Next year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to release a new Energy Star specification for climate controls. This spec will replace the discontinued Energy Star spec for programmable thermostats.
According to Abigail Daken, product manager for the Energy Star program, “Climate controls can do the things that programmable thermostats do, but can also do more than that. That’s why we’re calling it climate controls. We consider it a very different kind of product.”