The present invention relates to a wireless thermostatic control system based on room occupancy. More particularly, the present invention relates to a wireless thermostat control system based on room occupancy for saving energy by detecting whether or not a person is in the room and setting back energy requirements if the room is not occupied. In the hotel and motel industry, the cost of heating and cooling a room has been of concern for a long time. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,596 issued in 1980 to Johnson Jr. et al. discloses an energy conservation system for inns, hotels and motels for reducing the unproductive consumption of energy, primarily during periods where a room is unoccupied. Energy consumption during periods of non-occupancy is also of concern to individual consumers and in office buildings and other structures. Other patents of interest in this field include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,127,575 to Beerbaum, 5,165,465 to Kenet, and 4,101,886 issued in 1978 to Grimes et al. All of these systems are complicated and require substantial hard wiring to install. There are also commercially available systems such as Linear Corporation's 9HC40 and GEM 5000 and North American Technologies'Sensorstat.RTM.1000, 2000 and 3000 which suffer from the same problems of complexity and difficulty of installation as the above patents.
For example, in the Grimes, et al. patent, the system includes a door switch, a dead bolt switch, a transmitter, a receiving means for receiving signals transmitted from the transmitter, a connecting means for connecting the receiving means to the particular appliance, such as a heating and cooling system's thermostat, and there is hard wiring not only between the door switch, dead bolt switch and transmitter and but also between the receiving means and appliance. The system will, upon the dead bolt being opened and the door being opened and closed, cause the transmitter to send out a signal to the receiving means connected to the existing controls of the particular appliance. There is a two and a half minute delay until the appliance enters a set back or turned off mode. When the room is reentered, the door switch detects opening and closing of the door. Reengagement of the dead bolt will then cause the transmitter to send out a signal to fully activate the appliances. Where set back control is used, the receiving means contains the extra thermostats and control circuitry to perform this function. The receiving means must thus have a separate source of energy from the appliance being controlled and must be hardwired to the existing thermostat. The commercially available systems use similar operation concepts as Grimes et al., but also use sensors to detect whether or not someone is in the room. In fact, these systems have hard wiring between a door switch and a power pack and between a sensor and the power pack associated with the extra thermostat control unit.