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Save Money with Smart Thermostat

Yaro

August 18, 2016

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Traditional thermostats only allowed you to adjust the temperature of your home through its control panel or dial. But the advancements in technology has provided us with products which you can find information in programmable thermostat reviews. They can automatically set the temperature as per your preferences, allow you to adjust remotely the temperature of our home with a smartphone or PC, and a lot more to ensure complete convenience and comfort.

Apart from all the different advantages of using a WiFi thermostat, one of the most beneficial is the cost savings that they offer by reducing your power consumption. Apart from precisely adjusting the temperature of your heating and cooling system to avoid overuse, these smart thermostats are loaded with some additional energy-saving features.

For instance, one of the most popular Wi-Fi thermostat Ecobee 3 has features, like Auto Scheduling, Follow Me, DataRhythm Technology, etc. to maximize your energy savings. Even the 3rd Generation Nest and Honeywell RTH9580WF Touchscreen Thermostat have Scheduling and Vacation Override settings to reduce power consumption. Similarly, the majority of the Wi-Fi thermostats have some features to offer maximum energy savings.

But how much money can you save with a WiFi thermostat? And are the savings at par with the initial investment of buying one, especially when most of the good ones cost more than $150? Let us try to find it out.

How Smart Wi-Fi Thermostats Save Money?

Electricity bills can cost thousands of dollars in a year, and an excellent WiFi thermostat can save you money while also enhancing the comfort and making it easier for you to manage the temperature of your home. You can turn on/off and even adjust the temperature of the thermostat remotely with the help of smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops. So, even if you forget to switch off your HVAC system while leaving the home, these thermostats will regulate the temperature by sensing that no one is at home to reduce the power consumption.

They can also manage the HVAC system of your home to prevent overuse, and their scheduling features do an excellent job of precisely controlling the temperature as per your preferences to offer maximum comfort while also reducing power consumption.

How Much Money Can a Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat Save?

With tall claims about the advanced power-saving features of these Wi-Fi thermostats, how much money can they truly save on a yearly basis? Let us have a look.

Ecobee is a famous smart thermostat manufacturer, and it claims that its Wi-Fi thermostat provided homeowners with a savings of 23% on their heating and cooling costs on an average in the year 2013. Nest claims that its 3rd Generation Wi-Fi thermostat saved about 15% cooling and 12% heating costs on an average in three different studies. Apart from this, Honeywell and Nest also have a calculator to calculate the savings and get a rough estimate of the amount of money you can truly save.

But it is important to note that these savings can vary according to the size of your home, outside weather, the HVAC system you use, insulation, as well as the time that you spend inside and outside the home.

So, as per these figures, even if you are paying about $1,000 yearly on electricity then you can save around $100-$200. So, guess it’s safe to say that if you invest in a good Wi-Fi thermostat that costs more than $150, it will take at least a year to pay for itself through the savings.

How Much Money Can Standard Programmable Thermostats Save?   

Standard programmable thermostats reduce your energy costs as well, but the savings offered by them are lower than what a smart Wi-Fi thermostat offers and not to forget, with standard programmable thermostats you don’t get the advanced features for which the advanced Wi-Fi thermostats are famous for. Let us have a look at some numbers.

In the year 2004, a study with 25,000 homes with programmable thermostats was performed in Quebec. The outcome of the survey showed that these thermostats were only able to save about 3.6% on energy costs. Another study in the year 2006 came up with the conclusion that these thermostats were able to save about 6.3% on average. As compared with these results, smart Wi-Fi thermostats can offer about 8%-10% more savings.

Conclusion

There is no denying the fact that there are many advantages of using a WiFi thermostat and the energy saving are one of the most important. These thermostats are a lot more convenient to use than a traditional or a standard programmable thermostat and are loaded with many different features to ensure a high level of comfort, allow you to have a better control on the heating and cooling system and also enable you to manage your energy costs efficiently.