Control Your Thermostat in Your Vacation Home With Your Smartphone

Let’s say you’re at home thinking fond thoughts about your vacation home in the mountains. It’s wintertime. You didn’t winterize the heating system because you expect to use your mountain home for weekend retreats during the winter. It’s only a few hours away.

But you can’t remember if you turned your heat down to your energy-saving temperature. Wouldn’t be great if you could check on the temperature in your vacation home and make sure it’s set to save energy? You can, and it’s affordable. The examples below illustrate INSTEON home automation technology.

It's the ultimate remote control thermostat.

You have high speed internet service and a wireless router already installed in your vacation home. You simply connect your existing router via an Ethernet cable to an inexpensive INSTEON Hub that plugs into a nearby power outlet. You will also need a compatible INSTEON programmable thermostat.

Using your PC or Wi-Fi enabled phone, you bring up your Hub. With a couple keystrokes you bring your thermostat settings up on your screen. You see at a glance the inside temperature.

If you had forgotten to turn down your thermostat, you can now turn it down even though you are two hours away – or half-way around the world.

You’ll be heading up to your vacation home in a few hours. You know the thermostat is set to your energy-saving temperature. You would like to turn the heat up so that when you arrive, your home will be warm and comfortable.

No problem. You connect to your INSTEON Hub. You can now dial up the temperature to your comfort level.

The Insteon Starter Kit that contains the Hub also includes two light dimming modules that you can use to control your lamps.

I installed INSTEON home automation several years ago. It has served me well. It has been reliable and easy to use. I simply downloaded the Insteon app, purchased the Insteon components, and use my Smartphone to control everything.

INSTEON house automation technology is very reliable because it uses two means to communicate among automation components – powerline signals through your existing house wiring, and radio signals on a designated RF frequency. This makes INSTEON technology robust and reliable.

Home automation used to be the province of expensive, complicated systems. New home automation is affordable and modular – so you can add components whenever you are ready.

Many home automation newbies begin by controlling their lights over the Internet. SmartHome has an INSTEON starter package for light control.

If you’re a home do-it-yourselfer who can carefully read, follow and understand directions -- you probably can install it yourself.

If you haven’t discovered the new home automation, you’re missing out on the convenience, safety, and fun these products can provide.