A controller for controlling an environmental condition of a building space includes a proxy sensor configured to measure a proxy value indicating whether an occupant is within the building space and an occupancy sensor configured to measure an occupancy value. The controller includes a processing circuit configured to determine whether the occupant is within the building space based on the occupancy value of the occupancy sensor, generate a proxy parameter based on a first proxy value measured via the proxy sensor in response to a determination that the occupant is not within the building space based on the occupancy value of the occupancy sensor, determine whether the occupant is within the building based on a second proxy value measured via the proxy sensor and the generated proxy parameter, and control one or more pieces of building equipment to control the environmental condition of the building space.

A multi-function thermostat for a building includes a sensor configured to measure an environmental condition of a building space, a communication interface, and a processing circuit. The communications interface is configured to communicate with an emergency server and receive occupant health data from a health sensor configured to monitor an occupant. The processing circuit is configured to determine a health metric associated with the occupant based on the occupant health data and cause the communications interface to send a distress message to the emergency server when the health metric associated with the occupant indicates a medical emergency.

A radiation receiving sensor includes an infrared receiver including a plurality of infrared receiving devices that receive infrared radiation, a lens that allows infrared radiation to enter the infrared receiver, a rotator that rotates the infrared receiver and the lens about a part of the lens, and a cover member that faces the infrared receiver through the lens and that has translucency.

The present application relates to an environment control system. The environment control system is capable of detecting variations of natural environment and artificial environment, and control the use of electronic devices automatically or semi-automatically. Based on collected information stored in a built-in storage module, the environment control system may calculate and learn the user's habit of use with respect to the electronic devices using network connection.

The present application relates to a method and system of dynamically responding to a Demand Response (DR) request of a commercial energy system to reduce energy consumption of at least one energy consuming appliance, equipment and/or device, and includes: providing the DR request with an associated priority, and controlling at least one control device operably connected to energy consuming appliances, equipment and/or devices of an individual building in accordance with predetermined criteria based on the associated priority.

Provided is an environmental equipment control apparatus capable of immediately executing control for improving a physical and mental state of a user. An environmental equipment control apparatus (100) for controlling a plurality of types of environmental equipment (10, 20, 30) includes: a grasping unit (60) that grasps current physical and mental state information of the user, environmental situation information, and target relationship information representing a relationship between a target physical and mental state and a current physical and mental state; learning control plan output means (80) that outputs a control change plan for each of combinations of the plurality of types of environmental equipment (10, 20, 30) in accordance with the current physical and mental state information, the environmental situation information, and the target relationship information; and a selection control unit (90) that selects one control plan from among a plurality of control plans output by the learning control plan output means (80) and executes the one control change plan. The learning control plan output means (80) learns to update a method for specifying the control plan to be output, by using the physical and mental state of the user changed by executing the control plan selected by the selection control unit (90).

A thermal control apparatus and method are disclosed. The method includes: obtaining terminal status information of a terminal, where the terminal status information includes at least a terminal temperature parameter; obtaining environment status information and/or user status information, where the environment status information includes at least an environment temperature parameter and/or an environment humidity parameter, and the user status information includes at least one of a user body temperature parameter, a user electrocardiogram parameter, a user electroencephalogram parameter, or a user skin resistance parameter; and determining and executing a thermal control policy according to the terminal status information and either of or both of the environment status information and the user status information.

The present disclosure relates to a control device for controlling an air conditioner, AC. The control device comprises IR transmission means for emitting control signals to an AC; a microphone for measuring audio acknowledgement signals produced by the AC; and electronic control and evaluation means configured to determine whether sounds measured with the microphone include an audio acknowledgement signal produced by the AC, and being configured to perform a power state determination procedure to determine a power state of the AC. The power state determination comprises: sending a first control signal which is not an on/off control signal and determining whether an audio acknowledgment signal of the AC is subsequently measured, and judging whether the AC is in an off-state depending on whether an audio acknowledgment signal is measured subsequent to the sending of the first control signal. Furthermore a corresponding method for controlling an AC is disclosed.

A method includes operating a controller according to a control schedule; detecting events that indicate occupancy; storing a record of the events that indicate occupancy in one or more memory devices; and causing the controller to enter an auto-away state. A determination that the controller should enter the auto-away state may be based at least in part on a length of a time interval during which no events that indicate occupancy were detected; and the stored record of the events that indicate occupancy. The method also includes detecting a pattern of instances where the controller enters the auto-away state over a plurality of days; and adjusting the control schedule based at least in part on the pattern of instances where the controller enters the auto-away state.

Methods for controlling temperature in a conditioned enclosure such as a dwelling are described that include an auto-away and/or auto-arrival feature for detecting unexpected absences which provide opportunities for significant energy savings through automatic adjustment of the setpoint temperature. According to some preferred embodiments, when no occupancy has been detected for a minimum time interval, an auto-away feature triggers a changes of the state of the enclosure, and the actual operating setpoint temperature is changed to a predetermined energy-saving away-state temperature, regardless of the setpoint temperature indicated by the normal thermostat schedule. The purpose of the auto away feature is to avoid unnecessary heating or cooling when there are no occupants present to actually experience or enjoy the comfort settings of the schedule, thereby saving energy.