I think it's an American thing. My workplace (Seattle) keeps the AC set around 72F (22C). In the summer, I walk to work in a t-shirt around 7AM, then put on a thin hoodie at work...

Feels weird to me, but college and people's homes are usually set to mid-70F too (or ambient temperature).

I hate this — yet it is very typical in southern European nations too.

The way I see it you always long for what you don’t have. That is why in torching hot places they tend to cool things really down and wear long pants and a second layer, while in northern nations people will run around in shorts and thin dresses literally the first time it seems to be a little bit summerish.

I think that big of a temperature difference is not only a tremendous waste of energy (that heats the rest of the outside at the same time), but it is also quite impractical: you always have to carry around a second layer if you are planing to stay somwhere for more than an hour. There you are, carrying around that hoodie, just because the rooms are cooled down to much.

In Tokyo, I'm not really trying to escape the heat. I'm trying to escape the humidity. So 26C sounds about right, and that's the typical setting I use there.

In California, I'm actually trying to escape the heat, which sometimes gets as high as 46C here. The setting on my home AC is 22C.

I guess my point is that your preferred AC setting can differ greatly depending upon the outside conditions.

>I'm trying to escape the humidity. So 26C sounds about right

>, I'm actually trying to escape the heat, which sometimes gets as high as 46C here. The setting on my home AC is 22C.

wait what? how does the weather outside have any bearing on what your comfort temperature inside should be? i mean, if you think 26C is comfortable, why would you need to turn it down to 22C in CA, where it's probably even drier?

Because you acclimate over time to a certain temperature and humidities.

In the US, 20-24C is a pretty typical AC setting, with commercial buildings usually closer to the cool end. I don't put on a jacket (other than for fashion) until 15C or so. For me, 26C would negatively impact my productivity.

In my experience for reasons unknown to me men run hotter than women leading to endless battles at the thermostat

Yeah, that's definitely true in my family at least. Radiating space heaters are one good solution to this problem since they allow you to warm up without requiring all the air in the room be heated up too.

It seems common in Singapore. I remember taking a pullover everywhere so I don't freeze indoors at conferences.

Singapore is the only place I've been where I welcomed the ice cold A/C.

The (northern) US, and previously the UK --- both places with mild and cool climates. In fact, in the UK (where the Raspbery Pi Foundation is, so this discussion isn't totally unrelated), 18C is considered a comfortable minimum to heat a house to, and it usually doesn't get much hotter than mid-20s in the summer. I suspect 20C (68F) is chosen in the US because it's a "round number" and happens to have an exact Celsius-Farenheit conversion, while also being within the typical comfortable temperature range.

Thus, it wouldn't surprise me if the RPis perform better at 18C than they do at 28C.

Heating to 18c is different than cooling to 20c. When it's hot you're typically wearing lighter cooler clothing and are more comfortable at hotter temperatures. When heating it's the opposite, you're wearing warmer clothes and better suited to cold.

Humidity also plays a big factor. In the southern US, most people have their AC set to between 23C and 25C during the summer and somewhere around 20C in the winter. In more arid regions the temperature settings creep up because you tend to feel cooler when it is dryer.

I think this is both regional and cultural. I’m in Ireland and tend to heat the house to about 16-18 degrees in the winter, which is on the low end of normal here (I think official guidance for workplaces is 18-22). But in Germany in similar weather, heating to about 25 degrees seems normal (I tend to be over there for a conference every December, and always find the indoor temperature pretty unpleasant).