We have timers on all our thermostats, the exception is if one of the snakes seems to be ill then we keep the heat on at night as well.
I got some relatively cheap digital timers, but the next batch of timers I resorted to the mechanical type. One of the digital timers just kept resetting a couple of times a week. The mechanical timers are reliable, I don't need different times on different days, and the mechanical ones are cheaper - I won't bother with digital ones again.