The WattWorks “Networked Thermostat” will simply and reliably reduce the cost of heating and cooling your building, from the day it is installed, without affecting occupant comfort.

The WattWorks Networked Thermostat keeps your heating and cooling system off whenever possible, but never allows the space to get uncomfortable when occupants are present, and never allows an unoccupied space to become unreasonably hot or cold.

The Networked Thermostat improves upon the usual setback thermostat by giving it a boss: automatic remote management of all thermostat settings and continuous monitoring of HVAC operation keeps the Networked Thermostat doing its job every day. Even when a temporary need arises, and a building occupant has to extend the hours of occupancy, the Networked Thermostat will report the request, extend the occupied schedule as requested, but then return operation to its original schedule to maximize savings and stay effective year after year.

The difference:

The difference between a WattWorks Networked Thermostat and a more conventional thermostat is that a WattWorks Networked Thermostat is continuously managed toward saving energy.

It is typical to try to save energy and money by not heating and not cooling a building in those times when it is unoccupied. Turning the heating and air conditioning completely “Off” when no one is in the building is very effective, but the potential side effects of using this method of energy conservation makes it undesirable: someone has to remember to turn it off consistently, someone has to turn it on every day... perhaps well before the occupants come in since the space could take hours to recover from being unconditioned, and the potential for freezing in winter are the most painful.

So rather than turning off your heating and cooling, you could install a programmable “Setback” thermostat. You typically enter the time schedule into a setback thermostat to match the daily opening and closing times of your building, and enter the occupied and unoccupied temperature settings, which allows the heating and cooling systems to stay off as long as possible and thus save energy costs. These thermostats are more effective than manually operating the HVAC with a switch, but there are problems. You knew there was a catch, didn’t you?

How it is programmed:

The first difficulty is in programming a setback thermostat. Typically there is a long list of settings, modes, schedule times and parameters that can and must be set. To keep the thermostat looking like a thermostat, all of this programming usually has to be done using a tiny keypad and watch-like display with a complicated array of manipulations. Once you do get the start and end times set, for all seven days, and enter AM/ PM correctly, and get the four (or more) temperature settings per day right, there is usually no way to know for sure what all you just entered. And for heavens sake don’t lose the manual, you’ll need it the next time you make any changes. The WattWorks Networked Thermostat allows all programming from a PC screen using a browser program, so you can see all of the entries at once, and can print it all out if you wish. And since these screens of information are just web pages served over the Internet, you can see this information from anywhere you can reach the Internet.

Programming and controlling override events:

The second difficulty with a setback thermostat is that unoccupied times sooner or later will be defeated. Programmable thermostats turn down the heat strictly by pre-set time of day, and when there is that occasional off-schedule meeting and the space really needs to stay comfortable after-hours, someone will override the programmed times. Or they will defeat setback mode altogether. Then from that point on, the systems are running at times you thought they were off, increasing your costs. Since this ‘bonus’ runtime occurs when the building is unoccupied, it is very easy to miss this failure mode until the unexpectantly high utility bill comes in. The WattWorks Networked Thermostat allows override events, but reports these events to you via email when they occur, and when the temporary special event is over, it returns the system schedule and settings right back to where they were before the override action was taken.