Trane ComfortLink II thermostat

It's hard to imagine a thermostat making a list of the year's most innovative products, but the magazine's editors felt that Trane's $300 ComfortLink II deserved a spot because "the 7-inch touch-screen interface of Trane ComfortLink II eclipses the competition in ease of use and clarity of information--which is key, because the device has so much data to give. It gathers online forecasts and fires up heating and cooling equipment as the weather changes. It also remembers a house's HVAC history, allowing users to compare costs from year to year, and will eventually sync with the local utility to project costs over time."