Importance

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Abstract

A thermostat includes a first temperature sensor integral with the thermostat and at least one and typically three remotely positioned temperature sensors. Switches are provided to select which one or more temperature sensors are employed to provide an averaged measured temperature. Voltages representative of the temperature ambient to each diversely placed sensor are applied to separate inputs to an analog multiplexer which transfers a single voltage to an analog-to-digital converter in accordance with address codes received from a processor. The output of the A-D converter, a digital count representative of the temperature measured by the currently selected sensor, is read by the processor and temporarily saved. Then, the next selected sensor is similarly processed. When all the selected sensors have been processed, the resulting counts are averaged, and the result is conventionally processed, as by passing it through a conversion algorithm, to obtain the averaged temperature which is employed as the measured temperature and compared against a current reference temperature to determine control signals to be sent to one or more environmental modification units such as a heater and/or an air conditioner.

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First Claim