Patent ID: 8532827

Claim:
A thermostat, comprising: a housing and a user interface coupled to said housing; a memory disposed within the housing; one or more sensing systems configured to sense at least one environmental condition; a processing system disposed within the housing and coupled to said user interface, the processing system being configured to be in operative communication with the one or more sensing systems, in operative communication with one or more input devices including said user interface for determining a setpoint temperature value, and in still further operative communication with a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system to control the HVAC system based at least in part on a comparison of a measured ambient temperature and the setpoint temperature value, the processing system including a processor coupled to said memory, the processor having a relatively low power-consuming sleep state and a relatively high power-consuming wake state, wherein the processing system operates by: determining a set of wake-up conditions upon which said processor is to enter into said wake state from said sleep state, said set of wake-up conditions including at least one threshold value associated with at least one of the environmental conditions sensed by said at least one sensing system; causing the set of wake-up conditions to be stored in said memory; operating in a first mode in which said processor is in said sleep state during a time interval subsequent to said causing the set of wake-up conditions to be stored in said memory; determining, while said processor is in said sleep state, whether at least one of the set of wake-up conditions including said at least one threshold value has been met; and operating in a second mode in which said processor is in said wake state upon a determination that the at least one of the set of wake-up conditions has been met, the processing system being configured to control the HVAC system while operating in the second operating mode.