Amazon’s Smart Thermostat can detect if you are home, away or sleeping – and adjusts the climate accordingly
By Stefan Tasevski
Amazon’s suite of smart products is getting popular among tech-savvy homeowners.
The “new kid on the block” this time is the affordable Amazon Smart Thermostat, which can intelligently determine if you are home, away, or sleeping, and automatically adjusts the temperature in your home to keep you comfortable.
Selling at around $75 CAD, the device does not require specific programming and has internals which is very similar to Honeywell T9 and T5 smart thermostats. Compatible with most 24 volt HVAC systems (you can check your compatibility here) and incompatible with systems that have more than three stages of multi-speed fans, it is one of the most compact and affordable smart thermostats out there.
Amazon even unveiled a learning feature for this smart thermostat – called Hunches – which is very good, as it controls your climate intelligently. This learning feature is AI-driven and part of the Alexa smart home platform. The more Echo smart speakers and displays you have in your home, the better it will work. As Amazon said, Hunches also use “select other smart home devices like lights, locks, and sensors” to see whether you are home or away, and see the geolocations of your and your family members’ smartphones.
Obviously, the device works with Alexa voice control and comes with a faceplate. It is surely one of the cheapest smart thermostats you can buy in Canada now – and one that has made very big leaps forward in terms of advanced AI features and predictive technology. At the end of the day, Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is a device that is designed to help you save money, so if you don’t like the idea of it controlling your climate on its own, there is also a standard scheduling option.
The only downside is that the Amazon thermostat only works with Alexa, but integrating with it is very straightforward, without any specific level of skill or account linking required.
