Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

I know this may sound totally off the wall, but there's this cool search
engine called Google (www.google.com) that lets you enter a term like
"wireless thermostat" and then gives you several pages of info and
sources for them.


Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

you may find more at comp.home.automation

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

wrote:
Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

Check out www.smarthome.com They should have some choices and ideas for
you.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

loops. just woke up. sorry didn't look at newsgroups posted to.

"Chub" wrote in message
...
you may find more at comp.home.automation

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

I looked into this awhile back and found two things that may be of
interest. One is that there are thermostats available that can be
controlled via a phone interface. I think I also saw some that could
be controlled via computer too. I think the phone control idea may be
more practical, because that way you can change the temp by calling in
from anywhere, say on the way home from the airport.

The other device I found was a telephone dial in controller that had a
couple of outputs from a relay that you could use to control anything.
Using that, you could use the phone to switch between two thermostats.
You could have the main thermostat set to hold at say 45, and leave
the aux thermostat always set to 70. Then, on the way back home, you
could call in and have it switch.

It looked like they did a pretty good job on this unit, including
ability to work on same line as an answering machine. You can set the
unit to pick up on say ring 5, while the answer machine picks up on say
ring 3. To accesss it, you call in once, let it ring a couple times,
then hang up. When you call back again within 30 secs, the unit will
answer on the first ring. They have access code protection too, of
course.

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message
.. .
wrote:
Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

Check out www.smarthome.com They should have some choices and ideas
for you.

I'll second that. They have a LOT of cool stuff....

On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Yes, but the words you want to search on are remote controlled, or
something like that, not wireless. They have them that work with the
internet and those that work with the telephone.


If you have to leave the computer on all day long, it might cost as
much as keepign the heat on low, with a setback thermostat to turn it
up.

How does one figure that. 200 Watt power supply (now theyt're bigger)
times 10 hours equals 2 KwH = 25cents, going up to 44cents in June
here.

400 watt power supply =88 cents a day. not so much but for 250 work
days that's about 220 dollars a year, plus wear on the harddrive.

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

Even a fully loaded PC doesn't draw 200W. My 500Mhz machines draw 80W in
standby and the newer, faster ones draw 130-170W. A mini-ITX draws as
little as 15W.

--
Bobby G.

"mm" wrote in message
...
On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Yes, but the words you want to search on are remote controlled, or
something like that, not wireless. They have them that work with the
internet and those that work with the telephone.


If you have to leave the computer on all day long, it might cost as
much as keepign the heat on low, with a setback thermostat to turn it
up.

How does one figure that. 200 Watt power supply (now theyt're bigger)
times 10 hours equals 2 KwH = 25cents, going up to 44cents in June
here.

400 watt power supply =88 cents a day. not so much but for 250 work
days that's about 220 dollars a year, plus wear on the harddrive.

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

Indulging in this offtopic, my server is a broken screen laptop (so the
screen is off), 66 mhz pentium, whose harddrive never spins and chip
runs at an average load of 0%. How much is it costing me a month?

"mm" wrote in message
...
On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Yes, but the words you want to search on are remote controlled, or
something like that, not wireless. They have them that work with the
internet and those that work with the telephone.


If you have to leave the computer on all day long, it might cost as
much as keepign the heat on low, with a setback thermostat to turn it
up.

How does one figure that. 200 Watt power supply (now theyt're bigger)
times 10 hours equals 2 KwH = 25cents, going up to 44cents in June
here.

400 watt power supply =88 cents a day. not so much but for 250 work
days that's about 220 dollars a year, plus wear on the harddrive.

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude


I did this years ago with a X-10 system. Set the thermostat where you want
it. Plug a X-10 appliance module to a nearby electric outlet. Make a cord up
with a regular plug at one end and a resistor at the other. I think I
started with a 10K Ohm 5 Watt, but changed it to a 15K later. Fasten the
resistor under the thermostat. You can call the X-10 controller and turn the
resistor on or off. When on, it heats the thermostat and the heat will stay
off unless it gets a lot colder than the set point. The resistor makes
almost no heat, but it it's enough. BTW: My thermostat was an old manual job
with a plastic cover and had a slot at the bottom and top. So the warm air
would pass through it. My system also controlled some lights and the wash
machine. The wash machine was an after thought because the timer stuck one
day and let my clothes agitate for about 12 hours.

Rube Goldburg, I know...

Al

mm wrote:
On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Yes, but the words you want to search on are remote controlled, or
something like that, not wireless. They have them that work with the
internet and those that work with the telephone.


If you have to leave the computer on all day long, it might cost as
much as keepign the heat on low, with a setback thermostat to turn it
up.

How does one figure that. 200 Watt power supply (now theyt're bigger)
times 10 hours equals 2 KwH = 25cents, going up to 44cents in June
here.

400 watt power supply =88 cents a day. not so much but for 250 work
days that's about 220 dollars a year, plus wear on the harddrive.

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

That 400W power supply tops out at supplying 400W. It would consume
more than that while providing 400W. Of course in real life few average
anything close to 400W.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

wrote:
Joseph Meehan wrote:
mm wrote:
On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that
I can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There
are wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Yes, but the words you want to search on are remote controlled, or
something like that, not wireless. They have them that work with
the internet and those that work with the telephone.


If you have to leave the computer on all day long, it might cost as
much as keepign the heat on low, with a setback thermostat to turn
it up.

How does one figure that. 200 Watt power supply (now theyt're
bigger) times 10 hours equals 2 KwH = 25cents, going up to 44cents
in June here.

400 watt power supply =88 cents a day. not so much but for 250
work days that's about 220 dollars a year, plus wear on the
harddrive.

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

That 400W power supply tops out at supplying 400W. It would
consume more than that while providing 400W. Of course in real life
few average anything close to 400W.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit


Plus, where is the PC power going? It's going into heating the house.
All PC's built for quite some time have the ability to power down the
disk, put the monitor on stdby, etc as well, so the real power can be
an order of magnitude less than the max rating of the power supply.
No way that can come close to the savings of lowering the furnace
substantially in cold weather.

Very true, but I did not want to add that as during the summer it will
increase cooling cost. :-)

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude

If you are a DIY type and like to tinker and make things for
little $$$, you can make something like my servo setup below to
control a standard type of t-stat over the net. This setup would
also allow the computer to control the t-stat via the windows
scheduler. The bottom link is a DIY pan/tilt cam that uses the
same servos as the t-stat gizmo, so you can see how easy it would
be to control over the net.

http://www.geocities.com/zoomkat/t-stat.htm
http://www.geocities.com/zoomkat/ezservo1.htm

I've been working on a remote control thermostat "Cricket" and more, I
recently posted "Elephant" which is a very inexpensive HA server (my
web pages run on it) and I'm working on perl scripts to control the
serial port. Although the Green Elephant uses a recycled PC I would
recommend a VIA EPIA PD 6000 (fanless) for the mainboard (4 serial
ports and 2 Ethernet ports) It's tiny as it's a Mini-ITX and has plenty
of 12V power options.
I'm thinking of hooking up an 80W 12V solar panel and large 24AH
GelCell to run it and the cable modem.

Bill

www.myblueroom.com

http://www.bryant.com/products/controls/evolution.shtml

Advanded furnace control by Bryant. You add the "Remote Access Kit".

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:33:09 -0500, mm
wrote:

On 9 Mar 2006 21:08:20 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Yes, but the words you want to search on are remote controlled, or
something like that, not wireless. They have them that work with the
internet and those that work with the telephone.


If you have to leave the computer on all day long, it might cost as
much as keepign the heat on low, with a setback thermostat to turn it
up.

How does one figure that. 200 Watt power supply (now theyt're bigger)
times 10 hours equals 2 KwH = 25cents, going up to 44cents in June
here.

400 watt power supply =88 cents a day. not so much but for 250 work
days that's about 220 dollars a year, plus wear on the harddrive.

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude


Do they make thermostats that have remote controls too?
That is something I always wished they made. It would be so nice to
wake up in the morning during the winter, grab a remote next to my bed
and turn up the heat BEFORE I get out of bed. Right now, it's get out
of bed, run to the thermostat, turn up the heat and rush back to bed
shivvering. A programmable thermostat solves this problem for people
that get up at exactly the same time each day, but for those who are
on changing schedules, or no schedule at all, they are useless in this
regard. I was even going to move the thermostat once, so it was next
to my bed, but I decided that would not work because the bedroom is on
the end of the house, and it would be on an exterior wall. Both of
these are WRONG, since they should always be in the center of the
house and on an interior wall (for best heating control).
A remote would be so nice.

Last summer I saw a window fan at a store that had a remote. I
thought that was pretty useless. Like how lazy can a person be. But
for a thermostat it would be perfect.

Mark

Do they make thermostats that have remote controls too?

There's a simple solution to this problem. Just run two
thermostats in parallel. The "regular" one you keep where it is
and leave it set the way it is.

Put the other unit near the bed. At night leave it set way back
and let the regular unit determine when to deliver heat. In the
morning reach over and turn up the second thermostat. Before you
leave the house turn the second thermostat back down.

If you have an alarm system you can even semi-automate the heat.
Run the wiring through a relay and have the relay cut power to
the second thermostat when you arm the system in "away" mode as
you leave the house. When you return disarm the alarm and the
house will warm up to whatever setting you've chosen.

You can even take this a step further. Place the second
thermostat in an appropriate place (perhaps next to the original
unit) and add a wireless remote to arm/disarm your alarm system.

If you don't happen to have an alarm you can still take the first
step above. You can even rig a latching relay to set/unset the
second thermostat via a button near the bed and another near the
door.

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

Bass Burglar Alarms
The Online DIY Store
http://www.BassBurglarAlarms.com

--

Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large
groups.

wrote:
On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:33:09 -0500, mm
wrote:

Do they make thermostats that have remote controls too?

http://www.smarthome.com/30403.Html

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

dear bruce,
i LIKE that he asked that question, because i learn a lot in
here..............don't want to help?
don't!

--
..
..
..
..





"BruceR" wrote in message
...
I know this may sound totally off the wall, but there's this cool search
engine called Google (www.google.com) that lets you enter a term like
"wireless thermostat" and then gives you several pages of info and sources
for them.


Hi,

I work 30 min away from home and have to stay at work unpredictably
long.

Is there such a thing as a wireless thermostat - in the sense that I
can login to it and turn the heat on as I'm leaving work. (There are
wireless cameras, why not a wireless thermostat?)

Many thanks in advance!

Aaron Fude