Unless you live in a small apartment, chances are there are areas of your home that just don’t need to be as warm or cool as the living room or bedroom. You can always close vents, but deciding which ones should be opened and closed for optimal temperature and energy performance is a Herculean task, and smart thermostats like Nest aren’t quite up to the task. Keen Home wants to streamline that process.
By connecting these smart vents to Nest and other smart thermostat hubs, like Iris, Keen allows you to control which ones are opened or closed. Buint-in sensors can also detect if the temperature is getting out of the comfort zone in a room and adjust it accordingly.
The Nest compatibility is still in development, but Keen already works with Iris, SmartThings, and Wink. The vents can also work with standard thermostats, too.
Based on its research, Keen estimates energy savings of 20-percent a year with its smart vents. It very much depends on your location and the number of vents you install, of course. At $85 a pop, such an investment could get pricey, but might be worthwhile in the long run.
The vents, which come in four sizes, won’t be available until June 2015. Just in time for AC season.
