I'm super paranoid about cooking a snake. I ran a dimmer type thermostat when I first got my ball, ended with a slight burn at one point, not a risk I am willing to repeat. I have herpstats with the alarms set running on all my cages, each cage has both a rhp and flexwatt so I could run either or both as needed and the room itself is heated (controlled by another thermostat) so the cage heat doesn't have to work as hard or at all in some cases, just providing a hot spot usually. Digital thermometers on both sides of cages to quick check and a temp gun to directly double check all areas. Snakes checked on 2x a day. I have controllers running most of my aquarium heaters at this point too since I've had a couple of those stick on or die and cost me livestock.