A Brief History of Thermostats

Every home, regardless of whether it has a central heating or cooling system, today has a thermostat. The thermostat is the device that lets you measure and control the temperature. It comes equipped with ACs, refrigerators, and other heating or cooling devices commonly found in homes. While we may not use some of these thermostats now and then to change the temperature, the thermostats in the heating, ventilation, and cooling systems are used pretty frequently in every home. You’d find these mounted on the wall of your home living room and other rooms – a small box with a knob or a screen depending on whether you have a traditional programmable thermostat or a smart one. The former can be operated manually by rotating the knob to set the temperature, and others can be used manually and over a smartphone app. They are also the option of a Completely Wireless Smart Thermostat. The thermostats are an essential and indispensable item for maintaining a comfortable temperature in your home. After all, what lets you cool your home in the summertime to that exact temperature you like; What enables you to warm your bedroom just a little more to make it ready for a cozy sleep every night. And who keeps your attic warm for whenever you may want to use it! Life would be difficult without a thermostat, it’s almost unimaginable today, but have you ever wondered what life was before them or how the innovation came into being?

When did the thermostats come into being?

Before modern electric and water boiler HVAC systems came into existence, homes were heated by the furnace heating system. A furnace that ran on coal and firewood was located in the house’s basement to warm it up from beneath. This is somewhat similar to the in-floor heating system we enjoy today. The ancient Romans too used the exact underfloor heating mechanism to heat their buildings.   The first-ever thermostat as we know it came into being in the year 1620. It was an invention by a Dutchman named Cornelis Dribble, who wanted to regulate the temperature, but interestingly not his home but his chicken incubator. He became the founding father of the first mercury thermostat. Later, a Scottish Chemist, Andrew Ure, invented a bi-metallic thermostat that would keep boiler water warm in 1830. In the 1880s, Warren Johnson developed the bi-metal thermostat that would ring a bell to alert when it was time to adjust the furnace damper. A couple of decades later, in 1906, the first commercial thermostat came into the market.

Why were they invented?

People wish to heat their homes but want to do so comfortably. Even though it was excellent at keeping the house warm, the furnace heating system required a lot of manual labor. It needed to be tended to frequently; one was needed to stoke the coals, adjust the dampers, valves, etc., to regulate the temperature. This required physically visiting the furnace several times a day. The home could grow bitterly cold by morning if the coals weren’t stocked through the night or grow stiffly hot if the coals became too hot. Managing all this wasn’t exactly an easy task, and this presented a problem to people and specifically irked the early inventors and developers of thermostats. The problem was solved, and thermostats soon came to be used in homes and became a common sight.

The change that took place within the years

Thermostats have come a long way from what they first were and what they were first used for (p.s. the chicken incubator). After the invention of the traditional thermostats that solved the problem of heating homes for the first time in human history, they have undergone a massive change with innovation and technology. Now there exist thermostats that can be operated remotely from anywhere, within or even outside your home. Smart thermostats have changed the game of thermostats completely and made life even more comfortable for people.

Thermostats today

Thermostats today are way more advanced at doing their job and are capable of doing it intelligently and energy efficiently. Way ahead of their predecessors, they are all about programming and customizing temperature control and doing so automatically and remotely without requiring homeowners to so much as get up or touch the thermostat device. The Smart Wireless Thermostat of the present day and age can do all the control tasks independently at your cue. Smart thermostats offer advanced heating control and multi-zone heating of homes. You can heat different zones or rooms of your home at different temperatures at other times of the day. You can customize heating to reduce wastage in heating rooms that no one’s using during certain times of the day. They can be programmed for simple temperature control just as you need them. Smart thermostats can lower the temperature when minimal heating is required, such as when spaces are not in active use or when you are away. At set times during the day, thermostats can go into setback or eco mode, so you don’t have to worry about turning your heating off and arriving home to a cold room when you are away for work. They can even learn your energy usage patterns to make heating efficient and smart. These key features make smart thermostats efficient at maintaining comfort as well as saving energy and money. Far beyond the primary function, smart thermostats were born to make heating control easier, advanced and economical, and they have achieved it. If you don’t already have it, now is the time to upgrade to a more innovative way of living. Doing so is not a hassle; a Wireless Thermostat can be easily added to existing heating systems.The Smart Thermostat from tado˚lets you replace your wireless room thermostats, connecting wirelessly to the boiler and your smartphone via the app for remote functioning.