hmm, after digging around here and reading up on related issues I am quickly becoming not a fan of this thermostat. it has dawned on me that having two heat mats plugged in but only one probe leaves the possibility that if the mat fails that does not have the probe over it, then the thermostat will not act as an automatic shut off, so that safety feature is thrown out the window. I got a heat gun yesterday and you just can't argue with facts, the temp swing is more significant than I'd thought and I'm now finding it quite tedious to nail the 90F target, over shooting and undershooting by 10 f. it seems and is confirmed by others here that temperature regulation is probably one of the keys to good reptile health. many folks worry about snakes getting burned but it seems to me that that is rare and that the biggest issue is that temperature swings make life more stressful and force movement on a creature that likes to find it's happy place and conserve energy for relatively long periods of time by not moving. Now i'm contemplating returning this unit and getting either a proportional thermostat or just controlling with a riostat and the heat gun. anyone willing to share their opinion of which is better? I'm guessing that no thermostat on the market has multiple probes? so considering that I have two small heat mats that a riostat and heat gun would offer the best fail safe for me. thoughts? On new enclosures, I'm going to stick with one UTH and probably go with a proportional thermostat. If herpstat + is only $50 more than zoo meds repti temp, it's kind of a no brainer. ...wishing there was a sticky that linked to all the relevant threads related to this subject, with a 5 and a 7 year old kid, it's taken me a while to find the threads and think it through, then again, I am grateful that so much information is available on this site.