Yes. We install and support smart thermostats that let you control your home’s temperature from your phone, and we set them up properly rather than just mounting them on the wall and handing you an app.

What a Smart Thermostat Actually Does

Remote control is the feature people buy for, and it is genuinely useful — adjusting the house from the road, warming things up before you get home from Austin, checking that you did not leave the system running when you left for a week.

But the remote access is rarely where the savings come from. The bigger wins are scheduling that actually gets followed, geofencing that adjusts when everyone leaves, and usage reporting that shows you what your system is doing. Most homeowners have never seen how many hours a day their air conditioner actually runs. Seeing it changes behavior.

Many models also send maintenance and fault alerts, which is the difference between noticing a problem in June and noticing it in August.

What They Save in a Hill Country Summer

Setback works differently in a hot climate than the generic advice suggests.

In winter, deep setbacks save reliably. In a Texas summer, setting the thermostat far up while you are out can backfire — the house and its contents soak up heat, and pulling that back down in the evening runs the system hard and struggles with humidity. Moderate setbacks of three to five degrees, with a pre-cool timed before you return, generally outperform aggressive ones.

A smart thermostat lets you actually implement that instead of guessing. Combined with well-maintained air conditioning, the effect on a summer bill is measurable.

Compatibility Is the Part People Get Wrong

This is where DIY installations go sideways, and it is the most common service call we get on customer-supplied thermostats.

Most smart thermostats need a C wire — a common wire providing continuous power. Plenty of older Hill Country homes were wired without one. There are workarounds, including add-a-wire adapters and power extender kits, but some are unreliable and a few cause intermittent faults that look like equipment problems.

Compatibility also gets complicated with multi-stage equipment, heat pumps with auxiliary heat, hybrid fuel systems, and zoned setups. A thermostat that controls a heat pump incorrectly can run expensive backup heat when it is not needed — an error that quietly costs far more than the thermostat saved. We verify equipment staging and configure the thermostat to match.

Ductless systems are a separate case; mini splits generally use their own controls and integrate differently.

A Thermostat Cannot Fix a System Problem

Worth saying plainly: a smart thermostat is a control, not a repair. It will not fix uneven temperatures between rooms, and homeowners are often disappointed when they expect it to.

If your back bedroom is always warm, the cause is usually duct design, duct leakage, or insulation — not the thermostat. Duct sealing addresses the leakage that lets conditioned air escape into your attic before it reaches the room. If humidity is the complaint rather than temperature, the fix may be equipment staging or a dedicated humidity control solution rather than a smarter setpoint.

We will tell you which problem you have before selling you a thermostat that cannot solve it.

Choosing a Model

We select based on your equipment and how you actually live, not on brand loyalty. A household with a predictable schedule benefits from different features than one with people coming and going at all hours. Some homeowners want sensors in multiple rooms so the system averages rather than reacting to one hallway. Others want the simplest possible interface.

Full options are on our thermostats page.

Installation and Setup

Installation includes verifying wiring, confirming equipment compatibility, configuring staging correctly for your heating and cooling setup, and walking you through the app before we leave.

Members of our Care Club maintenance plan get thermostat settings reviewed during seasonal AC maintenance, since a schedule set two years ago rarely still matches how the household lives.

We serve Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Boerne, Comfort, and the surrounding Hill Country. To discuss options, contact 72 Degrees or call (830) 468-5316.