From smartphones to online banking to omnipresent Wi-Fi, the world is going high tech, and building products are no different. Recently, a spate of HVAC controls has come to market boasting new technology and features that help improve the controls’ operation and integration into the home.
With the right Z-Wave setup, users can include their Z-Wave thermostat in room scenes activated by their garage door opener as they come and go.
Photo Credit: Wayne Dalton
“There are lots of reasons to go high-tech,” says
Rheem product manager Mark King. “Even though industry sales are down in terms of equipment, high-efficiency sales are actually up. Homeowners are being more selective — they’re doing research and looking for a payback. The feature-rich technology we’re seeing in new HVAC products is much simpler to use than before, and gives the homeowner more control over managing his comfort.”
Some manufacturers are taking advantage of the popularity of wireless equipment for their thermostats. “We’re living in a wireless world — it’s no secret,” says Audra Carson, channel marketing manager for Honeywell. In looking at HVAC controls, “we decided it shouldn’t be any different,” she says. For Honeywell, the wireless platform of choice is RedLink, a technology inspired by the maker’s work in home security. RedLink has been incorporated into the popular FocusPro thermostat, creating an HVAC controller that’s easier for installers to work with. “Using RedLink technology eliminates the need to run wire,” Carson says. “On the contractor side, the installer might get to the job and find there’s not enough wire available to upgrade the thermostat. They could spend 20 minutes or two hours fishing wires through the wall to complete the job. Now they can work faster and put the thermostat anywhere — not just in the dining room or hallway.”
With the Portable Comfort Control, users can remotely set the FocusPro thermostat to the ideal temperature from any room, even in zoned systems.
Photo Credit: Honeywell
This is beneficial to the homeowner as well. Not only can they have their thermostat in a more convenient location, but with the FocusPro’s wireless counterpart, the Portable Comfort Control, they can take their thermostat controller with them anywhere in the home. “The Portable Comfort Control is the first remote-control thermostat,” Carson says. “It doesn’t replace the existing thermostat, but it works with the wireless thermostat so it can really offer the user the freedom to sense the temperature and make adjustments from anywhere.” When used with a zoned system, homeowners can take the Portable Comfort Control around the house and make adjustments in each zone, as needed.
Wave of the Future
Also capitalizing on wireless technology is Wayne-Dalton. Expanding its product line of wireless home controls, the company now offers a Z-Wave Thermostat. The unit is simultaneously advanced and retro in its design and operation. “The last generation of thermostats was built on the idea of programmability, so you wouldn’t have to heat or cool your home while you were weren’t using it,” explains Yan Rodriguez, director of home controls. “It’s a good idea, but it’s a pain when you have a complicated user manual and a tiny user interface, and you have to spend an hour fiddling with it until you think you have it set right. You also have to manually override the system if your daily pattern changes — if you’re home from work one day, for instance.”
With the Z-Wave Thermostat, homeowners can set broader modes such as “away” and “in-house” and activate them by remote control. The setup retains the energy savings of a programmable thermostat but is more flexible based on the users’s needs, Rodriguez says. “The homeowner could simply press one button on the remote when they leave the house, and one when they return, so the system responds at exactly the right times,” he says. If programmed into room scenes activated by a Z-Wave garage door opener, the thermostat settings could easily coincide with users’ comings and goings.
(A side note: Carson agrees that programmability is both a blessing and a curse of high-tech thermostats. “We know that homeowners really hate programming their thermostats,” she says. “Seventy percent of people that have programmable units don’t even use the programming features.” As such, Honeywell has patented interview-based programming for its Prestige Comfort System HD thermostat. By asking questions such as, “What time does the first person in the household wake up?” and “Is someone home all day?” The thermostat walks the user through an easier programming setup.)
Another feature from Wayne-Dalton that translates into ease-of-use is its ability to be controlled remotely. All of the company’s wireless home-control products can be accessed online or through a call phone so homeowners can change settings at any time and from anywhere.
Total Control
Rheem’s new Comfort Control 2 System does not work wirelessly, but its high-tech features can eliminate a lot of guesswork and troubleshooting for installers and homeowners, thanks to smarter diagnostics and better communication.
“Diagnostics aren’t necessarily new to HVAC equipment, but with the Comfort Control 2, we’ve introduced components that offer more information for quicker fixes,” King says. Before, a diagnostic module at the HVAC unit could tell a contractor that a contact was open or that the unit was running for a long time, but wouldn’t say why. The Comfort Control 2 offers contractors a detailed display of the air handler or heat pump’s operating history and up to 37 individual fault codes for more direction when maintenance is needed.
Used in combination with Rheem’s Series 500 thermostat, the Comfort Control 2 helps homeowners gain more control over their home comfort, King says. “The trend today is that we can alert the homeowners that there’s a serviceable issue, and that’s communicated via the thermostat. Whereas before the homeowner would have to wait until they were too hot or too cold before they realized a problem existed,” he says, “now the Comfort Control 2 can tell the homeowner, through the thermostat, that a service call needs to be made.” During undesirable operating conditions, the home system will automatically shut down and the thermostat will display a “Call for Service” message. Installation contractors have the option of training homeowners on how to get more information from such an alert, so the homeowner can offer additional details and the contractor can be fully prepared for the service call.
New thermostats on the market offer a plethora of features beyond wireless capabilities and easy programmability. Honeywell’s FocusPro thermostat displays outdoor temperature and humidity information on the thermostat wirelessly via a sensor integrated into the system. “What homeowners have told us they really like about that feature is especially apparent in the ‘shoulder seasons’ when you’re not sure if you should be running your heating or cooling,” Carson says.
At Rheem, a special consideration for indoor air quality inspired an efficient motor technology that allows users to run the blower in their system more frequently without using a lot more energy. “If you’re concerned about IAQ, you’ll want to be running air across your filter more frequently,” King says. “With this system, you can program the blower to come on periodically during the day to maintain circulation. This is also helpful during milder times of year when you don’t have a demand for heating or cooling, but you still want to filter the air without driving up the electricity bill.”
Retrofit Suitability
Regardless of the thermostat that best suits your client’s home, most models available are suitable for retrofit applications. “Wireless thermostats have a place in both remodeling and new construction,” Carson says. “In new construction, it helps cut costs by eliminating wiring. This also makes installation easy in remodeling applications, and being wireless also allows installers to zone a home without running thermostat wires. The installation is really effortless.”
Rodriguez agrees. “About half of our business is retrofit, and with a downturn in the building industry, it’s becoming a bigger component of the market,” he says. “When you have to run wires in a house, the cost does increase, so wireless has really paid off for us.”
King says that even wired systems can be retrofitted easily and economically. The Comfort Control 2 System also works with thermostats other than the Series 500, making it suitable for retrofits. Additionally, “in retrofit applications, in order to do things like read temperature and humidity, you often need to use a wire at some point,” he says. “There are usually four wires going from the HVAC system’s indoor unit to the thermostat, and you can use existing wires, instead of running new ones, for an easier installation.”
The point of upgrading to a new system, Carson points out, is to “make homes feel as comfortable as they look.” And with technology making system operations and installation easier, homeowners can definitely get comfortable with that idea.