Often, I’m asked if the smart thermostat I’m installing will work during a power outage; the answer is ‘no’. Once the homeowners realize that their heating and/or air conditioning system also won’t work during a power outage they seem content to move the conversation in a different direction. Usually it’s at this point when I mention that just like traditional lights, televisions, and garage door openers, smart home products throughout the house could fail because of a power outage. In additional, I explain that smart home devices can also fail due to internet availability. The wireless network and its reliability are important and often overlooked components of assessing your unique space for smart home technology.
The ability to control connected devices remotely is often the main selling point in the marketing message. Let’s consider thermostats. In the winter, many homeowners set the thermostat to drop a few degrees when heading out for work. Then when they are headed home, they manually raise that temperature back up, so the home is nice and toasty again when they arrive. This routine works, assuming the power remains on at the home and there isn’t an interruption with the home Wi-Fi network. If for some reason your thermostat cannot connect to your Wi-Fi, you no longer can connect with it through your smart device. For that reason, I always encourage clients to program a schedule into the device. So even if you cannot connect to the device, or forget to make that manual adjustment, it will run your equipment according to the schedule.
Programming a schedule also protects your climate regulation at home if there is a problem with the internet availability of the vendor equipment running the app. While most of the vendors have cloud based redundant systems, there have been multiple instances in the past few years during which users lost the remote ability to connect with their thermostat for short periods of time. Often vendors pointed to server outages as the source of the problem. The peace of mind gained with these smart thermostats comes with the need to accept temporary downtime and outages as a possibility. While extremely frustrating when they are occurring, the downtime and outages happen so rarely it is something more to be aware of than paralyzed by.
If you are ready to implement smart thermostats into your home but are concerned about compatibility or would like a professional installation Smart Home Solutions can help - contact us today at 978-969-0496!
