Honeywell on Tuesday unveiled the first of its range of connected home products, the Lyric thermostat that coordinates with a smartphone app to set the ideal temperature indoors and help save energy, to be available sometime in August this year.
The $279 Lyric uses a GPS to track the location of the user’s smartphone to sense if they are indoors or outdoors and automatically sets the desired temperature.
“Most people don’t have a predictable pattern to how they live their lives; why not have a thermostat that adjusts based on your real-time schedule?” said Beth Wozniak, President of Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls.
“Quite simply, the Lyric thermostat offers me the ability to keep my life in tune—delivering comfort when I’m home and savings when I’m gone.”
Lyric uses Geofence technology to senses your presence at home and automatically sets all your connected appliances to energy-savings mode while you are away from the home.
“Every day is different. The idea of having a predictable schedule is a fantasy,” said Honeywell vice president Tony Uttley. “When I’m home, I’m comfortable, and when I’m gone, I save money.”
Users will have to download an app available for the Android and iOS platforms currently, in order to take control of the thermostat when on the go or at home. Users can also choose to change the settings manually.
The built-in proximity sensor senses it when you go close to it and displays the current temperature and the status of other settings. It has three lights – orange indicating the heating status, blue indicating the cooling status and green showing details about energy savings.
It also has a touch sensitive button in the middle which displays the other options of the thermostat which can be scrolled.
