We’re on the Threshold of Big Data for Home Energy Automation

When control and automation company Savant Systems introduced its SST-W1000 wireless thermostat recently, it marked a first for the company. Now it has its own thermostat, as well as supporting others. But other than that, no big deal, right? Another Wi-Fi-connected thermostat, ho hum. But as Savant’s executive vice president of Corporate Strategy & Business Development Jim Carroll sees it, there’s a lot more to this than Savant having its own thermostat. The company now has its own thermostat from which it can retrieve data and tie into its control systems and even its SmartEnergy monitoring system—with the end goal of using that data. Now this is getting a bit more interesting. “We want to extract information and understand behaviors” and respond to those behaviors, Carroll says. That means knowing why the thermostat is set to a certain temperature at a certain time, aggregating that information with weather data from outside, and using occupancy information so the devices in a system have sense of awareness of what’s going on. Already the SST-W1000 can respond to outside temperature data to turn up or down the indoor temperature. “We get real time data and trends with historical records,” Carroll says. The ability […]