Thermostats
Learn about managing smart thermostats that automatically adjust and program your users' heating and cooling systems for comfort and cost savings.
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Learn about managing smart thermostats that automatically adjust and program your users' heating and cooling systems for comfort and cost savings.
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Was this helpful?
The Seam API provides flexible and robust functionality that enables you to control your users' thermostats. In addition to monitoring a thermostat and making immediate changes to its climate settings, with the Seam API, you can create and schedule climate presets, and you can create daily and weekly thermostat programs.
The Seam API's thermostat features enable you to satisfy a variety of scenarios, including the following and many more:
You can synchronize the thermostat automatically for occupancy.
You can enable comfortable temperature settings in advance of occupancy. Then, you can minimize costs and maximize efficiency by scheduling your property's thermostats to return to energy savings settings when the property is empty.
You can use an app to program different climates to apply throughout the day. You can also set your thermostat to an energy-saving vacation mode when you're away.
You can set unoccupied units' thermostats to energy saving settings and also schedule comfortable climates when units are occupied. Further, you can pass control of a unit's thermostats to the new residents.
You can configure Seam to help you monitor your thermostats proactively. In this way, reported temperatures outside acceptable thresholds automatically alert you to potential HVAC system issues.
Manage your users' thermostats remotely using "imperative" endpoints. That is, depending on the capabilities of a thermostat, you can use the Seam API to set the thermostat to heat mode, cool mode, heat/cool (auto) mode, or off. In addition, you can set the thermostat's fan mode setting to on, auto, or circulate.
Create named climate presets, such as "occupied," "eco," "unoccupied," "vacation mode," and so on. In each of these custom climate presets, and depending on each thermostat's capabilities, you can define the desired heating and cooling set points, as well as the fan mode setting. These presets make it quick and efficient for users to apply consistent climate settings tailored to different scenarios, enhancing both comfort and energy efficiency.
You can set one of the configured climate presets as the fallback. Whenever another climate preset is not active, Seam reverts the thermostat back to the fallback climate preset.
Schedule the climate presets that you have created. Simply specify the key of the climate preset, along with a starting and ending timestamp. You can also indicate whether a person at the thermostat or using the API can change the thermostat's settings for the duration of the thermostat schedule. Further, you can set the maximum override period in minutes. At the end of this override period, Seam sets the thermostat back to the climate preset defined by the thermostat schedule.
You can schedule multiple climate presets to meet your needs. Seam handles the prioritization of scheduled climate presets.
Note that, in addition to scheduling named climate presets, you can also activate a climate preset immediately.
You can define custom weekly programs for any thermostat that Seam supports. Start by defining a set of daily thermostat programs, each consisting of sets of periods. For each period, specify a starting time and the key that identifies the configured climate preset to apply at the starting time. Then, assemble the thermostat's weekly program. For each day, you can specify the ID of a configured daily program. Once you have set the weekly program, you can update it again to change any of the assigned daily programs. Further, you can also update any of the daily programs to change the starting times and the corresponding climate presets.
Seam handles the interaction between thermostat programs and schedules, so you can define both for a single device.
Seam decomposes the ensemble of features that a thermostat provides into one or more capabilities, as follows:
device.can_hvac_heat
device.can_hvac_cool
device.can_hvac_heat_cool
device.can_turn_off_hvac
device.can_program_thermostat_weekly_programs
Seam supports integration with the following smart thermostat manufacturers:
To learn how to manage thermostats, see the following guides:
First, connect your users' thermostats to Seam using the or . Connect Webviews provide authorization flows that enable your users to connect their own thermostats to Seam. Then, to control your users' thermostats with Seam, use the following feature sets in the Seam HTTP API or any of the Seam SDKs:
Retrieve and monitor your users' thermostats using the and endpoints. The Seam API returns robust, up-to-date information about your connected thermostats. In addition, you can use these endpoints to learn the capabilities of each thermostat.
Further, you can use the endpoint to set upper and lower acceptable temperature bounds. If the thermostat reports a temperature outside this range, Seam emits a .
For detailed information about these capabilities, see .
Sensi Thermostats
