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Author Topic: The Thermostat from a historical perspective  (Read 13933 times)

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Offline pete

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The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« on: August 07, 2013, 09:05:20 am »
Curious this morning on the origins of the thermostat; so I looked up the wiki in the internet.  This morning referring to a cold December, 2012 morning here near Chicago.  This is a copy and a paste from my original post.
 
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A thermostat is a component of a control system which senses the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired setpoint. The thermostat does this by switching heating or cooling devices on or off, or regulating the flow of a heat transfer fluid as needed, to maintain the correct temperature. The name is derived from the Greek words thermos "hot" and statos "a standing".
A thermostat may be a control unit for a heating or cooling system or a component part of a heater or air conditioner. Thermostats can be constructed in many ways and may use a variety of sensors to measure the temperature. The output of the sensor then controls the heating or cooling apparatus. A Thermostat may switch on and off at temperatures either side of the setpoint the extent of the difference is known as hysteresis and prevents too frequent switching of the controlled equipment.
The first electric room thermostat was invented in 1883 by Warren S. Johnson.[1][2] Early technologies included mercury thermometers with electrodes inserted directly through the glass, so that when a certain (fixed) temperature was reached the contacts would be closed by the mercury. These were accurate to within a degree of temperature.

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1885 (not in thermostat wiki)
Honeywell can trace its roots back to 1885, when inventory Albert Butz filed the first patent for the damper-flapper, an automatic temperature control that regulated furnace heat. When the temperature dropped below a pre-set threshold, a pulley system opened the furnace door allowing fresh air to fan the fire. When the fire heated up sufficiently, the thermostat signaled the motor to turn another half revolution, closing the damper and dampening the fire.



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1906 (not in thermostat wiki)
Honeywell (then the Electric Heat Regulator Co., Minneapolis, MN) introduces the first setback (programmable) clock thermostat, the Jewell.
The user set the temperature down at night and the clock set it back up in the morning.


 
Honeywell has their thermostat in the Smithsonian Institute. (this one is from 1960 - but their first round one was in 1941 - pictured on the right).

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1941
This is a prototype of the first "Honeywell Round" thermostat. The Round was shelved until after wartime adversary, before later being mass-produced in the 1950's. 1941 was the year Honeywell first entered the business of mass-production manufacturing for military instruments and equipment, developing the first electric auto-pilot used on B-29 planes.


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1960
The introduction of the T832 Day-Night "Round" thermostat with a wind-up timer for semi-automatic night setback. 1960 also marked the year that the first T87F Heating/Cooling "Round" thermostat was produced. A year earlier (? 1969?), Honeywell's hand controls helped Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land safely on the moon in the Apollo 11 spacecraft.



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1953 - not in thermostat wiki
This is an advertisement of the Honeywell TM850 Chronotherm featuring "Time-Modulation", easy installation and an accurate "Telechron" clock. In 1953 the TM850 sold for just $34.50.



One of the first electronic thermostats by Honeywell is also pictured in the wiki.  My wife worked for Honeywell (started in the 70's) and we had one of these in our home in the 1980's.  (we got a deal but it was still a bit expensive for a thermostat).  I might still have it somewhere in my HA junk pile; it was pretty large for a thermostat.  I did remove it before we moved because it was a bit cryptic to program at the time. I think that it was a Honeywell Chronotherm I cuz we got it around 1982.

This picture is in the thermostat wiki



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1986 (not in the thermostat wiki)
Introduction of the Chronotherm III Programmable Thermostat which featured high-tech electronic circuitry for push-button programming and patented "adaptive intelligence recovery" logic.




The latest digital thermostat from Honeywell (not in the thermostat wiki but included here):



A non included in the wiki picture of the Nest thermostat.



This is the last paragraph in the "thermostat wiki"
 
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Dummy thermostats
It has been reported that many thermostats in office buildings are non-functional dummy devices, installed to give tenants' employees an illusion of control.[5][6] These dummy thermostats are in effect a type of placebo button. However, these thermostats are often fully functional in the sense that they are used to detect the temperature in the zone, even though their controls are disabled and not used in lieu of the environmental controls of the building. This function is often referred to as "lockout".[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermostat

http://www.prothermostats.com/history.php
[img width= height= alt=" width="250" height="52" class="bbc_img resized]http://forum.securifi.com/Themes/Firox_multicolor_by_SMFSimple/images/logo.png[/img]
Pete
Lockport, IL  USA

Offline wstocker

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2013, 06:27:59 am »
Nest is now launching an API, any chance that the Almond+ can get on their list and implement it?

http://nest.com/developer/

LGNilsson

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2013, 12:02:26 am »
We're already looking into it  ;)

Offline etijburg

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2013, 01:58:32 pm »
Cool let us know any progress on this.  I am holding off buying any thermostats for my home and vacation home till we find out what thermostats will work with the Almond.  Nest is my top choice along with Honeywell RTH9580WF1005f as my second.
Erik

LGNilsson

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2013, 08:50:06 am »
Honeywell RTH9580WF1005f

Now there's a model name that just rolls off your tongue  :P

Offline Pestus

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2014, 11:43:34 am »
Check out the Radio Thermostat line.

It's got 2 modular radio bays, and is designed for integrators.  It's cheap and versatile.  A WiFi is available with a cloud service (open API).  They also offer Z-Wave and Zigbee modules for brain dead integration.

http://www.radiothermostat.com/control.html

LGNilsson

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2014, 10:24:01 pm »
We already have support for Radio Thermostat in the Almond+  ;)

Offline Pestus

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Re: The Thermostat from a historical perspective
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2014, 10:42:10 am »
Lars!

You're totally on top of things, aren't you!   ;D

 

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