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Programmable thermostats, first introduced over 100 years ago , are a type of thermostat that allows the user to set a schedule for different temperatures at different times. Most programmable thermostats also have a hold feature which suspends the schedule and effectively turns the thermostat into a manual thermostat. The idea of the scheduling feature is that users will set a warmer or cooler te...
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Smart thermostats are similar to programmable thermostats in the sense that they have a scheduling feature that allows users to set different temperatures for different times of the day. In addition to this feature, smart thermostats implement other technologies to reduce the amount of human error involved with using programmable thermostats. Smart thermostats incorporate the use of sensors that d...
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Top video doorbells, security cameras, smart thermostats, and more that work great with Google’s digital assistant. Google Assistant is the most prevalent digital assistant behind Amazon's Alexa, but it can't tell you which of the products that work with it are the best. To help you home in on the best Google Assistant–compatible smart home devices, we rounded up the top-performing models based on...
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Do you have a price in mind—but aren't quite sure what to buy that special someone this holiday season? The experts at Consumer Reports put together a series of gift guides that are grouped by price. Here, we focus on some of our top-rated products for less than $200. Need more holiday inspiration? Check out some of our other gift guides,smart thermostat, Considering a heating and cooling upgrade?...
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With proper thermostatic radiator valve maintenance, there’s no drawbacks. However, it is possible to encounter issues. Older thermostatic valves can easily be confused about a room’s temperature. Draughts or ventilation mess with the valve, causing much hotter or colder readings than reality. And these simple devices can influence big knock-on issues depending not only on if they break but when t...
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Summing up what we've discovered already, you can see that all mechanical thermostats (all non-electronic ones) use substances that change size or shape with increasing temperature. So bitmetallic thermostats rely on the expansion of metals as they get hotter, while gas bellows work using the expansion of gases. Some thermostats go further and use the change in state of a substance from liquid to ...
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