Technology changes so fast these days. It doesn’t seem that long ago when we were teaching customers about the ROI for switching from mercury bulb to digital programmable thermostats. Now a new shift is upon us and it is just as big as the one made between mercury bulb and digital. Communicating thermostats for residential and light commercial applications are now here and they are priced not much more than the “dumb” digital thermostats they have evolved from. The benefits to multi-site facility managers will be huge.

The basic idea with these new thermostats is that, as long as you have an Internet connection in your building, your thermostat can connect to the web. Thus any property manager can log into a website and manage all their thermostats for all their sites remotely. For big box retailers this is nothing new. This technology has been around for almost 20 years now, NOVAR being the biggest player.

The difference now is that a facility manager can get 75% of the functionality of a NOVAR type system with hardware that doesn’t cost much more than a regular digital thermostat! That’s right, monitor conditions, change thermostat settings, and program alerts, all remotely, all for about $175-$350 per thermostat. All you need is a connection to the Internet in each building.

So where is the ROI for making such a change? Here are just some of the ways these systems will save you money:

  1. You no longer need to send a service technician out to change thermostat programs for holiday hours. You can do it yourself remotely.
  2. Store is reporting it is too hot in store? Check the thermostat yourself before you send someone out. 25% of the time the complaint is just one of personal preference about set points and not about the unit being broken.
  3. Monitor usage and control energy costs. Make sure store personnel are not tampering with schedules. Make changes as necessary.
  4. Be alerted when a problem is developing. Dispatch a technician and resolve the problem before the store has even called you and keep your customers happily shopping.

These are just some of the ways you can save. Sound interesting? Give us a call for a free web demo.