Venstar® recently announced that its Explorer® connected Wi-Fi® thermostats, Wireless Temperature Sensors and Skyport® Cloud Services are being used at the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo, Calif., to remotely control indoor comfort and help control energy costs.

“Being able to remotely control our thermostats helps us reduce energy costs while keeping our club comfortable for all our visitors,” said Roberto Martinez, CEO Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo. “Using Venstar’s free Skyport Mobile App, I can easily check to make sure the HVAC is not left running when the facilities are unoccupied.”

Challenge: Remotely Control Thermostats and Control Energy Usage

Serving the Southern California community of Camarillo since 1967, Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo provides activities and programs for kids ages six to 18. Located north of Los Angeles, Camarillo has a daytime temperature range from lows in the 50s in the winter to highs in the 90s during the summer, so maintaining indoor comfort is very important.

The club’s 30,000-square-foot facility consists of a large auditorium, gymnasium, classrooms, a teen center and staff offices. In addition to being used daily by the club’s members, the facilities are also used by local service clubs, sports teams and other groups. Because it is used by so many organizations, the air conditioning and heating were often inadvertently left on, sometimes overnight or even over the weekend.

Solution: Venstar’s Explorer Thermostat

Roberto Martinez, the club’s CEO, chose Venstar’s Explorer thermostat (Model T4900) to control the club’s 10 rooftop HVAC units. Using Venstar’s Skyport Cloud Services, he and other authorized users remotely control the Explorer thermostats. They can turn the thermostats on or off, change the temperature settings and view usage, all from virtually anywhere they have Internet access.

Explorer thermostats met Martinez’s requirements for:

• Easy installation, programming and usage;
• Extensive programming option;
• Wi-Fi compatibility; and,
• Remote control using Venstar’s free Skyport Mobile App.

The thermostats’ easy-to-read display has red and green indicator lights that show when the system is heating or cooling, making it easy to instantly see that the thermostats are doing their job to maintain indoor comfort.

Results: Remote Thermostat Management to Control Energy Use

Using Venstar’s free Skyport Mobile App, Martinez and his team can remotely control the thermostats, ensuring indoor comfort while managing energy usage and costs. Martinez especially appreciates the ability to remotely check the thermostats to make sure they are properly set for unoccupied periods.

Whether he is at home, in his truck or at the club, he can easily monitor and change the temperature settings using the mobile app on his phone. Having remote control of the 10 rooftop HVAC units also gives him an increased ability to ensure the health of the equipment by making sure they are not left running unnecessarily.

Martinez said, “Best of all, I can make sure that the club provides indoor comfort for the boys and girls and other groups who spend their time here.”

About Venstar Inc. 

Venstar Inc. is a leading thermostat and energy management system (EMS) manufacturer, known for providing value to its customers via ease of use and installation, proven cost savings, improved energy efficiency, quality and reliability. Founded in 1992, Venstar is one of the largest thermostat suppliers in the world and designs and produces Venstar-branded products, as well as OEM thermostat products for the biggest names in HVAC.  Venstar’s Surveyor is a leading energy management system, typically saving small-box retailers 20–35 percent of their energy costs, which translates to tens of millions of dollars in savings each year and dramatic reductions in CO₂ emissions. Surveyor currently controls the energy usage of 30,000+ retail locations across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

For more information, visit Venstar: www.venstar.com.