Do you like inconvenience? Spending more money than needed? Do you like things to be more difficult than needed? Do you like not knowing how much energy you use and when you use it most? Do you desire suboptimal temperature control? If you answered ‘no’ to these questions then whether you knew it or not, you’re already convinced that a Smart Thermostat is worth a couple of hundred bucks to you.
One of the primary requirements in a ‘Smart Home’ is either smart temperature control or a smart security feature. Of these two, the one to likely pay for itself first is the smart thermostat. It may sound a little creepy but most smart thermostats are self-learning which means they adjust the temperature based on your habits and schedules. The simplest example is that they know when you are sleeping, and they know when you’re awake. They know when you’re away from the house too, and because of this intuitiveness, it can adjust the temperature accordingly. How does it know these things? Glad you asked. These types of thermostats use a combination of scheduling, geofencing, and motion detection to know how to adjust.
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So, instead of setting your AC to the hold position at 72°, leaving the house for the day, and running the AC needlessly, you can leave the house and the thermostat will adjust to an upper limit setting of your choosing. Then when it knows you’re close to being back home through geofencing or based on your usual return time, it will lower the temp accordingly.
A 2015 study by Nest concluded that users saved an average of 10-12% on heating costs and 15% on AC costs. Its marketplace competitor Ecobee claims customers in North America saved up to 26% on their heating and cooling costs, based on an internal analysis conducted in April 2021. The most expensive Ecobee I could find is $250. Based on that price, if your heating and cooling bill averages $100/month and you can save 26%, it seems the thermostat pays for itself in under a year.
There’s no voodoo involved with these devices. Natural laws still apply and the only way to spend less on your energy bills is to use less energy. The ‘smart’ part is that the device decides when to do it so you really don’t notice, and you can go about your life with one less thing to think about throughout the day. Plus, you can control these devices even when you’re not home. So, if you have teenagers or a spouse 😉 that likes to turn the thermostat to 65° during the afternoon on a hot summer day, you can squash that behavior by remotely locking out the thermostat and setting it to whatever temperature you want. Satisfying indeed…
Interested in knowing MORE about Smart Home tech? Contact the only Smart Home Certified CRS agent in the Greater St. Louis area*.
*Based upon actual knowledge the author has at the time of publication
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