The news on Monday that thermostat giant Honeywell slapped startup Nest with a lawsuit for patent infringement throws an unexpected wrinkle in the landscape of the smart thermostat this year. These connected energy devices — often overlooked but finally getting some attention in 2012 — have been poised to be a gateway into the connected home, working with mobile phones, utility meters, and heating and cooling systems. Honeywell’s lawsuit, which you can read more about here, claims that “many features of the Nest Thermostat infringe Honeywell patents.”

How might this new lawsuit impact the growth of the overall smart thermostat market? We want you, GigaOM readers, to weigh in below, and we’ll release all the details of the survey in a research note.

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Honeywell's thermostat with Opower software

Honeywell, one of the world’s largest thermostat makers, tells me that twenty years ago it tested out thermostats that can learn the home owner’s behavior and adapt the heating and cooling accordingly, but ultimately decided that consumers didn’t take to them, and would rather control their thermostat themselves.

I asked Honeywell’s President of its Environmental and Combustion Controls division, Beth Wozniak, in an interview if Honeywell was interested in making learning thermostats, because there’s been so much discussion about the startup Nest, which has created what it calls the world’s first learning thermostat.

“We found that consumers prefer to control the thermostat, rather than being controlled by the thermostat,” said Wozniak. Instead of learning thermostats, Honeywell is focused on adding intelligence to digital and connected thermostats through simple UI, mobile apps, and partnerships like its one with Opower.

Opower will be providing the analytics and data to help Honeywell use home and building thermostats for demand response programs, where utilities can ask home owners to turn down their heating and cooling slightly during peak times of day. The Opower thermostats are being piloted with utilities right now, including at PG&E. The Opower software will also be used to create new ways for the home owner to save money on their energy bill, and Wozniak says by the end of the year the partnership will launch other products too.

For Honeywell, connected thermostats are still a small part of the company’s overall thermostat sales. While Wozniak declined to say what percent or what volume of Honeywell’s thermostat sales are connected thermostats, she said it’s the very early days of the connected thermostat market. Honeywell sells a whole host of other connected home products such as humidifiers and security systems, and a “total connected home system.”

Who knows if Nest and its learning thermostat will one day make a dent in the thermostat market, but Wozniak acknowledges that the startup has brought some much-needed attention to consumer thermostats in general. “Cell phones and tablets have set a whole new bar for how things can be connected.”

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Aube by Honeywell TI071/U Solar Time Table, Programmable Timer Switch, White

• Sleek design mounts flush with standard decorative wall plate (not included)
• Three-operating modes: manual (conventional on and off switch), automatic, random
• Programming: up to 7-programs (7-on and off) per week. A program can apply to a single day or repeat every day
• Connection: single pole 3-wire (line, load, neutral 1800-Watt maximum; 3/4-Horespower at 120-Volt); For each day of the week, the user can choose sunset and sunrise programming or their own on and off time or one of each (e.g. sunrise and midnight)
• Dimensions (height by width by depth): 2.7-Inch by 1.7-Inch by 1.7-Inch

This easy-to-install Aube by Honeywell solar programmable timer switch handles motors, all types of lighting and features both the flexibility of 7-day programming and the convenience of automatic sunrise and sunset activation. Works with motors and all types of lighting (compatible with electronic ballasts, compact fluorescent lights and tungsten lighting up to 12-Ampere). Large white backlit display with a night light mode option for easy reading in dark areas. Confirmation LED for at-a-glance load status (on or off). Random mode activates lights randomly to simulate a presence when away from home. Easy intuitive 3-button interface no door to open. Automatic daylight savings – no need to reprogram.Offering easy installation and flexible seven-day programming, the Aube by Honeywell TI071 ECONOSWITCH Seven-Day Solar Programmable Wall Switch helps save money by ensuring that your lights come on only when you need them. This unit works with motors and all types of lighting, and it is ide

Rating: (out of 44 reviews)

List Price: $ 48.99

Price: $ 42.99

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Honeywell TM005X Wireless Indoor/Outdoor Thermo-Hygrometer

• Jumbo LCD display for easy readings from across the room
• Wireless sensor transmits temperature and humidity data from up 100 feet away
• Main display receives data from up to 3 sensors (other 2 sold separately)
• Toggles display from temperature to humidity bold digits for easy reading of both
• Memory for minimum and maximum recorded data such as temperature highs and lows

The Honeywell TM005X Wireless Thermo-Hygrometer is an easy-to-read and economical way to track temperature and humidity in your home or office. Featuring a jumbo display unit with one-inch tall digital numbers, this sleek silver and black unit can monitor up to three remote locations. The TM005X comes with one remote sensor, but two additional sensors can be purchased separately and added. With the main display unit measuring 4.33 x 4.86 x 1.08 inches (WxHxD), and a display that includes comfort and trend indicators, you can place the TM005X on your desktop or hang it from a wall. With the remote sensor, you can track the temperatures of pools, hot tubs, spas, ponds, soil, and much more. The remote sensor has a transmission range of up to 100 feet. With the sensor powered by two AA lithium batteries, the unit has an outdoor temperature range of minus 38 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, and when the sensor is powered by two AA alkaline batteries, the range is minus 4 to 158 degrees Fahrenhei

Rating: (out of 139 reviews)

List Price: $ 29.99

Price: $ 21.58

The 1969 Kitchen Computer by Honeywell was not just a fancy cutting board. It was meant to store recipes, even recommending meals from ingredients on hand. The problem is, you had to know binary to use it.

The machine’s designers assumed that housewives would do all the cooking, and yet, also assumed they’d be open to learning binary: is the Honeywell Kitchen Computer the most or least sexist computer ever made? I don’t know. I do know its the most beautiful minicomputer I’ve ever put my eyes on. The plastic chassis hid so much of the 150 pound machine’s weight in its black pedestal. Then again, it could have been a lot bigger, had it had an actual user interface that wasn’t binary: The $10,600 price set by Neiman Marcus included two weeks of programming lessons in a language known as BACK.

The machine itself was a 16-bit minicomputer—the class right below mainframes—and its official name was actually the H316 Pedestal. It was part of the Series 16 lineup, based on the DDP-116. (A machine most notable for its use as ARPANET Interface Message Processors, early machinations that ran the predecessor to the modern internet.)

It had 4KB of magnetic memory, expandable to 16KB, which was pre programmed with a few recipes. Its system clock was 2.5MHz. It took 475 watts to operate.

Dag Spicer, curator from the Computer History Museum, says, “None were ever sold.”

He adds, in an article at Dr. Dobbs, that in the late 1960s, “with that kind of budget, the solution would likely be a live-in chef or the traditional 3×5 card file, no?”

Indeed.

[Wiki, The Computer History Museum, Dr. Dobbs, Old Computers.com]

The Computer History Museum is a wonderful place. If you’re in northern CA, I recommend you find a way to stop by. We’ll be running pieces from their collection as an ongoing series called Computing Classic. Special thanks to Fiona Tang, John Hollar and the amazing Dag Spicer for their help.

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