When most people think about energy efficiency in homes and apartments, they immediately think of the smart thermostat.

But there's a dirty little secret about smart thermostats that most people don't know. Smart thermostats aren't actually that smart in apartments and buildings, whereas in houses, smart thermostats actually control the core heating and cooling systems themselves.

Smart thermostats don’t save much energy in buildings 

 In apartments and buildings, smart thermostats are glorified on/off switches for simple fans, which just don't use that much energy. You can see that in my building as a great example. I have a smart thermostat that controls the fan coil unit near by. When the smart thermostat goes on or off. It's just turning on my fan.

 That fan doesn't use a lot of energy. What the fan does is it blows air over a pipe that is either filled with hot water or cold water. That pipe runs throughout my building. That pipe is filled with tens of thousands of gallons of hot or cold water. To heat or cool that water requires a tremendous amount of energy, and yet in most buildings like mine that are spending a million dollars on heating and cooling, those central systems where all the energy is used are being controlled by 1970s technology that has no sensors and no algorithms and are literally just running on timers.

It's absolutely bonkers, and this is where a revolution is happening across buildings and cities.

Smart controls = a smart thermostat for buildings 

Throughout the country, buildings are installing smart controls, which use sensors just like the smart thermostat. But instead of just controlling a low energy fan, they're controlling the boilers, chillers, water, and electric systems where all the energy goes in a much more intelligent and much more efficient way.

 You can kind of think of it like a smart thermostat, but for an entire building, which is obviously a lot more complex because there might be 500 apartments that all require different amounts of heating and cooling at different times.

Smart controls can cut a building's fuel costs by 25%

The average building that installs smart controls will see their fossil fuel and energy usage go down by as much as 25%. This is not only a huge amount of carbon reduction, it also makes the cost of living significantly lower for everybody that lives in cities across the country.

Smart thermostats are wildly popular because they put money back in homeowner's pocket. Smart controls are being installed in tens of thousands of buildings because they do the same thing — just on a wildly larger scale.