One of the new things I’m working on is called “metrics”. These are focused bits of data that allow you to compare your thermostat to other thermostats in your comparison group.
Here’s an example:
There are a few things you can see here:
Your data. In this case it’s average heat and cool setpoints over the course of an entire year.
Everyone else’s data. This is the graph in the background that shows, in aggregate, what everyone else sets their thermostat to.
Comparisons. I can see that I keep my home roughly as warm as everyone else, but I like it a bit on the cool side.
These are powerful because they answer questions like “What does everybody else set their thermostat to?” without making any assumptions or interpretations.
What other metrics do you want to see?
I can do pretty much anything here. It can either be a static value like a setting or something that is calculated based on up to a year of data. Other ideas:
I’ve been pivoting my Ecobee data the past few months and here are two charts I’ve made to help me get a sense of how my usage compares to previous months and years. These comparisons are just against myself, but you could take them and compare across everyone’s data as well— Have a tab for comparing yourself, and another for everyone else.
This first chart shows the running total of Cool/Heat hours for the same month over different years. (I sum Cool Hours and Heat Hours). This helps me set a baseline and see how I’m improving on efficiency. (for some reason my ecobee data doesn’t have temp data until July/August 2019. I think this will help add context when I do have the data.)
The second chart shows the Max (or Min) outdoor temp and the average cool/heat hours used. This helps me compare my overall usage to last year… If 2020 is mostly lower than 2019, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.
Right now I’m focusing on comparisons to other systems. I like your charts and how they are helping you visualize things. I think the biggest thing beestat could use is some sort of year-over-year comparison feature so you could easily see how things are trending in your own home.
The one thing I would suggest to you is to learn about heating and cooling degree days. These are fairly new to me, but basically instead of using average, min, or max temperature, you use something called a degree day for all of your comparisons. This has become the standard way to do this sort of thing. I plan to utilize these for some of the new metrics. I think they will convey some of what your charts do, just a little more rigid right now.
One vote for adding degree days. I use degree days to compare changes in my system from month to month, or year to year. Recently I have added insulation in the attic, and would like to see if there has been any material change. The average temperature is not as informative as degree days for this sort of comparison.
