A Guide to Smart Heating

If you’re looking for more efficient ways to control your energy consumption, take a look at Victorian Plumbing’s guide to smart heating in your home.

What is a Smart Thermostat?

A smart thermostat is one of the latest smart home technologies to come onto the market. Made to optimise the control you have over your heating through the use of home automation systems, they essentially function as a much more efficient version of a regular thermostat.

However, what makes it “smart” technology is the fact that you can control these heating elements remotely through Wi-Fi and any smart device, whether it be an app on your smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop.

It’s important to note that a smart thermostat should not be confused with a smart metre, which allows you to monitor how much you’re spending each day by showing you your gas and electricity readings. While certain smart thermostats might also have this feature, smart thermostats allow you to control your spending and settings remotely, regardless of whether you’re at home or away.

While smart thermostats allow you to control your energy consumption more efficiently, their biggest attribute is the comfort they provide to your lifestyle. There are many components to smart heating that make your life easier, and while smart heating devices do vary, many of them have similar features.

Common smart heating features:

• Multi-room control
• Draught detection
• Holiday mode
• Safety mode
• Geofencing - This is where a perimeter is set up around your home through GPS technology. When you exit and enter this perimeter, the smart heating automatically raises or lowers the temperature of your home.

More advanced smart heating systems also utilise a machine learning dynamic. By this, we mean that the smart heating technology will, over time, learn your schedule. It’s capable of detecting when you’re home and will adjust the heat according to how you usually have it set at that time of the day.

The Nest smart thermostat developed by Google is among the most efficient smart thermostats when it comes to learning your schedule and heating habits. Over time, the Nest thermostat will have observed enough information about your routine that you won’t have to manually adjust your thermostat. The Nest thermostat comes installed with motion sensors to detect when you’re home, as well as the option for a helpful stand should you decide not to install it on a wall in your home.

How Does Smart Heating Work?

Smart heating has three core elements. The first component is installed directly into your HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system. This is the C-wire, which provides power to your smart thermostat. Next is the actual thermostat control. And the final component is the feature that actually makes it smart technology, which is the app installed on your smartphone, tablet or desktop.

All three of these elements communicate with one another to allow you to control your home’s temperature from anywhere when using the app. Once installed, it’s simply a matter of using the features provided in the app, and using your heating as normal, giving your smart heating time to adapt to your schedule.

Energy Saving Attributes

So, aside from being incredibly flashy and having some great features, does smart heating actually save you energy?

A great feature that will help you remain conscious of how much energy you’re using is a smart thermostat’s ability to send you an array of statistical data about how the heating in your home operates. This includes information such as how long it takes to heat your home and at what times of the day your energy consumption is at its highest. All of this information is useful if you’re looking for smart ways to cut costs here and there.

Another energy saving attribute is the smart thermostat’s programming to keep your home at a lower temperature for as long as possible. By this, we mean that once it has learned how long it takes to get your home to your desired temperature, it knows when to turn your heating on, so it’s ready for when you wake up or when you get home from a day out.

Purchasing a smart thermostat should be considered a long term investment. While smart heating technology may not immediately cut your energy consumption in half, over time, the ability to control your heating from anywhere, schedule your heating, and components like draft detection will gradually lower your energy consumption.

Over time, these small wins can contribute to substantial savings once your heating system is working at its most optimal and efficient level. Those little moments where you forgot to turn the heating off before you leave for work can be a thing of the past with smart heating.

That pretty much covers the basics when it comes to smart heating. If you’re looking for an easier way to manage your heating, feel free to explore our smart heating range and find the best system to match your lifestyle.