Hotels and businesses have those systems because they have a very high throughput of people and constantly changing conditions in a large number of rooms. To have unnecessary heating or cooling for even a short period of time adds up to a lot of money.
But it's not realistic to assume that home has that kind of changing conditions. External conditions may vary quite a bit, but you can easily smooth those out with insulation. A home wouldn't need nearly the same amount of fine and extensive control of a hotel or business, except in rare circumstances that can just as easily be handled manually.
You want to stabilize the temperature in a home? Add more insulation. Done. And it doesn't require an expensive home automation system.
I would love to have intelligent outlets (tied to an intelligent circuit breaker box) so I could monitor electrical consumption at home. I'm sure knowing how much our appliances pull when "off" so we could intelligently unplug them when leaving for vacation, or at least know what's causing the high electric bill for the month.
But I would want to have something completely under my control, where the information doesn't leave the house.
Your home must not have any windows -- or at least, any windows that receive direct sunlight.
During the summer, we manually maintain the indoor temperature by following a simple -- but very manual -- formulaic process:
- When it gets cooler outside than it is inside (evening, night), open the windows.
- If it gets too cold outside, close the windows in rooms we're occupying.
- When it gets warmer outside than it is inside (mid-day on), close the windows.
- When the sun hits the windows directly, close the blinds.
- When the sun stops hitting the windows, open them again.
Rinse, repeat.
If we follow these steps, we can keep the house a very comfortable temperature with zero energy costs.
If we don't, it invariably gets too hot AND/OR too cold over a 24 hour period.
"Add more insulation" doesn't help much, unless you're suggesting we use insulation as a window covering.
Hotels and businesses have those systems because they have a very high throughput of people and constantly changing conditions in a large number of rooms. To have unnecessary heating or cooling for even a short period of time adds up to a lot of money.
But it's not realistic to assume that home has that kind of changing conditions. External conditions may vary quite a bit, but you can easily smooth those out with insulation. A home wouldn't need nearly the same amount of fine and extensive control of a hotel or business, except in rare circumstances that can just as easily be handled manually.
You want to stabilize the temperature in a home? Add more insulation. Done. And it doesn't require an expensive home automation system.