Smart Thermostats in Ontario: are they worth it?

By Mario Vaghei, General Manager, Aire One Peel Heating & Cooling · Published December 19, 2024 · Facts verified September 4, 2026

A smart thermostat is a connected control that learns your schedule and adjusts the heat or the air conditioning without being asked. Whether it is worth buying in Ontario turns on arithmetic most articles skip, because the honest energy saving is modest and the programs attached to it are not. Natural Resources Canada puts the saving at close to 8 per cent of your heating and cooling costs, while two Ontario programs together hand you $200 CAD for installing one. If your control is simply broken rather than old, start with our guide to common thermostat problems instead, because a new thermostat will not fix a wiring fault.

What smart thermostats actually save in an Ontario home

A smart thermostat saves close to 8 per cent of what you spend heating and cooling your home, which Natural Resources Canada states directly and which is a far smaller number than most advertising suggests. The same source notes that heating and cooling together account for nearly two thirds of a Canadian household’s energy costs, so the 8 per cent applies to the largest line on the bill rather than to the whole of it.

Where that saving comes from is worth understanding, because it explains why the figure is modest. Natural Resources Canada puts the mechanism plainly: a drop of one degree Celsius over an eight hour period saves about 2 per cent of your heating energy. Nothing about a smart control changes that physics. What changes is how reliably the setback happens, because a schedule that runs every night beats good intentions that run four nights out of seven.

Read that table honestly and one conclusion follows: a $20 CAD manual thermostat, turned down by hand every night without fail, saves the same money. The smart thermostat is buying reliability, remote control and the two Ontario incentives, and if it is sold to you on energy alone the pitch is thinner than it sounds.

The $200 in Ontario programs, and who qualifies

Two separate Ontario programs pay you for a smart thermostat, and together they are worth $200 CAD in the first year plus $20 CAD every year after. The first is a rebate on the purchase. The second pays you to let the grid nudge your air conditioning on hot afternoons.

Program amounts read from the Home Renovation Savings smart thermostat page and Save on Energy Peak Perks on September 4, 2026. The energy figure is an estimate, not a measurement.

The condominium exclusion deserves naming, because it is the single most common reason a Peel Region household reads about this rebate and cannot have it. The program lists eligible homes as single or semi-detached, row or townhomes, and mobile homes on a permanent foundation. A condominium suite is not on that list. If you live in a Mississauga tower, the $125 CAD is not available to you, and no amount of paperwork changes that. Our guide to condo air conditioning in Mississauga covers what you can control in a suite.

The possible downside of hearing this from us. Aire One Peel is a Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer, and Carrier thermostats do not appear on the Home Renovation Savings eligible list, which names ecobee, Google Nest, Honeywell Home, Copeland Sensi, Mysa and Sinope. If you want the $125 CAD you will be buying a control we do not carry, and we would rather tell you that than quietly steer you to something we stock. We will still wire it, commission it and set it up correctly on your system.

Why three official pages quote three different rebates

On September 4, 2026, three official Ontario pages published three different smart thermostat rebate amounts, and the gap between the lowest and the highest is $50 CAD. This is not a rumour or a lead-generation site inventing numbers; every figure below sits on a page run by the utility or the program itself.

We are not claiming the utility is misleading anyone. Program pages update at different speeds and the summary page shows the older amount struck through, which is a page in the middle of being changed. The practical point for a homeowner in Mississauga or Brampton is simple: read the amount off the program’s own smart thermostat page on the day you apply, and take a screenshot of it.

Hour blocks matter more than the thermostat brand

If your home heats or cools with electricity, when the system runs decides your bill more than which brand of thermostat schedules it. The Ontario Energy Board sets Regulated Price Plan prices, and on Time-of-Use the same kilowatt hour costs 9.8 cents overnight and 20.3 cents in the on-peak block. A schedule that moves the pre-heat or the pre-cool out of the expensive hours is the one genuine advantage a connected control has over a dial.

The Ultra-Low Overnight rows are where a schedule earns real money and also where it can lose it. Overnight power at 3.9 cents is the cheapest electric heat available in Ontario, and the 4 to 9 p.m. block at 39.1 cents is ten times that price. A thermostat that pre-heats a house before nine in the evening on that plan is quietly expensive, and no thermostat knows your rate plan unless somebody tells it. If you are weighing electric heat against gas, the arithmetic is laid out on our heat pump versus furnace running cost page.

Four Peel Region homes where we would not fit one

A smart thermostat is the wrong purchase in four situations that are common enough in this territory to name. Saying so costs us installation work, and it is still the right advice.

1. A boiler with radiators or in-floor heat. Natural Resources Canada makes the exception explicit: except for some hydronic systems and heat pumps with slow response times, turning the thermostat down saves energy. A slow system spends the morning clawing back what the setback saved overnight, and the schedule fights the equipment.
2. A condominium suite. The rebate excludes it, and in many buildings the fan coil is not yours to re-control anyway.
3. A home where somebody is in every day. The saving comes from the hours the house is empty or asleep. Remove those hours and you are left with about 2 per cent for the overnight setback you were probably already doing.
4. A furnace or air conditioner already near the end of its life. Putting a connected control on equipment with two years left is money spent on the wrong part of the system. Our page on when to replace an air conditioner covers that decision, and if the furnace is the older half, book a furnace service visit before you buy anything.

There is one more case worth flagging, which is the older two-wire system with no common wire. Most modern connected thermostats need constant power, and on a two-wire furnace that means running a common wire, adding an adapter, or choosing a model built for two wires. It is ordinary work, it is not free, and a homeowner who buys the thermostat first sometimes discovers it on a Saturday afternoon.

Can you install a smart thermostat yourself in Ontario?

Whether you may install a thermostat yourself in Ontario depends on the voltage behind the wall, not on the brand in the box. The wall control on a gas furnace or a central air conditioner runs on 24 volt low voltage wiring, which is a very different job from the 120 or 240 volt thermostat on an electric baseboard heater.

For the low voltage case, the Home Renovation Savings program itself points homeowners at the Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada contractor lookup rather than insisting on a professional install, which tells you how routine the job usually is. If you would rather it was simply done, a free in-home estimate covers the wiring, the commissioning and the settings, and we serve Mississauga, Brampton, Etobicoke, Milton, Georgetown, Caledon and Bolton.

How to set it for a Peel Region winter

Set the schedule around the hours the house is genuinely empty or asleep, and keep the setback above 17 degrees Celsius. Natural Resources Canada’s own worked example is a home that sleeps at 17 degrees and wakes to 21 degrees at 6 a.m. on weekdays, with a later start at weekends, and that shape suits most Peel Region households.

1. Set the comfort temperature first. Pick the number that is comfortable when you are up and about, then leave it alone. Every other setting is measured from it.
2. Add one overnight setback, no lower than 17 degrees Celsius. That floor is a moisture rule, not a comfort preference. Below it, Natural Resources Canada warns about moisture building up in exterior walls.
3. Add a second setback for the empty hours. If the house is genuinely empty on weekdays, this is where the rest of the saving lives.
4. Tell it your electricity rate plan. On Ultra-Low Overnight, keep the recovery out of the 4 to 9 p.m. block. On Time-of-Use in winter, keep it out of 7 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.
5. Leave it alone for two weeks. A learning thermostat that is overridden daily never settles, and the override is what costs you the saving.

One caution specific to heat pumps. A deep setback on a heat pump often triggers the electric backup on recovery, which is the most expensive heat in the house, so the shallow setback that looks lazy is usually the cheaper one. That behaviour has its own page: how smart thermostats affect heat pump performance.

Will a smart thermostat pay for you?

Three questions, and every answer it gives also appears in the tables above, so nothing here is exclusive to the tool.

How we know this

Every figure on this page was read off a government, regulator or program page on September 4, 2026, and the things we do not know are named rather than estimated.

Watch: the team behind the advice

These are company and furnace clips from our own channel rather than thermostat footage, which is honest rather than ideal. There is no thermostat installation video on the channel yet.

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Meet the Aire One Peel heating and cooling team serving Peel Region

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Furnace repair and installation across Mississauga, Brampton, Etobicoke and Milton

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What a professional furnace service call in Mississauga looks like

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Frequently asked questions

Does a smart thermostat really save money?

Yes, but less than the advertising suggests. Natural Resources Canada puts the saving at close to 8 per cent of heating and cooling costs, which on a typical Enbridge residential gas bill of $1,028.62 CAD a year is roughly $82 CAD. The saving comes from the setback schedule, not from the technology, so a manual thermostat turned down every night without fail saves the same amount.

Can I get a smart thermostat rebate in Ontario?

Yes. The Home Renovation Savings program published a $125 CAD smart thermostat rebate on September 4, 2026, claimed as a discount code before you buy or as a receipt upload within 60 days after. You need an Enbridge Gas account heating with gas, or an electrically heated or cooled home, no previous smart thermostat rebate, and a single, semi, row, town or mobile home. Confirm the amount on the program page, because other official pages still show $75 CAD.

What are the downsides of smart thermostats?

They need constant power, so an older two-wire system often needs a common wire run or an adapter fitted. They depend on Wi-Fi and on a manufacturer’s app that can change or be discontinued. On a boiler or a heat pump with a slow response, an aggressive setback can cost more than it saves. And if somebody is home all day, most of the saving simply is not there to collect.

Can you just replace a thermostat with a smart thermostat?

Usually yes on a gas furnace or central air conditioner, where the control runs on 24 volt low voltage wiring and the main question is whether a common wire is present. It is not a straight swap on electric baseboards, because those thermostats are wired at 120 or 240 volts and need a line voltage model. Staged, multi-zone and heat pump systems have extra conductors and are worth having done properly.

How much does it cost to have a smart thermostat installed?

Aire One Peel does not publish a fixed installation price for a thermostat, because the work ranges from a fifteen minute swap to running a new common wire through a finished basement. What we can say is that the two Ontario programs pay an eligible household $200 CAD in the first year, which covers a straightforward installation in most cases. Ask for the price on your specific system before you buy the device.

Do programmable thermostats actually save money?

Yes, and by exactly the same mechanism as a smart one. Natural Resources Canada credits about 2 per cent of heating energy for every one degree Celsius of setback held over eight hours, and a basic programmable thermostat with two setback periods a day captures most of that. What it will not do is learn your pattern, adjust from your phone, or qualify you for the Ontario rebate and Peak Perks incentives.

Do I need an electrician to change a thermostat in Ontario?

It depends on the voltage. A 24 volt control on a gas furnace or central air conditioner is not electrical work in that sense and a confident homeowner can change it. A line voltage baseboard thermostat is electrical work: the Electrical Safety Authority says only you may do it in your own home, and you must file a notification of work before you start, or hire a Licensed Electrical Contractor.

The short version

Buy a smart thermostat in Ontario for the programs and the reliability, not for the energy. The energy saving is real and it is about 8 per cent of heating and cooling, which on a typical gas bill is around $82 CAD a year. The programs are worth more than that on day one: $125 CAD from Home Renovation Savings and $75 CAD to enrol in Peak Perks, with $20 CAD every year after.

Skip it if you live in a condominium suite, if your home is heated by a boiler with radiators or in-floor heat, if somebody is home all day, or if the furnace itself is near the end of its life. In those homes the money does more good elsewhere, and we would rather say so now than after the invoice.

If you want it wired, commissioned and set up around your rate plan rather than left on the factory schedule, call 905-564-8545 or book a free in-home estimate. If the old control is the actual problem rather than the schedule, our furnace repair team can tell you which it is before you spend anything.

Mario Vaghei

General Manager, Aire One Peel Heating & Cooling

Rebuilt this guide on September 4, 2026, reading the rebate amount and the eligibility wording off the Home Renovation Savings smart thermostat page, the incentive amounts off Save on Energy Peak Perks, the setback arithmetic off Natural Resources Canada, the electricity prices off the Ontario Energy Board and the homeowner electrical rule off the Electrical Safety Authority. General Manager is a company role and not a trade credential, and no certification is claimed on this page.

Sources and references

• Natural Resources Canada, Is your thermostat smart enough?. The close to 8 per cent saving, the two thirds share of household energy costs, and the ENERGY STAR guidance. Read September 4, 2026.
• Natural Resources Canada, Keeping the Heat In, section 9. About 2 per cent per one degree Celsius over eight hours, the 17 degree floor for moisture in exterior walls, and the hydronic and heat pump exception. Read September 4, 2026.
• Home Renovation Savings, smart thermostat rebate. The $125 CAD amount, the three eligibility conditions, the 60 day receipt window and the eligible brands. Read September 4, 2026.
• Enbridge Gas, rebates and energy conservation. The $75 CAD figure still published on September 4, 2026.
• Save on Energy, Peak Perks. The $75 CAD sign-up and $20 CAD annual incentives, the central air conditioning requirement, the three hour limit and the opt-out. Read September 4, 2026.
• Ontario Energy Board, electricity rates. Regulated Price Plan prices and hour blocks in effect since November 1, 2025. Read September 4, 2026.
• Electrical Safety Authority, do-it-yourself electrical work. Only the homeowner may do electrical work in their own home, and a notification of work must be filed before starting. Read September 4, 2026.