With SilverPac SilverStat 7, a smarter thermostat

What if your home thermostat could talk to your utility company?

The new SilverStat 7 is a seven-day programmable thermostat that can speak to smart meters, which send information on real-time electricity and gas use in the home to the utility company.

Made by consumer electronics startup SilverPac, the 7-inch touchscreen device monitors and displays energy usage in real-time.

It can even handle individual appliances -- meaning you can schedule everything from your appliances to your HVAC system to your home lighting.

The company partnered with Microsoft Windows Embedded to develop a display that's powered by Windows CE 6.0 R3 and based on an Intel Atom platform.

The SilverStat 7 connects with the smart grid using IEEE 802.15.4 wireless connectivity, supports the U.S. Congress-approved Zigbee communication protocol and has a Z-Wave Home Automation interface.

So why do you need all of this intelligence in your thermostat?

By wrangling data, the hope is to reduce the individual user's overall energy use (by making usage, and its price, more conspicuous) and better manage peak energy demand, benefiting the utility company.

It's designed to replace a traditional thermostat, and will be available in June.

Here's SmartPlanet correspondent Sumi Das explaining how it works:

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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com