Honeywell Lyric smart thermostat could lure folks away from the Nest

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Home thermostat maker Honeywell has fought back against the Google-owned Nest company with a smart, Wi-Fi and GPS enabled model of its own.

The Honeywell Lyric was announced on Tuesday and will allow users to control the temperature in their homes via smartphone apps for iOS and Android, just like the groundbreaking Nest device.

However, Nest uses a motion sensor to determine whether owners are home, the Lyric uses a fencing system to enter an energy-saving mode when users are a certain distance away from the property.

Owners can tinker the distance between 500m and 7m away from the home before the mode kicks in, meaning the device will know when you've gone far enough away for energy-saving to kick in and will know when you're on the way home so can get the place nice and cool/warm in time for your arrival.

Fine Tune

The wall-mounted device can be configured to recognise all family members' smartphone apps so it won't turn the heating off when mum or dad heads to work on a Monday morning during the school holidays.

The Lyric, which will cost $279 (around £166, AU$297) and will be the first in a series of Honeywell devices to go under that name, also uses the built-in Wi-Fi-based Fine Tune feature.

When enabled, the thermostat goes searching for the local weather forecast and will modify the temperature settings based on the conditions outside.

The Lyric, which is slightly more expensive than the Nest can also be controlled manually using the dial, while there's also Home and weather forecast buttons on the face.

It will go on sale to the public in August.

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