Trane's XL824 Smart Control Is a Thermostat and Hub

Turn up the heat and other home management tasks with new smart thermostat

trane smart thermostat and home automation system hub living room — Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s pretty clear Google has designs on becoming a central part of your home with Nest’s smart thermostat and other devices. But it’s not quite a hub yet, though it recently bought a company, Revolv, that has since discontinued its own centralized device.

Nest’s thermostat may never even be the hub itself, but if you really want to make your temperature-regulating device the center of your home, then there’s good news for you: A new intelligent thermostat system from Trane can regulate your home’s temperature and a host of other essential house management tasks, all from your smart device.

XL824 Smart Control, a wall-mounted automation unit, has a built-in automation bridge, which allows you to set your heating and cooling controls, as well as over 200 compatible Z-Wave products.

Using the Nexia Home Intelligence app (iOs, Android, Windows) or the device’s 4 1/3-inch HD color touchscreen, you can program up to seven days of temperatures, with six schedules daily. Cold front coming? A five-day weather forecast will confirm predictions with radar display, so you can communicate and adjust indoor living conditions accordingly, whether you’re at home or not.

While traveling, you can schedule regular temperature alerts via text and email, turn lights on or off, lock and unlock doors, and other functions, affording you peace of mind and saving on energy bills. Furthermore, the Smart Control can generate charts for you to analyze energy consumption and alerts you when a heating or air-conditioning system is malfunctioning.

Sold exclusively through Trane or Nexia dealers for $334, the thermostat comes with a basic, free subscription that enables you to access and power up to four thermostats. To use it as a hub for your Z-Wave devices, however, it costs an extra $9.99 a month. In comparison, Iris Smart Home Management System is a hub that lets you control devices individually for free but also charges $9.99 per month if you want your smart locks and lights to communicate with each other, for example.

There are plenty of other non-thermostat-based hubs that can control smart devices without a monthly fee, so it really just depends what you want the brain of your smart home to look like.

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