Re: Remote Control of My Home Thermostat

[David]

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.