Low-Voltage Heating
Low voltage systems are the most common type of heating system and the majority of homes in North America run on low voltage heating/cooling systems. Low voltage thermostats can control nearly any kind of system: furnaces, boilers, radiant heat, air conditioning, and heat pumps (to name a few). If your house has ducts and has one central thermostat for both air conditioning and heating, it’s almost sure that you have a low voltage heating system. Popular low voltage smart thermostats include Honeywell Lyric Round Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat, Honeywell Wi-Fi 9000 Color Touchscreen Smart Thermostat, or Honeywell Lyric T6 Pro Z-Wave Plus Thermostat. If you see a setup similar to this with numerous, small, thin, multi-coloured wires going into a board, you’ve got a low voltage thermostat.
High-Voltage Heating
High voltage systems or “electric heating” makes up a substantial minority of heating systems and uses baseboard heaters, convectors, or fan forced heaters to convert the house’s incoming current (120V or 240V) into usable heat. If you have one thermostat for every heater in each room, you probably have a high voltage heating system. Popular high voltage smart thermostats include Mysa Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat or Stelpro Maestro SMC402 Smart Controller Thermostat. If you see 2-4 thick wires separated into either black and red or black and white groups similar to this, you've got a high voltage thermostat: