Smart Thermostat Buying Guide

Geofencing is a perimeter boundary around a smart thermostat or other smart device to detect people in the area using GPS technology. With geofencing, your smart thermostat can turn on and off when you (and your smartphone) enter or leave the perimeter of your home, which can help to reduce your energy consumption by not heating an empty home.

Energy usage reports can help you to keep an eye on your energy consumption. Some smart thermostats that provide energy usage reports can help you spot where you’re wasting more energy, and how you compare to other similar users. By keeping an eye on your energy use, your smart thermostat can help you to make informed decisions about your consumption.

Some smart thermostats can detect draughts or open windows that are causing your home to waste energy. This can help you to keep an eye on where cold air is getting in, so you can get draught excluders or keep open windows to a minimum. They’ll send an alert to your smartphone in order to make you aware. Note that you can always disregard the alert – as opening windows can help to prevent mould growth. 

Learning thermostats use artificial intelligence (AI) to remember your routines and adjust your heating accordingly. Simply keep the thermostat updated regularly with the temperature you want it to be at for the first week, and it’ll generate a heating schedule so you can optimise your energy use. No more coming home from work to a freezing cold home – your thermostat will automatically turn on when you're on your way home!

If you’re thinking about a smart thermostat, it’s probably not the first ‘smart home’ technology you’ve got. Perhaps you’ve got an Echo, or a Google Nest Hub. Whatever you’re using, all the thermostats you’ll find here at Toolstation are compatible with the most common smart home systems - meaning you can use voice and remote control to adjust your heating and cooling.

Multi-room control, or zoning, allows you to heat different rooms to different temperatures based on their use. If you work from home, you’ll probably want your office room to be slightly warmer during the day, but you won’t need to heat up your bedroom. Zoning can help you to save energy by reducing unnecessary heating, and helps you stay comfortable during the day.

If you have a system or heat-only boiler, you’ll have a separate hot water tank that needs to be heated regularly so you have hot water whenever you need it. Smart thermostats can make this even easier by either learning from your routines, or making it super simple to set up schedules so your water is always hot in time for your morning shower. This can also help save energy by only heating water when you need it. 

Smart thermostats with sunblocking technology means you can get an accurate temperature reading even when strong sunlight is radiating onto the device. By turning the sunblock feature of your smart thermostat on, your home will stay at the correct temperature and you don’t need to worry about where you’re installing your thermostat.