Your thermostat just got a little smarter. You can thank the Radio Thermostat Company of America (RTCoA), who just announced the CT80, a Wi-Fi based programmable communicating thermostat.

Based on GainSpan’s GS1010 SoC (System on Chip) device, the unit promises energy management and home automation beyond your wildest dreams—or at least your HVAC dreams. Just add the thermostat into your setup and the unit can connect to your wireless home network. This allows you to access the unit from any computer to conserve energy, which is good for the environment, as well as your wallet.

“We chose to use the highly optimized Wi-Fi SoC from Gainspan as it enables our thermostats to connect to the existing standards based Wi-Fi home network,” said Dan Goodman, CTO of RTCoA and their partner company Golden Power Manufacturing.

The CT80 features a full dot-matrix LCD screen and is compatible with all major HVAC systems. It also has the possibility for two-way communications, which means your utility can send alerts or info about new rate structures.

The CT80 is available now on RTCoA’s website for $159.95.

Rachel Cericola - Contributing Writer

Over the past 15 years, Rachel Cericola has covered entertainment, web and technology trends. Check her out at www.rachelcericola.com.