Sean Mosley Solutions

Overview

The Pivot Thermostat System includes the smart thermostat, the mobile app and the contractor portal. It is specifically designed for commercial applications and works with Trane equipment as well as equipment from other manufacturers. The scheduling process is intuitive and the thermostat provides commercial features you’d expect like economizer enable, optimal start/stop and both Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity options.

Problem

Trane users wanted to use the ODT (Outdoor Air Temperature) and RS1 temperature inputs on the Pivot Smart Thermostat to monitor generic temperature information, with additional goals identified as:

Current temperature should be available to view from the display and mobile app
Users should be able to label the value
Contractors should be able to access from Diagnostic portal
User should be able to add alarms for the values and view in the Mobile App

Figure 1. Close up of the XL82 inputs.

Scenarios & Personas

Trane screened and scheduled interviews with three customers, four account managers, and four service technicians. The majority of participants were located in Michigan and Virginia, with one in Kentucky. These interviews were designed to gather the users’ perspectives - their needs, wants, and capabilities.

User Scenarios

The sample scenarios paint a picture of a possible day for each of archetypical users. They are used to demonstrate how each model might be used in a “real world” context. They do not show every possible user activity, but they do provide benchmarks through which the overall structure of the application may be evaluated.

USE CASES	DEFINITION
Discharge Air Temperature	This is the best value for trouble shooting problems on hot/cold issues. With this a technician quickly knows if the unit is producing the expected cold or warm air.
Supply Air Temperature	With this value and the DAT a technician can further determine the performance of the system.
Refrigeration or Freezer Temperature	A common request for restaurateurs or food retailers is to be able to receive an alarm if a refrigeration unit is not meeting the needed temperature.
Key equipment or process temperature	Input of a boolean value the would be displayed as user defined values for on and off.

Figure 2. Pivot user scenarios.

Target Personas

With user scenario’s in place, we were able to define detailed personas, using Trane's vast data pool. The Mobile Service Tool persona looked something like this:

CUSTOMER TARGETS	OWNER	CONTRACTOR
Small buildings less than 25,000 sqft	Simple operation for staff/occupant	Remote access through portal to view system status, trends, troubleshoot
Building Owners/Light Commercial Contractors	Comfortable environment for occupants while limiting operating costs	One source for complete equipment and controls system
Single Zone RTU Heating & Cooling	Convenient remote access for ease of use and peace of mind	Ability to customize display for owner (lockouts, limited commands, etc)
National Accounts or Regional/Local Entities

Figure 3. Pivot portfolio positioning.

Whiteboarding & Solutioning

We were able to determine the following answers as part of the solution investigation:

User will set trigger threshold for alarms generated for Generic Input sensors.
There will be a way to rename the point label in both Mobile App and in Smart Thermostat.
Reuse existing OAT widget options for displaying values.
Revise the generic temperature conversion logic/range - 1K ohms corresponds to 189 degrees F. 10K ohms corresponds to 77 degrees F (With oxidation on some inputs there will be cases were the closed resistance will be higher than a few ohms).

Figure 4. Pivot Smart Thermostat whiteboard session.

Design Concepts

The final design had to detail solutions for the following scenarios:

OAT and RS1 setup with/without Internet Weather
Binary Input Widget character limits
Other Temperature Widget label limits
Revised Widget Select screen
New Local Sensor Calibration screen
Revised Humidity screen
Pivot Mobile App Input Value display

Figure 5. Pivot Smart Thermostat designs.

Figure 6. Pivot Mobile App designs.

Results

Trane systems (Pivot Smart Thermostat and Mobile App) are in one out of every two U.S. commercial buildings and locations. The goal was to stay relevant with what commercial users are looking for and then build features around their main areas of need and set feature goals.

Failure is built into creativity… the creative act involves this element of ‘newness’ and ‘experimentalism,’ then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure. Saul Bass

The main initiative was to improve the versatility of the Smart Thermostat by retrofitting the current Thermostats inputs for more usability thus increasing sales by more than 10,000 per year.

Trane Pivot Smart Thermostat UX/UI Design