Picture yourself enjoying a week away from work, holed up in a lakefront cabin with the family. By day, you’re on the water fishing. By night, you’re grilling dinner and roasting s’mores on a freshly built fire. After a few relaxing days of this, it hits you.
You forgot to turn off your air conditioner at home so a large energy bill will be awaiting you once you get home.
Your only recourse is to call your neighbor Jean, the one with eightcats and a pet parrot, to see if she’ll enter your house and flip off the AC. But will neighbor Jean figure out your decades-old thermostat? What if she flips over to heat by accident?
This headache of a scenario is completely avoidable….with a WiFi thermostat.
With a WiFi thermostat, you could turn off the AC remotely from your phone. Better yet, you can enjoy your week at the cabin without worrying about whether or not your neighbor Jean is up to the task of adjusting your thermostat. Not to mention that you will save money on your monthly energy bill.
This article will provide an overview and answer a few common questions surrounding WiFi thermostats.
What is a WiFI thermostat?
Your typical thermostat allows you to manually adjust the temperature of your home. Some allow for you to program the temperature to be at different ranges throughout the day.
A WiFi thermostat, sometimes referred to as a smart thermostat, takes the manual element out of the equation. It learns from your temperature behaviors and programs itself accordingly. Plus, they allow for you to control the temperature of your home remotely.
What are the benefits of a WiFi thermostat?
There are many benefits of a WiFi Thermostat, most of which stem from how versatile it makes your HVAC system. The primary benefits are:
Savings
The WiFi thermostat will give a homeowner immediate savings on their energy bills. They allow for precise programming that will eliminate wasteful HVAC usage. In the summer, you can program your thermostat to minimize the AC usage to adjust to the dropping overnight temperatures. In the winter, a WiFi thermostat will compensate for the frigid, falling temperatures overnight.
For periods of time that you’re away from work and the kids are at school, the thermostat will wind down your system output and restore the temperature of your home by time you get back.
Flexibility
Standard programmable thermostats only allow for two temperature settings. With the WiFi thermostat there isn’t a restriction. Also, if unforeseen changes in your schedule come up or unexpected changes in the weather, the remote functionality allows for on-the-go changes to your home temperature.
WiFi thermostats are particularly convenient when you’re onvacation. You can monitor the temperature of your home remotely to avoid coming back to frozen pipes or a humid hot-box.
Data
WiFi thermostats are great for the data lover. As you use it, the thermostat will track your behaviors and energy usage. That will allow you to review your usage to find specific opportunities for additional savings.
Learning
A WiFi thermostat is a truly intuitive device. It is able to detect spikes in temperature or humidity and act accordingly. When you’re cooking up a feast in the kitchen and cause a sharp rise in temperature in your home, a WiFi thermostat will detect that and balance it out.
Is my HVAC system compatible?
This is one of the more common questions surrounding WiFi thermostats. The answer requires some technical speak, and often calls for having an HVAC professional to inspect your system. However, you can quickly weed out certain systems.
HVAC systems are not compatible with WiFi thermostats if they:
- Have the voltage of your system is 110V or above.
- Have wires that are connected with wire nuts.
- If they do not have a wire connected to the C terminal.
Think you’re ready? Honeywell WiFi 9000 Thermostat
The Honeywell WiFi 9000 is one of the more popular WiFi thermostat’s on the market. If the earlier vacation story sounded especially nightmarish to you, this thermostat is a great option for avoiding those kinds of nasty situations. An additional feature that is great for the vacationer, is that it will alert you about outdoor temperature changes. For example, if you’re at the cabin in the winter and your home gets hit with an unexpected cold front, you’ll get an alert on your phone letting you know that you may want to adjust your homes temperature setting.
Whether you’re away at the lake during the summer or up north ice fishing in the winter, the Honeywell WiFi thermostat will make your home smarter and your energy bill lower.
WiFi thermostats provide homeowners with immediate energy savings, flexibility, data accumulation and peace of mind when they’re on vacation or away from their home.
No one wants to stress out about the HVAC system at their home while on vacation. With a WiFi thermostat, you never will again.
Do you have further questions about your homes compatibility or about getting a WiFi thermostat installed? Contact us today and we’ll get you on the path to savings.
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