Both smart and programmable thermostats enable you to save cash on your utility bills. They can automatically regulate the temperature of your home. In contrast, manual thermostats hold temperature as you’ve set it until you adjust it in accordance to your preference.
A programmable thermostat has settings that auto-increases or auto-decreases temperature without your input. A smart one even adjusts in accordance to outside or room temperature.
Should you go for a smart thermostat or a programmable one? Let’s find out.
What’s the Difference Between the Two?
Instead of waiting for you to start sneezing because the room is too cold or start sweating because the room is too toasty, an auto thermostat detects and adjusts the temperature for you.
- The Manual Thermostat Upgrade: Should you upgrade from a manual thermostat for your HVAC system to a programmable or smart one? Or should you stick to the thermostat that gives you complete control of the room temperature? Learn your options first and how they differ from one another!
- What’s the Deal with Programmable Thermostats? A programmable thermostat allows you to predetermine the temperature of your home for a number of days or weeks rather than have you set it yourself manually. This saves you time and effort to manually set the HVAC, plus you can always do a manual override if you wish.
- What’s the Deal with Smart Thermostats? Smart thermostats, like your smartphone or smart doorbell, are “smart” or “computerized” and “advanced”. This means it’s capable of connecting to the Internet, detecting the weather temperature, and adjusting the temperature on its own without your input.
- What’s the Difference Between Smart and Programmable? You still need to manually program the programmable thermostat, but after that one time, it auto-adjusts in accordance to your settings. A smart device thermostat intuitively detects how hot or cold the room or house is then cools or heats your room efficiently and “smartly”.
- Which One Should You Get? You can save up to 20 percent on your home’s energy bills by using a programmable thermostat that’s about as effective as a smart unit when it comes to boosting the energy-efficiency of your HVAC system. On the other hand, if you can afford smart tech, you can get various other perks from it.
- How Smart are Smart Thermostats? Just as a smartphone allows you to run apps and browse the Internet versus a standard cellphone, a smart-thermostat has a computer inside it to efficiently adjust the heat or cold by the temperature of the house or even by your preferred temperature whenever you have to do a manual override.
Long story short, if you can afford smart unit thermostats, go for them. If you can’t, you can roughly approximate the automatic nature of an A.I.-powered computerized thermostat with a programmable thermostat that presets your settings for days or weeks in advance.