At Kapacity.io Cloud, we’ve been listening to your feedback and continuously improving our smart control service. A major update is here: Comfort Mode now ensures your home stays warm, especially when electricity prices are low.
What is Comfort Mode?
Kapacity.io provides three comfort modes so you can control how responsive your heating and cooling control is to electricity prices:
1. Comfort – In this mode, the priority is maintaining a stable indoor temperature.
2. Balanced – This is a blend of comfort and savings, designed to make efficient use of electricity price changes without sacrificing too much comfort.
3. Maximum savings – As the name suggests, this mode maximizes savings by making the heating highly responsive to electricity prices.
What’s new in Comfort Mode?
Previously, Comfort Mode still had an energy-saving budget, meaning it could reduce heating even when electricity was cheap. Now, we’ve changed the energy budget to zero when Comfort Mode is selected. This means:
- No unnecessary savings: Your heat pump will operate freely without cutting back on warmth.
- Better comfort at low prices: If electricity is cheap, there’s no need to limit heating.
- Same energy usage, just smarter: The algorithm still optimizes heating by shifting consumption to different hours, but your total energy use remains the same.
Addressing common concerns
We know some of you have asked:
“Why is Kapacity.io Cloud reducing heating when electricity is cheap?”
Comfort Mode now ensures that your heating won’t be reduced when prices are low. If you’re using Balanced or Maximum Savings, some level of optimization will still occur.
“Can I set a price limit so Kapacity.io Cloud doesn’t control if electricity is below a certain price?”
While this isn’t available yet, we’re exploring ways to refine the algorithm to be less aggressive when prices are consistently low.
“My house feels too cold even when electricity is cheap—why?”
This update ensures that Comfort Mode prioritizes warmth at all times, even when saving opportunities exist. More updates on low-price controls are coming up for Balanced and Maximum Savings as well. Stay tuned!
The balance between savings and comfort
Our algorithm is designed to Maximize Savings, but we also recognize that comfort is key. We’ve found that people tolerate more aggressive optimization when prices are high but expect steady warmth when electricity is cheap. By adjusting the Comfort Mode settings, we aim to strike a better balance between cost efficiency and household comfort.
What’s next?
We’re also working on additional improvements, including:
- Better weather-based control to adapt to outdoor conditions.
- Automatic DHW-boost activation for devices that support it. Hot Water Boost is available with Nibe, CTC, Alpha Innotec and Viessmann devices. More device support to come!
- Ongoing research on user preferences to reduce unnecessary complexity and cognitive load.
We won’t stop optimizing heating control automatically—even when prices are low—but we are making it more intuitive. Comfort Mode is now truly about comfort. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a go and let us know what you think!
Stay warm,
The Kapacity.io Cloud Team
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