A smart thermostat is about more than the convenience of controlling your home’s temperature through your smartphone, especially when they are tied into a whole home smart ecosystem. A smart thermostat is also a way to help make your home more energy efficient as a part of a movement for greener living. Greener/more efficient heating and cooling can also help you save money. The savings you can earn is determined by the climate you live in and your standard thermostat temperatures, which Energy.gov recommends you set at 68°F.
If you have a Guardian smart thermostat, there are many options to help you save energy and money. These three tips can help you get started.
Set Schedules
The first step you can take to start saving money from your smart thermostat is to set heating/cooling schedules. The basic schedule function can be found under Automation and Schedules on myguardianhome.com. When you choose the pencil icon next to your thermostat, you’ll get a drag and drop daily calendar where you can control temperatures for the things you do every week like going to work and going to bed. Set an “Away” temperature, a “Home” temperature and a “Sleep” temperature and then you can choose when to have your thermostat adjust for those occurrences.
A basic schedule includes turning the temperature down 7 to 10 degrees during the hours that the house isn’t occupied. Another strategy for saving includes decreasing the temperature in your home during the hours that everyone in your home is in bed. Just a couple of degrees can make a difference that you don’t even notice when you’re cuddled up in blankets. Energy.gov says you can save as much as 10 percent a year on heating and cooling this way.
Use Triggers
While Schedules are a first step, and can often be set on any programmable thermostat, what truly makes a smart thermostat smart and more energy efficient are the other automation settings you can set up. Triggers are one of these. You can easily set up Triggers on myguardianhome.com under the Automation Rules section. It’s also where you can add a new rule for any of your devices, including your thermostat.
One trigger-based rule that can help you save energy is a “Sensor Left Open” rule. This allows your thermostat respond if a door with a smart sensor is left open for a certain period of time. You can either have your thermostat offset this situation by heating or cooling or you can have it turn off entirely. This keeps you from wasting heating or cooling due to an open door.
You can also add a new Fire Safety rule so that if your system detects a potential fire from a monitored smoke or heat detector, the thermostat and its fans turn off to avoid spreading toxic smoke around your home.
Utilize Geo Services
You can also utilize the Geo Services function of your security system to further personalize the heating and cooling of your home and make it more efficient. On the Thermostat Schedules page of myguardianhome.com, you can choose to turn on the “Smart Away” function. You’ll have to enable geo-services if you haven’t already, but then you can set it to use your set “Away” temperature whenever your geo-devices leave the geo-fence. For instance, if you left your home in a hurry and it’s not usually a time that you’re away, the Smart Away function will be alerted by your system’s geo-fence and cause your thermostat to change to a more optimal energy-saving temperature until you return home. You can also choose to have your thermostat settings change any time the system is set to “Arm Away.”
This overrides your normal schedule automatically when you leave or come home at an unusual time. Your system becomes truly intuitive because it responds to your actual movements instead of a standard weekly schedule, because we all know that life doesn’t always go according to plan.
If you need help figuring out the settings for your smart thermostat, you can call 1.800.PROTECT to get the assistance you need.
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