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According to an ON World survey with over 1,000 U.S. adults, over a third believe they will have wireless sensors in their home within five years and 20 percent of the likely adopters expect to have 50 or more wireless sensors installed within the next five years. 

GE and Quirky have unveiled seven new connected home products — including a smart HVAC controller designed to replace thermostats — that are available now on the new Wink.com. At the website, consumers can purchase more than 100 Wink-compatible partner products from 15 brands.

Savant®, a leading smart home technology company, has released new survey results that indicate more than half of consumers in the United States believe that home automation will be an everyday feature in less than 10 years.

First introduced in the late 2000s, smart thermostat technology has only recently gained real traction among customers, says Navigant Research. During the last year, the market for communicating and smart thermostats has expanded rapidly, with new offerings from several high-profile providers.

The Thread Group announced that it has opened membership and will begin accepting applications from companies interested in using the Thread protocol in their products. The group was established in July by seven companies to develop Thread, a new IP-based wireless mesh networking protocol designed specifically for the home.

The Wi-Fi-connected ecobee3 thermostat and remote sensors measure temperature and occupancy in multiple locations, resulting in increased comfort when an occupant is home and energy savings when he or she is away. 

Any person or contractor replacing a mercury-containing thermostat in Massachusetts must now deliver it to an appropriate collection site to be recycled.

As the demand for tech-savvy thermostats continues to increase, we asked our contractor advisory panel to not only identify their go-to thermostats, but tell us why they’d recommend them to customers. Here’s what they had to say.

Yesterday’s thermostats allowed a user to increase or decrease indoor temperature on site. Today’s units are much more sophisticated, allowing operators to adjust temperature, humidity, and a number of other variables from anywhere in the world. Additionally, some devices can intelligently learn a user’s schedule, and more.

When customers install their own thermostats, it often presents a problem to contractors who not lose out on a sale, but could also see an increase in service calls over malfunctioning equipment.