Re: Remote Control of My Home Thermostat

[David]

On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:15:05 -0500, greenpjs@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:39:12 -0500, David wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:00:03 -0500, "Bill Kearney"
>><wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>><David> wrote in message news:td5gp5dikjpf3d9h42g9tioipbj7svducc@xxxxxxxxxx
>>>>I would like to install a thermostat on my home furnace that con be
>>>> programmed for various temperatures at various times of the day.  This
>>>> part of my project is easy.
>>>>
>>>> But, I also want to be able to control the thermostat remotely.  That
>>>> is, when I'm not at home, I'd like to be able to change the
>>>> thermostat's programming.  Is something like this possible?  Control
>>>> via telephone would be the most convenient.
>>>
>>>Proliphix makes ethernet connectable thermostats.  I've got one of their
>>>NT20E units.  Works as expected.  I can connect either directly to it
>>>(through the firewall at home) or through their website service.  Either way
>>>works well.
>>>
>>>The trouble with anything that connects by the phone is using the phone for
>>>anything else.  You end up tying up the phone on that one task.  Or you end
>>>up with a serious mess of a hack using some of the few pieces of software
>>>for consumer voice response applications.  Most are a pain in the ass to set
>>>up and only work with one or two rather expensive phone interfaces.  Seems
>>>like it ought to be an easy solution, it ain't.
>>>
>>>Truth be told, once you set up a decent schedule most thermostats never need
>>>to be changed.  Except for seasonal changes, of course.  But for regular day
>>>to day stuff there's not much point to it.   There's a high likelihood that
>>>efforts to "save money" are going to end up costing more in the long run.
>>>There are always going to be exceptions, of course, but those edge cases
>>>don't come close to justifying it for the majority of situations.
>>>
>>>That said as someone that's squandered more than his fair share of pennies
>>>trying to automate crap.
>>>
>>>-Bill Kearney
>>
>>After recieving your message, I looked around a bit.  I found a system
>>on smarthome.com that uses my home phone.  It seems to be ok because
>>its not online all the time.  It only uses the phone when I "call" the
>>system to make changes or to get a status report.
>>
>>The biggest problem I haven't seen a fix for is my 5th wheel RV.  When
>>I retire in a few years, my wife & I plan on full time traveling in
>>the RV for a number of years.  Since the RV is not tied down, but
>>frequently on the move, any system that uses a land line phone won't
>>work.  A cell phone system could be expensive because the system would
>>require a built in phone and a contract with a local cell provider.
>>I'm considering the internet as an option, but I haven't seen any
>>systems that use the internet to communicate remotely.
>
>Then you missed the earlier suggestion to look at Proliphix.  That's
>what they do.  You access them from your home network and/or from the
>Internet.  You can access directly if you know your home IP address.
>If your home IP address varies, you can access them from the Proliphix
>web site.  (In that situation, the thermostat "phones home" to
>Proliphix periodically to report its current IP address).  I can
>control mine from any Internet connected computer or my iPhone.

Thanks for the help.  This does solve my problem!