Cloud-based home automation company, Alarm.com is boasting it has produced the smartest thermostat. It's called the "Smart Schedule" system. What makes it so brilliant? It assesses the routines and patterns of a family's lifestyles, and then adjusts the temperature automatically to accommodate the best environment and energy savings.
According to Alison Slavin, co-founder and VP product management for Alarm.com, founded in 2000 and now with 1 million monitored accounts, "For most households, we're able to put together a pretty accurate profile."
Though there's an automated thermostat at the house, since the "smart thermostat" lives in the cloud via Alarm.com's SaaS (software as a service platform) all the tough work is completed by Alarm.com servers which process millions of the family's events. (opening and shutting a window, arming the security system, etc.). The software as a service platform elicits the events from the subscribers to the home security and automation service.
For example, if you armed your security system to AWAY, the device will lower the temperature to achieve maximum energy savings and efficiency, as it registers that everyone has left the house. Of course, you would reprogram the system if you went out on a Starbucks and "pick up a few store items" jaunt, and then returned to spend the day at home. Otherwise, you would be uncomfortable.
Alarm.com advertises itself as offering a unique solution to energy savings. The question remains, how unique is it? There are numerous cloud-enabled "learning thermostats" trending: NEST, and EverSense from Allure Energy to name a few.
However, unlike the other systems, Alarm.com develops and relies on the memory of its home security and automation ecosystem. It gauges family members' activities by identifying the when and the how: when they arm and disarm security; how they leave lights on or open doors, etc. Alarm.com is unique in how it tracks family behavior and builds an energy management scheme around it only if the consumer chooses this.
In research trials of the system, consumers were shocked to discover that their predictable behavior patterns and routines weren't. Oftentimes, individuals do things without conscious awareness because they are thinking of something else or in a rush to go somewhere or do something, or are exhausted and just want to crash into oblivion on their couch or bed without realizing that it is a typical daily routine. Slavin confirmed that the beta testing program was revelatory to 90 percent of participants who thought the energy management program was "very helpful because they had no idea what their activity patterns were."
At this juncture, the Smart Schedule feature is a manual operation for Alarm.com customers. Though the system automatically identifies household patterns and produces charts revealing suggested temperature adjustments, users must OK all adjustments.
This is a wise move. Forestalling any robotic backlash from humans, the company wants to allow consumers to be interactive with the device and familiarize themselves with its features. It doesn't want the humans to recoil from the HAL (computer in 2001 that was "God-like" and had emotions) type anticipation of providing every adjustment or need automatically. Family members must "accept" or "decline" any adjustments for any given period of time. When the system becomes a routine, users will just allow the system to do its work.
The new service is cloud-based, so there is no installation necessary and no scheduled visit for activation. Software upgrades are free of charge to Alarm.com subscribers who have the basic two-way monitoring package who have thermostat compatibility.
Because of the flexibility allowed with cloud-based architecture, Alarm.com is gearing up for location-aware or proximity-enabled home automation features. These will be able to adjust lights, temperature and other home systems automatically. Again, assessments will first be made about the household routines and patterns. Then the program will be fixed based on stored activity patterns and the physical location of family members. For example with mobile-phone tracking data, it will be able to gauge whether to activate the energy saving mode if the household activity pattern has changed (They've left for the weekend.).
Again to familiarize customers with the system at the first implementation there will be choice, an opt-in security alert. If everyone left and no on armed the security alarm, the system will remind the homeowners who then can arm the system remotely.
Energy savings and cost savings are the benefits of a "smart system" which also integrates local weather via the internet into the energy management schemes. Its brilliance also messages users in case of power outages or other such happenings around the house. And all of this is because of the utility of the cloud.