Owing to the growing energy charges by the energy companies, we always try and look for options that save not only energy but also our pockets. Since the cooling heating system of your home uses up most of the energy,  huge electricity bills can be reduced to some extent by using thermostats to control your heating/cooling system.

Thermostats have come a long way from its basic manual operated models to the self learning models.  Here in this article we give you a brief idea about the self learning thermostats.

Self learning thermostats are the programmable smart ones, where the thermostat is smart enough to learn your routine. It then sets the temperature accordingly, without any external assistance. These smart thermostat is a must have if you are a smart home user.   

Read on to get a brief idea about the benefits of a smart self learning thermostat and also discusses some of the models available in the market.

How learning thermostat save energy?

Thermostats are the controllers of your heating/cooling system. A proper control can thus save you a lot of bucks on the energy bills. With all the advancements going on right now, newer and easy to operate models of thermostat have also been introduced in the market. One such thermostat is a self learning thermostat, which learns from your routine and sets the temperature, on-off time accordingly.

Just teach them the temperature you like and the time at which the temperature change is needed, they will automatically chart out a schedule for you.

You can control it from anywhere, all at just a click away on your phone. Thus, you can tell it turn on the heating while on your commute, to enter into a cosy home after a long tiring day at work.

This smart gadget works on machine learning algorithm, this means for the first few days you have to provide a reference data set. Therefore, for these days you will have to program your own schedule. The thermostat will use its learning algorithm to understand your preferences and then will set a schedule that possibly suits you the best.

The energy and effort both are saved in this process. You need not worry about setting a schedule every time you leave or enter the house. Also, since the heating/cooling system is used only when it is needed, it gives an optimal performance.

Other than this, there are other reasons to invest in these smart learning thermostats. Read on to know more.

Benefits of a learning thermostat

Learning thermostats are programmable types which are designed to be clever enough to learn how and when you use your cooling/heating systems.

Since these are upper-end models in terms of cost, you must know their salient benefits before buying one, to make sure you made a fair choice.  

These days, energy conservation is gaining a lot of attention. In view of this, the prime reason which makes a learning thermostat a great investment is its energy saving nature. Since the cooling/heating systems are turned on only when needed, amount of energy wasted is reduced to a great extent. This therefore makes it an eco-friendly energy saver buy.

There are however, other reasons too that make it a lucrative option to make your home smarter.

Remote control option are available in most of the smart thermostats. The thermostat is linked to your phone through internet. Thus, you can change the temperature from any part of the world as long as you have your phone with you. This adds to the convenience factor of these thermostats.

Connecting these thermostats with your smoke or CO alarms improves the safety of your home. They can send alert messages if any thing goes wrong even if you are away from home.

Most of these thermostats can be integrated with smart home applications such as Ivee, life 360, Google home, Samsung Hub etc.

They can adjust and program your schedule automatically, through their auto program feature. So, you can sit back and enjoy in your room, made cosy without any programming hassles.

They are designed to pay for themselves, as they aid in reducing the energy bills and saving decent amount of bucks for you. Hence, they save you from the huge bills that may sum up due to the unnecessary use of your heating/cooling systems.

The Best Learning Thermostat

If we talk about smart thermostats, it is interesting to know how and what gave the idea to its development. Stuart Lombard, the founder of ecobee in an attempt to reduce the energy bills purchased some already available programmable thermostats. When he releasied that these thermostats did not meet his demands, he invented a smart thermostat which was easy to use and saved considerable amount of energy.

Following the launch of smart thermostats by ecobee, many other companies followed its lead. One such company is NESt, who in the year 2011, launched the first self learning thermostat.

Many Models have been launched since then, which may confuse you to pick the right one for you.

Let us give you a short review of two of the leading thermostat models. This may help you in recognising the features to look for when buying a self learning thermostat.

NEST Learning thermostat

One of the most advanced nest learning thermostat is the nest thermostat E. Here it comes with a large display, far sight screen and wide compatibility with heating systems.

It not only learns and manages your schedule, it also provides temperature suggestions that help your thermostat to be energy efficient.  In fact you are always encouraged to stay in a leaf zone which means you are in the eco safe zone. You earn a green leaf if you stay in that zone. At the end of the month you will get an email telling you how much leaves you have earned. Sounds great, right?

Also, another interesting feature is that, if you wish to set your program manually without following the one set by the thermostat, it will form pattern based on your choices.

The true Radiant mode of this thermostat is another very fascinating feature. It learns the time taken by your home to reach a fixed temperature and sets the time accordingly.

The control can be done not only through nest applications, but also through google assistant, and amazon alexa.  Thus you can integrate the learning thermostat with other smart equipment in your home, and control them through a single application on your phone.

Ecobee Smart Thermostats

The Ecobee smart thermostats are not “self learning” like Nest models. But they are definitely “smart thermostats” with all those high end smart features.

I’ve added Ecobee models (Ecobee 4 and Ecobee 3 Lite) in this article as an alternative for Nest models (Nest 3rd Gen or Nest E). For any reason, if you don’t prefer Nest thermostats, Ecobee models prove to be a great choice and they are equally good as Nest by all means.

This Canadian company have grown over the years since its launch. They were the first ones to introduce the smart thermostats. However, the learning feature were incorporated much later.

ECOBEE4 is its flagship thermostat with amazing features has an in-buit Alexa.

Alexa listens and obeys your commands and sets the temperature accordingly.

Even though you can tell this thermostat to turn on and off along with that to automatically set the temperature, it does not learn your behaviours in the same way a nest learning thermostat does.

It however learns when you are away or home through its home/away option. It uses this mode to set the temperatures accordingly, to give optimum performance.

It can be integrated with many platforms such as HomeKit, SmartThings, Google Assistant, IFTTT, which makes it interconnected with other home appliances at your place.

In case of any malfunction, an alert will be send to your mobile.

It learns you are away or home through the inbuilt occupancy detectors, which detect if someone is at home or the home is vacant. It then adjusts the temperature accordingly.

So, if you are looking for a simpler version, where you only need the thermostat to learn whether there is a person at home or not, this ecobee4 option is better for you.

Self learning thermostats are not only eco-friendly but pocket friendly too.

Now that you have an idea of what to expect from it, go add this smart gadget to complete your smart home. Their installation process is also does not require an expertise. Once you start seeing how much you have saved on bills, the initial cost will seem worth.