I’d been looking for a WiFi thermostat that was affordable for a while; most seem to be vaporware or very expensive – but the CT30 from the Radio Thermostat Company of America looks like it may just fit the bill. It apparently has a Gainspan low-power WiFi chipset, and the online store shows it at $99. Unfortunately, shipping is $53 – overnight from China! But they tell me they’re working on fixing that, and they should be available to ship by next month. Apparently there is also an API to talk to the device, but documentation on that doesn’t seem to be available yet either. I did manage to find manuals for the more sophisticated device, the CT80, so it appears to be more than vaporware – I’ll be keeping an eye on it for sure.
Update 3/4/2010: Now it’s $119 … still backordered, still listing $53 shipping. Argh.
Update 4/19/2010: Now it’s $119 … and still backordered, still listing $53 shipping. Argh Argh. Losing faith!
If you get this, you better make a PCP PMDA.
Take a look at this site.
http://www.intwineenergy.com/products.html
They appear to be the CT30 and CT80 rebranded locally. They are higher priced, but they are in stock.
Interesting; I wonder if they just OEM these things from somewhere after all…
Thanks Scott for the tip. Unfortunately the “CT30″ is backordered as of 30-Jun-2010. (Same as RTOA) Where you able to order one at the beginning of the month?
The CT80 (at least) is now available from RTOA again. Mine was delivered within 10 days of ordering, though the Thermostat shipped directly from China (!) and the WiFi module separately from CA. As far as I can determine from the (rather limited) documentation on the WiFi module, you can only control the thermostat via the internet (by Registering it at http://www.ourhomespaces.com). There is no apparent way of linking to it directly within your home network – or at least none provided with the device. Obviously, you can browse to the ourhomespaces site and login there when you want to do anything, and the display and control options there are reasonably comprehensive, but that seems like a rather strange way of doing things. I had assumed that there would be a documented direct HTTP or FTP interface of some sort, but browsing to the module’s IP address produces only a time-out error. I have sent email to the ourhome spaces people enquiring about this – I will post again if I get a useful response.
Peter, thanks for the update! Seems the cheap one (CT30) is eternally out of stock…
Yes, this device seems to be very focused on the subscription model, which kinda sucks, IMHO. RTOA / ourhomespaces / intwine / enphase are all following that model.
I’m of the firm belief that devices like this should have open data access; 98% of buyers aren’t hackers and would probably be glad to pay $20/year for pretty flash graphs, but folks like us would like the raw data too! Maybe the fear is that some other subscription service would undercut them for the masses if the access were open…?