I recently received a mailer with information on new Honeywell HD thermostats.  They were pretty nice looking and interested me because I would like to have access to my home thermostat via the web and it looked like they might just do that.  This would be nice when I was either leaving town unexpectedly and would like to reduce the cost of operation or returning and would like to have the home cool when I arrive.  Looking into the Honeywell it appeared it would be very expensive to add a network module.

I did some additional looking around and found several companies which sell a small scale system which will allow me to control my thermostat remotely over the internet.  Lowe’s sells one as part of the Schlage Link lock set. Like most this system requires you to connect through an account on a company web site which I was not interested in.  Some also require you buy more stuff than I want.

I found that Proliphix sells a system to do just what I would like.  Their thermostat can be set behind your firewall, given an IP address and you can connect to it directly.  This will require some setup and if you do not have a dedicated IP to provide it you will still have to use a redirect service, but free services are available.  I have not aquired one yet, I am still shopping but if I do I will be sure to post on it.