The right thermostat can make a big difference to your comfort and to your health. Not only will this allow you to keep your home at a constant temperature that is right for you, but it will also save you energy and prevent you from constantly having to fiddle with the temperature.

Saving money, improving the environment, and at the same time making life more convenient is a pretty impressive set of benefits for a single purchase. And, these benefits become even more pronounced if you have a child. One of the biggest stresses for new parents is worrying about keeping the temperature exactly right so as to prevent their new little ones overheating or getting too cold. A new thermostat can make this process significantly easier.

If you want to take this to the next level and make your life even easier, then you should consider investing in a smart or programmable thermostat. These are thermostats that allow you to maintain a constant temperature, but better than that, you can also define the parameters at particular times of day.

That said, there are some distinct differences between the two solutions. Getting the right one for your home will help make your life even easier.

Programmable Thermostats

A programmable thermostat allows you to choose a specific temperature for the heating system to attempt to maintain. The thermostat has a built in thermometer and this will then increase or decrease the output of the heating system to meet that particular target. This is true of any thermostat, but where the programmable part comes in, is in how you change that target.

For instance, you might decide that while you sleep, there is no reason for the temperature to be particularly high, and therefore you can set the target to be lower than your preferred daytime temperature. In the morning you might want to increase the target temperature thirty minutes before your alarm goes off so that you aren’t waking up in a cold home. Likewise, you might have the temperature lower while you’re out at work, and then have it heat up in time for you to get back.

While you do have to manually set all of this up, they are something you can consider a set and forget tool.

Smart Thermostats

A smart thermostat simply takes this control and convenience a step further. Now you can not only program your system, but also incorporate numerous different rules and triggers. Instead of setting up how you prefer your home’s temperature throughout a 24 hour cycle, you can get much more granular.

Likewise, most smart thermostats will make it extremely easy for you to control the temperature on a whim through an app on your smartphone. That way, should your schedule change such as leaving work early due to catching a cold, you can alter the settings from your phone and have a toasting home waiting for you when you return.

And then there are all the other features that often come with these thermostats that really make them stand out. They use machine learning to actually monitor your exact usage and preferences, and they can adapt automatically.

In short, a programmable thermostat is useful, but a smart thermostat is even more versatile as it learns to adjust to your exact preferences you might not even be aware of.

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