Measured
Weekday runtime outside 06:00–17:00
Heating, cooling and fan time before 6 in the morning and from 5 in the afternoon. The window is an assumption, not your Pelican schedule.
Every zone. A clearer view.
Know which HVAC units need attention.
Hundreds of thermostats, a steady stream of alarms, and no clear first job. Zonefold reads the Pelican thermostats you already own and shows what is running, which units need attention first, and the evidence behind every finding. It also puts a modeled cost on the runtime worth reviewing, on one page your business office can check.
- Read-only
- No thermostat changes
- No new hardware
- Imports every 15 minutes
For school districts and other organizations running Pelican Wireless thermostats across many buildings.
Shown on real data
Every screen on this page comes from one real school campus
- 195Pelican thermostats
- 10buildings
- 6Pelican gateways
Pelican's public demo site, a California school, with one week of readings from October 4 to 11, 2026. Savings and Room use need weeks of history, so the screenshots repeat that week's real days over the weeks around it, up to October 23, 2026, when they were taken. In them the campus is renamed Northview Schools and Lincoln Campus, the people are sample users, and the dollar figures are sample data, not a result. Results at your sites will differ.
Savings: the business case
A figure your business office can check
Zonefold adds up the runtime in the hours worth a second look, puts a modeled cost on it with your site's own electricity rate, and shows how far to trust it: the dates, the coverage, and where every figure came from.
Measured
Weekend runtime
Saturday and Sunday runtime, from the same counters.
Inferred
Rooms used part of the day
School-hour runtime after the time a room usually empties, from its CO₂.
Inferred
Rooms that look empty all school day
School-hour runtime in rooms whose CO₂ stayed close to outdoor air.
Each kind names its rooms, the evidence, and what to consider changing in Pelican; a person makes the change. Every 15 minutes of runtime counts in one kind only. Runtime comes from Pelican's own counters; the cost is modeled, never a meter reading, a bill or a promised saving, because some of that runtime may be needed.
Hand it to your business office
- A one-page report. Print it or save it as a PDF: the figure and its dates, the four kinds of hours with the changes to consider, the top rooms, what is not priced and why, the assumptions, and a short summary to paste into an email.
- The evidence behind it. A CSV with one row per thermostat and kind of hour: the hours, the runtime, the modeled cost and the rate.
- A scenario, labeled as one. What 40 to 80% of that runtime would cost if the suggested changes remove that much: an assumption, shown second, never the headline.
- Nothing guessed. Only days Zonefold read completely count. Heating it can't price is listed as hours, not priced.
Room use: rooms that look empty all school day
People breathe out CO₂, so a classroom in use climbs well above outdoor air. Room use reads the CO₂ sensor in each thermostat that has one, school hours 08:00–15:00 over up to the last 30 school days, and names the rooms that stayed below 500 ppm all day or emptied after a usual hour. Results are Inferred. Beside each room: its runtime while empty (Measured) and that runtime's modeled cost.
- Results from 10 school days of CO₂; likely no-school days are left out
- A suggestion to consider in Pelican, after checking with the school
- Hourly CO₂ per room only: no people are counted or tracked
Find the next problem
One unit to look at first, and the evidence behind it
Thermostat apps are built to change settings. A facilities team needs to know which few units need a person today, and why. Zonefold reads every unit's temperatures, setpoints and runtime and does that sorting for you.
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Portfolio: what needs attention first
One card names the unit to look at first. Open incidents rank by how far the room ran off setpoint, halved for each day since it was last seen, so today's problem comes before last week's peak.
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Incidents, not alarm noise
Zonefold's own checks look for lost cooling capacity, short cycling, heating problems and a central plant loop running hot. Repeated episodes on one unit become one incident. When the problem stops, the incident closes itself.
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Assign it, with a note
Give an incident to a person with a short note: what to check, and by when. They get an email with a link, and find it under Assigned to me.
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Evidence anyone can check
Every episode shows when it started, how long it lasted and how far off setpoint it went, with the IDs of the readings it came from.
The whole story of one unit
The equipment page draws the newest 48 hours: room temperature against both setpoints, with a ribbon for when it cooled or heated. It adds daily runtime straight from Pelican's counters, the schedule Pelican reports, how the room was used in school hours, the nearest rooms on the same floor, the unit's alarms, its gateway and its outage history.
- Tell one bad unit from a whole wing running warm
- See whether a unit is cooling but not keeping up
- Open it from any incident, tile or search
Understand what happened
See every zone, then replay the week
A hot room is a symptom. Seeing every room together, hour by hour, shows whether it is one unit, one building, or the weather.
Zones versus setpoint
One tile per zone, grouped by building. The color is the distance from its setpoint, so hot rooms stand out at a glance. Hover or focus a tile for its reading.
Thermal wall
Play the week and watch hot spots appear and fade. Outdoor air and the condenser loop are drawn underneath, to show whether the heat outside explains a hot room.
Setpoints over time
The setpoints your thermostats used, hour by hour. Units set well apart from the rest are named, such as a room left at a setback setpoint.
Running now
What every thermostat is doing now: cooling, heating, fan only or off, by site and building, with vacation and demand-response setback as Pelican reports them.
Connections and alarm history
Tell a broken unit from a lost connection
When a room goes quiet, the cause may be the unit, its power, or the wireless link to its gateway. Zonefold keeps the history that tells them apart.
The Network tab
Each Pelican gateway, the devices on it, and which are unreachable now, with a 7-day history for every device. When several devices on one gateway lose their connection together, Zonefold marks a shared outage, labeled Inferred.
Pelican's interface reports each device's gateway and whether it is unreachable. It has no signal-strength or repeater data, so Zonefold shows only what it can see.
The Alarm log
Pelican's own alarms, kept as history even after Pelican clears them. Filter by status, type, building and date, and download a CSV.
Plain, honest figures
Every number says where it came from
- Measured
- Straight from your Pelican sensors and counters.
- Inferred
- Worked out by Zonefold's checks from measured data, such as an incident, a shared outage or a room that looks empty.
- Modeled
- An estimate, such as the cost of runtime, with its assumptions on the page.
Runtime and its cost count a day only when Zonefold read it completely. A day read with nothing running is zero; a day not read is left out and named, never guessed. Unknown is never shown as zero.
If an import is late, a Not live line says how old each source is. Old figures never pass for live ones.
Imports you can rely on
Zonefold imports every 15 minutes, one import per site at a time, so two runs never overlap. If a site's imports stop, its pages say so, the daily summary names it, and our team is alerted. Days when the clocks change count their real 23 or 25 hours.
Access and safety
The right access for each person, and guardrails on every change
- Roles down to one device. Owner, admin, site manager, technician or viewer, on the whole organization, one site, one building or a single thermostat. The database checks every change, so nobody can give more access than they have.
- Contractors. Give an outside company access to the sites it services, with an end date. Revoke it at any time.
- A full audit log. Every change records who made it, when and why. The log is append-only and tamper-evident.
- Confirm it's you. Sensitive changes ask for multi-factor sign-in again if you signed in more than five minutes ago.
- Safety classes and control limits. Mark server rooms, medical spaces, freezers and plant rooms as protected. Proposals are blocked for protected and unclassified rooms, and lowering protection needs a second admin.
- Site setup review. See what Zonefold decided each device and sensor is, and which sensors read well off their neighbors.
Copilot
A copilot that drafts, never acts
Ask about your buildings in plain words: what needs attention today, which rooms ran hot, what changed this week. The copilot reads only what your role can see and cites the source of every figure, so anyone can check it.
- Says what the data can't tell, such as a mechanical cause that needs a visit
- Can draft a setpoint proposal; a person decides
- Never drafts for protected or unclassified rooms
- Cannot send anything to a thermostat
How it works
Connect one site, read-only
Nothing to install and no one on a ladder. Zonefold connects to Pelican's cloud with a user you create, and only reads.
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Create a Pelican user for Zonefold
In Pelican: Admin, then User Management, then Add User. Read access to the thermostats you want monitored is enough.
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Connect read-only
Enter your Pelican site address and that user. The password is stored encrypted and used only to read. Zonefold imports your thermostats, daily runtime and detailed history, then runs its first analysis. A small site finishes within minutes.
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Review, then act
Confirm what each device is, mark protected rooms, invite your team and start on the first incident. Imports continue every 15 minutes, and Savings and Room use fill in as the days are read.
Help where you need it
- A guide on every page. A short narrated video with chapters, captions and a transcript.
- Playbooks for whole tasks. Narrated videos that cross pages, such as Make the case to your business office, Find rooms that sit empty and fix their schedules, and The morning check.
- Tell us, from any page. Send the team a note about the page you're on, and get a reply by email.
- A daily summary email. Opt in, and once a day, only when there's something new, it lists new and reopened incidents, ones that closed by themselves, and sites whose imports are late.
Who it's for
Built for people responsible for many buildings
School districts
Classrooms, portables, gyms and theaters across campuses. See which rooms ran hot, which unit the technician should visit first, and what runs after hours, on weekends and in rooms that look empty, with its modeled cost for the business office. Give each site and contractor exactly the access they need.
Zonefold for school districtsRetail and restaurant chains
One view across every store, with the units that need attention first.
Property managers
Evidence for each hot-and-cold call, and for each service visit.
HVAC contractors
Delegated access to the sites you service. Arrive knowing which unit to check.
Churches and community buildings
Large rooms used a few days a week. See what is running when nobody is there.
How Zonefold is different
A focused layer on top of what you have
Zonefold doesn't replace a building automation system or an energy platform. It answers a narrower question for Pelican sites, and it can sit next to either.
| Building automation dashboards | Energy and metering platforms | Zonefold | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Supervising and controlling building systems, often across many protocols | Measuring energy use and cost, and reporting on it | Seeing what Pelican thermostats are doing, and which units need attention |
| Data it uses | Controllers and points on your building network, often set up by an integrator | Meters, submeters, interval data and utility bills | The Pelican account you already have, read every 15 minutes |
| New hardware | Often controllers or gateways, plus integration work | Often meters or submeters | None |
| Changes to equipment | Usually writes schedules and setpoints | Varies; some add automated control | None. Changes can be proposed and approved; nothing is sent to thermostats |
| Energy figures | From points and meters, where installed | Metered | Modeled from Pelican's runtime counters, labeled Modeled, with dates and coverage |
| A good fit when | You need automated control across many kinds of systems | You need metered savings, bills or emissions reporting | You run Pelican across many rooms or sites and want to know what to fix first, and which runtime is worth reviewing |
Zonefold does not meter energy, import utility bills, verify savings after a change, run demand response or control equipment today. If you need those, the tools built for them are the better fit.
Security and data
Read-only by design, private by default
Your IT team will have questions. The short answers are here; the full ones are in the security overview.
- Read-only connection. Zonefold's Pelican connection has no way to write. The password is encrypted, with keys held by a separate service.
- Isolation in the database. Every query is filtered by row-level security for the signed-in person's organization and scope.
- Sign-in with multi-factor checks before sensitive changes, and invitation links that work once, for one address.
- Only what the job needs. Zonefold stores readings from your thermostats and the accounts of the people you invite. One week of detailed readings by default; daily runtime, incidents, alarms and outage history are kept.
- No trackers. This website has no scripts, no cookies and no analytics.
FAQ
Questions
Do we need new hardware?
No. Zonefold works with the Pelican thermostats and gateways you already have, through Pelican's own interface. Nothing is installed on your network.
Will Zonefold change our thermostat settings?
No. The connection is read-only. Inside Zonefold, a setpoint change can be proposed and approved (a person may approve their own routine change; a copilot draft or a change to many rooms needs a second person), but nothing is sent to your thermostats.
Is Zonefold made by Pelican?
No. Zonefold is independent software for organizations that use Pelican Wireless thermostats. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Pelican Wireless Systems.
What does Zonefold need from Pelican?
A Pelican user you create for Zonefold, with read access to the thermostats you want monitored. Nothing is installed on your network and nothing is written to a thermostat. Savings starts with the days read so far and covers up to the last six weeks. Room use needs thermostats with CO₂ sensors, and shows results once it has 10 school days of CO₂.
How fresh is the data?
Zonefold imports every 15 minutes, one import per site at a time. Every figure shows its age, and a Not live line appears when a source is late.
How much history do we get?
Zonefold imports what Pelican makes available when you connect, then keeps its own history: one week of detailed readings by default, while daily runtime, incidents, alarms and outage history are kept. Longer detailed history is available on paid plans.
How is the cost estimated, and what is it not?
The runtime comes from Pelican's own 15-minute counters and is labeled Measured. Zonefold prices it with a default rating, 3.5 kW for a compressor and 0.5 kW for a fan, times your site's electricity rate, and labels the result Modeled. Only days the import read completely count, and heating it can't price is listed as hours. It is not a meter reading, a utility bill or a saving: some of that runtime may be needed for cleaning, events or ventilation. The 40 to 80% range is a scenario, labeled as an assumption. There is no projected year.
What does our business office get?
A one-page report to print or save as a PDF: the modeled runtime cost in hours worth reviewing with its dates and coverage, the scenario, the four kinds of hours with the changes to consider, the top rooms, what is not priced and why, the assumptions, and a short summary to paste into an email. Behind it, a CSV with one row per thermostat and kind of hour: the hours, the runtime, the modeled cost and the rate.
Who can see our data?
Only the people you invite, each limited to the sites, buildings or devices you assign. Isolation between organizations is enforced by the database itself.
What does a pilot involve?
We connect one of your sites read-only, look at what Zonefold finds with your team, including the Savings figure and its report once the days are read, and decide together whether it is useful. Pilots are free while we validate the product. To start one, use the pilot request form or email hello@zonefold.com.
Where do the screens and numbers on this page come from?
From Pelican's public demo site, a California school campus, with readings from October 4 to 11, 2026. Savings and Room use need weeks of history, so the screenshots repeat that week's real days over the weeks around it, up to October 23, 2026, when they were taken. Names were changed to sample names, and the dollar figures come from that sample data and a sample electricity rate: they are not a result. The 7.9-hour figure is a replay of the original week on one unit.
Free pilot
Start with one of your sites
Tell us your organization, how many sites you run and roughly how many Pelican thermostats. We'll connect one site read-only and walk through the findings with your team, from the first unit to look at to the runtime worth reviewing.
Start a free pilotOr email hello@zonefold.com