The Genius Hub footprint mode is where things get really smart. Footprint mode is unique to Genius Hub’s smart heating system and NOT available with simple Smart Thermostats like Nest or Hive.

Footprint mode uses the Genius Hub Room Sensors to learn the movements of people within the house, then predicts future usage and automatically controls your heating. 

If you don’t have any Room Sensors installed then you will not see any of the footprint options in the app (buy them in the shop to start using footprint mode). 

The Room Sensors also bring more Smarts to your heating, footprint mode consists of 2 main parts:

1. Reactive heating: This is when the Room Sensors trigger the heating due to occupancy being detected or no longer being detected in a room. If there are repeated triggers of occupancy in a room in footprint mode (such as a person starts using the room), the heating will be triggered on. If the system then stops detecting occupancy triggers the heating will be allowed to turn off and cool as the room is no longer being used.

2. Predictive heating: The other main part of footprint mode is that the system will use the occupancy triggers to learn when the system is normally used and schedule the future heating accordingly. A 7-day schedule is built based on the last 2 weeks occupancy, so if the room is repeatedly used at the same time the heating will be brought on for that time for the next week. As the schedule is based on the last 2 weeks, if your lifestyle changes the system may take up to 2 weeks to fully adapt to your new schedule. This can mean that if you do not use the room at the normal time, the heating will still be brought on at the start of the predicted schedule, but will turn off when no occupancy has been detected for the set duration.