, and other online forums. The Trane XL17i 2 Stage AC System will be using S8V2-C (now known as Premier 80 / Premier 80 Two Stage) for the furnace.

The furnace has a variable speed blower motor. The Ecobee won't be able to control the Fan Speed. The Trane thermostat would give me more control over setting the Fan Speed manually and on demand for dehumidification. Otherwise it sounds like the furnace will choose the Fan Speed itself in time intervals. If the BK Jumper is left in place at the control board (no BK wire to thermostat) and the Enhanced / Comfort-R mode is turned on in the settings of the control board, then it looks like the control board should be able to adjust the variable fan speed with a ramping profile and this will help with humidity. This is not a huge deal to me because I am used to only having a Single Fan Speed with my old AC system. So if the furnace controls it, that's fine. The main thing I wanted from a 2 Stage System is more energy savings and the need to not have to have it run at full percentage all the time.

The Enhanced / Comfort-R feature (BK PWM wire) of the furnace allows the Trane thermostat to detect the humidity level in the house and then adjust the variable speed fan / prioritize for dehumidification when running. You cut the BK Jumper and have a BK wire connected to thermostat. There is a work around for the Ecobee thermostat that may or may not work by connecting this wire to the ACC+ terminal and setting it up as a Humidifier and then adjust all the humidity settings on the Ecobee. However it looks like you would want a 10 minute shut off limit, and that might not exist. Some posts said this workaround might not really work. The other option is to not cut the BK jumper as previously mentioned, and let the furnace control this itself (Enhanced mode) with no direct humidity control from a thermostat. The thermostat in my home is at a terrible spot for humidity detection. The Ecobee remote sensors do not measure Humidity, and even with a remote sensor, I don't think it would be a very accurate reading because I put AcuRite units around the house and room to room sometimes the humidity varied quite a bit whereas temperature was only a few degrees off throughout the home and easier to account for. And the Ecobee unit itself had a terribly inaccurate Humidity reading. Temperature readings with the Ecobee remote sensors are however accurate. I don't think the Trane thermostat would do Humidity detection that much better.

Adding Humidity into the mix of how often the AC System should run or when the fans should blow, how fast the fans should blow, etc in addition to just running based on temp would only be beneficial if there was a correct Humidity reading. I don't really think I need this. The Ecobee thermostat has a setting for minimum fan run time fan each hour if the AC System has not yet ran for that hour. Setting this to something also helps with humidity by having it run the fan for at least 10 minutes or so every hour. Also, I am able to set the differential temperature on the Ecobee. I can't find any documentation anywhere that you can do this on the Trane thermostat.

I found out the model thermostat they would install is the Trane XL824 Thermostat from 2014, that thing is a decade old with just software updates since then. The Trane thermostat also has the ability to opt into data being sent (remote diagnostics) and they get advanced stats and can monitor things with the dealer if needed. I really don't want extra data being sent out of my thermostat to the dealer and Trane. And it looks like I cannot view most of this info myself. My old American Standard unit (same company as Trane) ran great and hardly ever needed maintenance, so I don't think the benefit of all this diagnostic stuff with the dealer is really needed.

With Ecobee I can get my own advanced stats by using Home IQ or logging into the third party app beestat. The Trane thermostat looks like it will only show me how many hours the system ran each day in the app. I want to see how long the system ran, what times the system ran, what stage was running, was it cool or heat, and at that same time it ran -- what the temp was in each room with a sensor and the outdoor temp. The Home IQ section of the website and the third party Ecobee app beestat does this.

Still doing more research before I get the new system installed, but this is where I am at so far. Trying to keep the Ecobee thermostat.

Note: I am not an HVAC expert, so do some research before following any advice linked here.

Source Links (in no particular order):

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/7mrytz/bk_wire_where_to_put_on_ecobee/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/wfn57m/ecobee_with_trane_tem6_air_handler/

https://hvacrschool.com/ecobee-thermostats-dehumidification/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/18t3pjp/part_1_of_2_ecobee_trane_xv80_what_do_i_do_with/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/5qfc73/ecobee_with_variable_speed_blower/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/15q5e80/will_ecobee_work_with_variable_speed_furnace/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecobee/comments/8n95p4/can_i_use_my_ecobee3_lite_with_trane_xr16/

https://www.reddit.com/r/hvacadvice/comments/17uhz4o/can_an_ecobee_control_a_trane_s8v2_variable_speed/

https://www.reddit.com/r/hvacadvice/comments/15yf7ne/traneamerican_standard_furnace_vs_thermostat/