3 smart thermostat settings that optimise your home's heating – and why you should use them this year
Get the most out of your smart thermostat with these handy features
Now that we’re getting into the colder months of the year, it’s time for your smart thermostat to shine. Upgrading to a smart thermostat gives you more control over your heating, while helping you save time, money and energy around your home.
Before the colder weather really starts to hit, it’s a good idea to understand your smart thermostat a bit better, and which settings can optimise your home’s heating. The three settings below are available on all your standard smart thermostats, including models from Google, Tado and Honeywell, and are a great way to stay warm and save extra money heating your home this year.
1. Smart scheduling
Smart scheduling is one of the main reasons that people switch over to a smart thermostat in the first place. Being able to set different temperatures in each room of your home at different times of day is invaluable, especially for households with full smart home ecosystems who have lots of automations set up.
Instead of manually adjusting your thermostat or having your heating running constantly, smart scheduling is much easier to fit into your daily routine. Once you set it, your smart thermostat will quietly and automatically run everything in the background so you don’t have to do anything – plus it’s a brilliant money and energy saver.
It’s completely up to you how you schedule your smart thermostat, but I’d recommend setting your heating between 18°C - 22°C. With winter mornings coming up, I’d schedule your heating to be warmer during weekday mornings and to turn back on right before you get home in the evenings.
2. Geofencing
I always thought geofencing was a lot more complicated than it sounds, but it’s actually one of the handiest smart thermostat features you can use. Geofencing uses your smartphone’s location via GPS, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to monitor when you’re at home or away.
Often called Home-Away Assist, geofencing automatically lowers your heating or switches modes when it detects you’re not at home. Users can customise this in their thermostat’s app by drawing a boundary around the home. When you reach a certain distance, your heating will adjust so you’re not wasting your precious heating when you’re not at home to enjoy it.
Similarly, when it detects you’re approaching your home, geofencing can also alert your smart thermostat and get it to start pre-heating or pre-cooling your house so it’s to your liking when you arrive.
3. Room priority
Most smart thermostats come with room-by-room heating, meaning you can keep different rooms in your home at different temperatures. But the room priority setting deserves more recognition as it means you can have your favourite or most preferred room of your house at the perfect temperature at all times.
In your smart thermostat’s app, you can select which room you want your thermostat to focus on. When your thermostat’s sensors detect you or other people are in that room, it’ll prioritise heating or cooling it, so you can stay warm and cosy in your most commonly used room.
