Strangely this is a very a cultural thing.

I'm from Australia and in summer the cooling can't cope and does indeed result in indoor temperatures exceeding 28°C. However, I'm drenched in sweat and certainly can't focus at that point. I will happily head outside and enjoy the crazy heat, but be productive? Nope!

I think heating and A/C target around 21°C in Melbourne.

However, I traveled to Vienna for a week long contract some years back. Sure it was cold outside (snowing), but I found all the offices and buildings excruciatingly hot and couldn't focus one bit. Made for a very miserable working week.

Of course, the locals all managed fine, so despite it seeming like a personal preference thing, I can only assume it's something you can adapt to.

In South Africa everyone is cold in the winter (if you are not in places like the KnP) due to bad designs and insulation, bad clothing perceptions and cultural factors.

A guy once told me that they install thermostats in corporate buildings that are actually disconnected from the system because people complain less if they can see thermostats in the room.

Basically, in the winter, we need to wear jackets while sitting at our desks in a place like JHB simply because the ventilation for some reason is pretty cold. I've heard that in European businesses you take off all your warm clothes indoors and just wear a T-shirt or other shirt.

There is also what we call it the "aircon" war. Usually black people (and myself) want the aircon off, but white people want it on. This is a joke though so don't take it too seriously (or racially). But this is mostly about when the aircon is cooling the building. When it is supposed to heat the building in a colder region most people will agree that the rooms are too cold, but for some reason we can't seem to learn this lesson.

By the way, for the sake of interest, Jan Smuts was well known for having a house with very cold winters and very hot summers. It is said that his guests would often comment on this when they stayed over. [1]

[1] Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness. Richard Steyn

In Spain there is a regulation to only acclimate public buildings into the 21°-26°C range and no further (that is, don’t heat above 21° or cool below 26°), which I find rather sensible.

I think the range stems from a European regulation, although I’m not particularly sure.

For me, 20C is the point where I have to reach for a jacket, otherwise I start shivering from the cold and can't concentrate.

All air conditioner remote controls I've seen default to 24C whenever the batteries are replaced, so I believe 24C is the "standard" room temperature that AC manufacturers aim for.

I try to keep my home office no higher than 24c/75F when I'm working. Last year I had to work in an office where it was routinely 27c/80F and above, and my productively and mood was definitely affected. As you say, above that I get sweaty and lethargic. Of course there was someone in the office complaining that even that temperature was too cold.

The weird thing is I have no issues going outside in the heat - I used to live in the middle east and would walk outside at lunch, when it was 45c/110F+ - I just can't comfortably sit at a desk and work in the heat.

A few years ago I was living and working in an apartment where in the winter it was as low as 16c/60F. I much prefer too cold than too hot. I can combat cold just by wearing more layers, especially thick socks, and drinking more tea. Does that not work for some people?

> New USB controller firmware, apparently. The fact that it can have any effect on the CPU temperature is a little puzzling.

At a guess it's something to do with power management and link idling. Version 0 of the firmware might leave the link up all the time with constant traffic; a later version gets it to power down, and along the way someone has to test and fix all the cases where it fails to power down or back up.

I know this is now totally unrelated to raspi but where do you live? Setting your AC to 20C seems freezing to me and I almost never set my AC below 26C (Tokyo)

> As someone who is used to a room temperature of 20C

Depends on what you are used too. Depends also on the ambient humidity levels since it affects how you feel at the very same temperature.

In Spain, the AC cannot be set below 26°C in public buildings by law, nor the heating above 21°C in winter.

28°C does sound too hot to me. 25°C is very pleasant IMO.

28C is the standard AC temperature in Japan, started in 2005 with the Cool Biz campaign to save energy. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Biz_campaign

>The fact that it can have any effect on the CPU temperature is a little puzzling.

The infrared photos I saw somewhere suggested the entire board heats up so quite plausible that weird stuff affect temp as measured centrally

The article says that this firmware enables ASPM.

I’m much more familiar with x86 hardware, but missing PCIe ASPM is a big deal. Some chipsets can’t properly idle themselves if any PCIe link is non-idle.

> I believe a room temperature of 20C is the normal design target.

Usually you don't want room temperature to be more than 5C lower than outside. Bigger contrast can be a problem for people.

On my previous team (South Africa) I was located in an underground room with cheap air-conditioners set on 30 degrees celsius.

My eyes couldn't handle the dry air. It was unbearable. One of my colleagues was prescribed subscription eyedrops and another developed an eye condition.

After unsuccesfully trying to negotiate some sort of change to a more sustainable environment with the team of managers I evently started sitting in the above-ground building until I was repremanded and told I had no choice but to sit in that room.

Part of the reason I left that team was to protect my eyes and my health. Other people in the room thought 30 celcius was generous and that it should have been hotter if the aircon could do so. Seems utterly absurd to me.

28 c is a lot. Where I am government regulations days a office must be between 20-25 c under normal conditions.

There have been studies on office productivity based on temperature, as well as how it seems to differ between genders. Planet Money covered it fairly quickly[1], but they generally include sources so if you're interested you can dig deeper.

1: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/730438603/the-battle-for-the-...

Setting the AC to 20°C when outside is hot seems a bit unreasonable, both for the environment and for your body.

I have never understood this! My office has no AC and a window to the south. Temperature is 31C right now and probably will be 35C in the afternoon and I love it! :) 28C is barely OK and below 25C I will go and fetch a sweater. 20C is freezing cold.

I hope this does not mean that my hardware is suffering too much, though! I do underclock everything (Laptops) to around 700MHz, but still... looks like I'll stick to the Raspi 3 for now.

I WFH and I set my thermostat to 78F during the day. My office, because of the position relative to the sun as well as the equipment I have running gets about 83F during the summer. You get used to it. I find that it helps me tolerate the heat of the day better when I'm off work and out and about.

If I go to/from work and there's a huge difference in AC and outside I get the following effects:

1) Cold at work, warm outside. Need different clothing at work, such as a longsleeve.

2) When switching from traveling to/from work the difference in temperature is huge.

20C is rather freezing to me.

"New USB controller firmware"

I took it to mean that the USB controller was doing double duty holding the now reflashable firmware for the main processor. Still a little weird, but makes a bit more sense.

> Wow. As someone who is used to a room temperature of 20C, 28C is above the point of idle sweating and becoming lethargic.

How are you usually dressed?

It depends on the outside temperature.

In Japan 28 degrees is a normal summer aircon temperature. In summer the average high is 30+ degrees with 70%+ humidity

Interestingly enough, every time I visited the US in summer I had to wear a jacket indoors and just a T-Shirt outdoors.

Reminds me of my office (in the US) where they heat the place to 26C in winter and cool it to 16C in summer.

Well, if it works, hopefully someone can port this update to the environment.

28 is insane. The recommendation is 22-23 for office space.

> As someone who is used to a room temperature of 20C, 28C is above the point of idle sweating and becoming lethargic.

AC should not to be used for more than delta 8C. Maybe 10C. For Americans: if it's 104F outside it shouldn't be set to less than 86F. Setting to the customary 68F is very bad for your health.

That's an american thing. To me as an European it is ridiculous having a device, which cools down one compartment while heating up everything else.

Here's a good read: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/why-keeping-ourselves...