Beyond the Thermostat: Smarter HVAC Management for Multi-Site Commercial Facilities

As commercial businesses expand across multiple locations, managing HVAC systems becomes increasingly complex. What once involved adjusting a single thermostat can quickly evolve into coordinating dozens, or even hundreds, of rooftop HVAC units serving facilities with different equipment configurations, occupancy patterns, and operating requirements.

Energie Multisport specializes in HVAC controls, energy management, and system-integration strategies for multisport and indoor recreation facilities. Supporting installations nationwide gives the company a broad view of the recurring equipment, configuration, occupancy, and operating challenges these facilities face.

A Different Kind of Commercial Building 

Multisport and indoor recreation facilities operate differently than most commercial buildings.

Pickleball and padel courts, bowling centers, basketball courts, turf fields, training areas, party rooms, offices, and meeting spaces may all be available throughout the day, but they’re rarely occupied continuously. Courts may sit empty between reservations. Party rooms may only be used for a few hours. Training spaces can experience peaks and valleys in activity from morning until late evening.

Traditional programmable thermostat schedules may not account for those differences. Instead, HVAC equipment may continue conditioning spaces according to a fixed schedule, even when large portions of the building are unoccupied.

“Our customers needed a way to manage HVAC systems consistently across multiple locations,” said David Anderson, President of Energie Multisport. “Our goal was to standardize HVAC operation across a national footprint, help improve comfort, reduce unnecessary equipment runtime, manage humidity, and remotely review and adjust thermostat settings without requiring a technician to visit each facility.”

Indoor pickleball courts at SPF Chicago, a client of Energie Multisport.

Building a Connected Control Strategy

To address those challenges, Energie selected the Honeywell Home ElitePRO™ smart thermostat together with the Resideo Pro-IQ™ services platform. The ElitePRO smart thermostat is Resideo’s latest connected device that is designed to support a wide range of HVAC applications with contractor-focused features, indoor air quality capabilities, and smart controls, while Pro-IQ services provides tools that support installation, configuration, and ongoing HVAC system management.

According to Anderson, the decision extended well beyond replacing thermostats.

“We selected the Honeywell Home ElitePRO smart thermostat because it combines strong commercial HVAC capabilities with the flexibility needed to support a wide variety of equipment and facility applications,” he explained.

One benefit has been the ability to remotely access installer-level settings through the Resideo One portal. For customers operating facilities across multiple states, technicians can review system configurations, troubleshoot issues, and often make adjustments remotely before determining whether an onsite visit is necessary.

Remote parameter access is valuable even for contractors serving a local market, but the benefit is substantially greater for Energie Multisport as it supports installations nationwide.

“We estimate that remote diagnostics and parameter adjustments can reduce onsite visits by approximately 10% to 20%,” said Anderson. “A setup or parameter issue corrected remotely might otherwise require roughly four hours of travel and service time and may become a warranty-related call.”

“In our experience roughly 30% of the installed systems we evaluate have some type of setup, configuration, or installation issue that may not be obvious to the facility operator,” he added.

Remote installer-level access helps Energie recommission those systems, correct control parameters, and resolve previously unknown issues that can affect comfort, equipment operation, and energy performance.

For more complex installations, the ElitePRO smart thermostat’s optional Equipment Interface Module (EIM) provides additional flexibility for equipment with third- and fourth-stage cooling, built-in dehumidification functions, and expanded wiring or dry-contact requirements.

Energie has also used the Honeywell Home C-Wire Power Adapter from Resideo in a number of retrofit installations where a dedicated common wire was not available. Using the adapter avoided running new thermostat wiring, producing meaningful installation-time and cost savings while reducing disruption at operating facilities.

Honeywell Home ElitePRO smart thermostats support comfort and temperature management at Fox Bowl in Wheaton, Ill.

 

Honeywell Home ElitePRO smart thermostats help SPF Chicago manage comfort across its indoor pickleball facility.

Managing Buildings Based on Occupancy 

Perhaps the greatest opportunity has been using building occupancy, not simply operating hours, to guide HVAC operations.

Rather than conditioning every court or activity space throughout the day, the ElitePRO smart thermostat’s onboard motion sensing and compatible remote sensors help determine whether individual spaces are actually being used.

Occupied areas can maintain normal comfort settings while unused spaces can automatically transition to energy-saving standby settings until activity resumes.

“A court or activity area may be available for reservations for 12 to 16 hours each day but only occupied for part of that time,” Anderson said. "Instead of conditioning those spaces continuously at fully occupied settings, the system can respond more intelligently to actual occupancy.”

Remote temperature sensors and temperature averaging can help HVAC operations respond to actual space conditions rather than relying on a single thermostat location, helping to improve occupant comfort throughout large facilities.

For facilities with humidity concerns, the ElitePRO smart thermostat can provide a dry-contact output to enable a compatible HVAC system’s built-in dehumidification function. Other configuration options, including using the cooling system to reduce humidity within configured limits, allow the strategy to be adapted to different HVAC equipment and applications.

Although savings vary by facility, matching occupied and standby settings to actual space use creates a meaningful opportunity to reduce unnecessary runtime and operating costs.

Supporting Growth Through Connected HVAC Management 

As Energie’s customers continue expanding nationally, maintaining consistent HVAC operations across multiple facilities has become increasingly important. The Resideo One portal helps technicians support a growing portfolio of locations while retaining flexibility to tailor system configurations, schedules, and control strategies to the needs of each facility.

This approach can also help simplify expansion as new facilities are added.

“We can standardize schedules, setpoint and occupancy strategies, humidity settings, and installer configurations across multiple locations,” Anderson said. “At the same time, we retain the flexibility to remotely modify individual sites when equipment or operating conditions differ.”

For Resideo, solutions like the ElitePRO smart thermostat reflect a broader shift occurring throughout commercial HVAC: contractors need to remotely manage connected HVAC systems while supporting long-term customer relationships.

“Commercial building owners want real visibility of what is going on with their HVAC and not just a thermostat reading,” said Doug Marshall, commercial business partner manager at Resideo. “With room sensors and duct sensors, they see which areas are actually heating or cooling, which ones aren’t, and whether the equipment is even running. The ElitePRO was built so facility managers can monitor all of that remotely, and contractors can fix problems proactively.”

Instead of reacting to service calls, contractors can monitor systems, review configuration settings, evaluate humidity and occupancy trends, and often resolve issues remotely before dispatching technicians.

Building for the Future 

While the ElitePRO smart thermostat and Pro-IQ services help address today’s operational needs, Anderson also sees opportunities to expand the solutions’ capabilities over time. One feature that particularly interests Energie is the ElitePRO API developer kit, which Energie is using to develop EnergieIQ. At a high level, EnergieIQ is designed to create multisport-specific system integrations that do not exist today and help facility operators reduce energy use.

“We’re also interested in how Resideo Connect – formerly the First Alert® app – and other connected products continue to develop,” Anderson said. “For customers managing many locations and HVAC systems, the ability to copy schedules, alert settings, and notification preferences across an entire account – instead of configuring each device individually – would make deployment and ongoing administration much more efficient.”

For Anderson, the technology delivers the greatest value when it’s part of a broad building management strategy.

“Connected controls should be viewed as part of an overall building management strategy, not simply a standalone device,” he said. “When properly commissioned and combined with thoughtful scheduling, humidity management, sensor placement, and ongoing review, they can become powerful tools for improving comfort, reducing operational complexity, and supporting long-term growth.”

For Energie, the Honeywell Home ElitePRO smart thermostat and Resideo’s Pro-IQ services have become an important part of that strategy, helping the company scale its HVAC management approach as its commercial customer portfolio continues to grow.

Multisport and indoor recreation operators interested in improving HVAC configuration, occupancy-based control, recommissioning, or portfolio-wide energy management can learn more about Energie Multisport at www.energiemultisport.com.