How your power company can remotely control your smart thermostat

Texas’s power grid is unpleasantly surprising its users again. After last winter’s storm disabled parts of the grid for several days, causing potentially hundreds of deaths, a summer heat wave is once again threatening the grid. One potential solution Texas power companies have found is to turn up the temperature on some customers’ smart thermostats. Problem is, some of those customers weren’t aware that their power company could and would do such a thing — until their homes got uncomfortably warm.

One Houston family told a local news affiliate that their smart thermostat was turned...