Picture it: you are gathering up your things at your office and miles away at your home, the range turns on to make dinner. The air conditioning system is notified and lowers the temperature to deliver more cool air to counteract the oven’s added heat. When you arrive home the lights automatically turn on as you walk in, dinner is ready, and your home is at the perfect temperature.
That’s the ideal experience! And also the type of advanced home interconnectivity that is available now and 2017 could be a crucial year for advancements in how your home’s HVAC system functions as part of the team.
“Smart phones revolutionized our lives in part because they allowed numerous apps to make our lives simpler and richer,” said Rob Haines, Marketing Manager for Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning. “We anticipate that in 2017, developers will be centering on more new apps that allow all your home’s systems and appliances to interact versus being siloed, and this will create breakout new advancements in how your home’s HVAC system works.”
Smart thermostats and sophisticated newer HVAC systems can already send messages to you about energy use and routine maintenance such as air filter replacement. Future systems may even be able to diagnose a likely equipment failure before it happens and alert your HVAC repair company to reach out to you and set up a technician’s visit. The technician will come with the knowledge about the issue and the needed parts to repair it.
Another work in progress is the use of infrared heat sensing inside the home that will determine which rooms are in use by family and guests and actually direct heating and cooling specifically to those rooms.
“Zoned heating and cooling systems have been one of the quickest growing parts of the heating and air conditioning industry for several years, and that will remain a huge opportunity,” said Haines. “Increasingly, systems will focus on heating and cooling specific regions of the home as needed to upgrade comfort and energy efficiency.”
And yes, Haines adds, the millennials help drive the trends for at-home connectivity and more efficient heating and cooling systems. “As millennials invest in their homes, they expect their home systems like heating and cooling to not only do what they are told, but to track and adapt themselves and to proactively send notifications to the homeowner. We also notice that the millennials and Generation X are much more conscience about energy efficiency and those effects of their heating and air conditioning systems.”
While early 2017 is a great time to look at trends for the year, it’s also a perfect time to take advantage of savings that will pay off in the coming months. For the next several weeks many Service Experts centers are offering free or deeply discounted equipment when you buy a qualifying item, such as a free furnace when you buy an air conditioning system. Furnace tune-ups are also deeply discounted just in time for the coldest months of the year. Call Eveready Service Experts in Richmond today to schedule a no-charge in-home estimate or to set up a heating tune up to make sure your system is ready to keep you comfortable and safe all winter long.