Imagine it: you are collecting your things at work and miles away at your home, the stove powers on to make dinner. The air conditioner is notified and makes adjustments to deliver more cool air to offset the oven’s extra heat. When you arrive home the lights automatically turn on as you enter, dinner is made, and your home is at the ideal temperature.
That’s the goal! And also the kind of advanced home interconnectivity that is available now and 2017 could be an essential year for advancements in how your home’s heating and air conditioning system functions as part of the team.
“Smart phones revolutionized our lives in part because they allowed thousands of apps to make our lives less challenging and richer,” said Rob Haines, Marketing Manager for Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning. “We forecast that in 2017, developers will be focusing on more new apps that permit all your home’s systems and appliances to interact instead of being siloed, and this will include 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 when it’s time to change the air filter. Future systems might even be able to recognize a potential equipment failure before it happens and send a message to your heating and air conditioning repair company to reach out to you and schedule a technician’s visit. The technician will come with advance knowledge about the problem and the necessary parts to repair it.
Another on-the-drawing-board vision is the use of infrared heat sensing within the home that will conclude which rooms are in use by people in the home and actually send heating and cooling specifically to those regions.
“Zoned heating and air conditioning systems have been one of the largest growing parts of the HVAC industry for several years, and that will remain a big opportunity,” said Haines. “Furthermore, systems will focus on heating and cooling specific regions of the home as needed to enhance comfort and energy efficiency.”
And yes, Haines adds, the millennials help drive the trends for at-home connectivity and more efficient heating and air conditioning systems. “As millennials buy their homes, they expect their home systems like HVAC to not only do what they are told, but to observe and adjust themselves and to proactively send notifications to the homeowner. We also notice that the millennials and Generation X are much more aware about energy efficiency and those consequences of their heating and cooling systems.”
While February is a great time to look at trends for the year, it’s also a fantastic time to take advantage of savings that will pay off in the future. For the next several weeks many Service Experts centers are offering free or deeply discounted equipment when you invest in 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 coolest time of the year. Call Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning in Roanoke today to schedule a complimentary in-home estimate or to set up a heating tune up to make sure your heating equipment is ready to keep you safe and warm all winter long.