Honeywell, one of the world’s largest thermostat makers, tells me that twenty years ago it tested out thermostats that can learn the home owner’s behavior and adapt the heating and cooling accordingly, but ultimately decided that consumers didn’t take to them, and would rather control their thermostat themselves. I asked Honeywell’s President of its Environmental Continue reading →
thermostat
It seems that one of the world’s largest thermostat makers, Honeywell, had a learning unit quite a few years before the now-popular “Nest” did, and nixed it soon after its conception. Speaking with Honeywell’s President of Environmental and Combustion Controls division miss Beth Wozniak, GigaOM’s Katie Fehrenbacher found that Honeywell decided to drop the program Continue reading →
Energy software company EnergyHub and weather and sensor network company Earth Networks have teamed up to offer a smart thermostat and demand response program for utilities and consumers. Called e5, the service will use weather data from Earth Networks’ thousands of nation wide weather stations (Earth Networks is the company behind the Weather Bug app) Continue reading →
The Nevada utility NV Energy plans to roll out one of the first demand-response programs in the U.S. that will use home energy gadgets and smart thermostats in consumers’ homes, reports Smart Grid News. NV Energy will be providing its customers with a home energy dashboard from Control4 and a programmable thermostat, and the utility Continue reading →
Smart Grid companies are “walking the walk” and demonstrating end-to-end applications of Smart Grid interoperability — from the utility’s back office to the homeowner’s thermostat — and you can see it live at Grid-Interop’s first annual Plug-In, Dec. 5-8, 2011, in Phoenix, Ariz. Organized by the UCA International Users Group, Electric Power Research Institute, and Continue reading →
Tony Fadell, former Apple developer who headed the iPod team, has created another innovative product at his new startup. The brains behind the iPod co-founded Nest Labs, where he put his efforts into thermostats rather than personal electronics. The Nest Learning Thermostat, announced Monday, is a smart energy-saving device that, “learns what temperatures you like Continue reading →
Are you part of the innovator, automate or indifferent crowd? According to a recent J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Smart Energy Consumer Behavioral Segmentation Study, customers’ behaviors toward smart grid technologies can be grouped by the amount of control they want to take over their energy savings. For instance, folks in the ”innovator” segment are people Continue reading →
If you want people to alter their energy use, start with what they know. That’s the motto of green living product maker ecobee, which has recently added an energy management system to its award-winning smart thermostat. Every company in the home area network space is compelled to develop an energy management portal and iPhone app Continue reading →
TXU Energy plans to distribute 100,000 smart energy efficiency devices like high-tech thermostats in homes and businesses in Texas by 2012. To date, TXU has installed roughly 20,000 smart energy efficiency devices like the TXU Energy iThermostat, the first and only Web-enabled programmable thermostat in the Texas retail electric market. TXU said its online Energy Continue reading →
ICM Controls, a leader in the manufacture and supply of electronic controls to the HVACR industry, announces its new SimpleComfort® series programmable communicating thermostat (PCT). The SE5000 features an in-home display (IHD) coupled with a residential thermostat, providing direct HVAC load control by utility companies serving Smart Grid customers. via Programmable communicating thermostat based on Continue reading →
The city of Tallahassee is in the final stretch for a major launch of new Smart Grid Technology that’s designed to help people use and monitor their utilities better. In the sweltering summer months, for example, residents can remotely turn their thermostats at home to cooler temperatures before leaving their jobs. A monetary cap can Continue reading →
Honeywell (NYSE: HON) today announced the addition of time-of-use utility price schedule programming capability to the Prestige® programmable thermostat. This new “smart” control enables a homeowner to automate energy consumption based on its actual cost, bringing the benefits of a smart grid into their home. Like long distance telephone calls, electricity prices during specific times Continue reading →
