I work week on and week of so my house requires completely different heating on these weeks. What I want to do is have 2 thermostats set to the different setting and turn one on and one off depending on if I’m work or at home. This way it allows me to actually program a 14 day cycle. For the week that I’m working this should save a lot. That is the plan just wondering if it would work.
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2You might check out nest instead. It can be set up to detect if your phone is home (on the home network) or away (not on the home network). Your schedule would only apply if home, otherwise the eco away temp applies.– TysonCommented Mar 19, 2018 at 16:22
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1Yeah, the days of complex algorithms are behind us. Go with a smart unit.– isherwoodCommented Mar 19, 2018 at 16:23
2 Answers
A thermostat is basically a few contact closures that are controlled by a temperature switch and a schedule (on programmable models). You can split the wires going to your single thermostat and run them in parallel to more than one thermostat. Your plan will work and with the cost of 7-day programmable thermostats, it's probably the cheapest option.
However, as others have noted, WiFi thermostats are the future, and if you have a C-wire available (search this site for tons of info on C-wires), they can be great. Nest is not the only "smart" thermostat available, and I for one do not like the way it claims to "learn" my schedule. I use a cheaper WiFi thermostat that can be programmed just like traditional models to very specific times and temperatures without any guesswork.
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I agree that Nest's "learning" is quirky, but it handles home/away states and odd departures from routine far better than something you have to manually manage. The human is usually the weak link in something as mundane as temperature management. Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 18:41
Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but there are several programmable thermostats out there which have apps for mobile devices which can be used to control them.
I know for a fact that the NEST thermostat does this, and I'm sure there are others.
Perhaps this could be your solution?