20. An environmental control method, comprising: communicating digital data through a local area network; receiving sensed environmental climate conditions from at least one climate condition sensor; detecting a movement of an individual in a vicinity of a movement sensor; perform a pattern recognition process with at least one automated processor to jointly classify a temporal pattern of the sensed environmental climate conditions and the detected movement of the individual; and communicating at least one signal in dependence on the pattern recognition process, the at least one signal being adapted to at least control an environmental control system.
24. The method according to claim 20 , further comprising modeling the environmental control system, calculating at least one of a cost of operating the environmental control system and an efficiency of operating the environmental control system in dependence on a state of the at least one signal and the modeled environmental control system, and optimizing the at least one signal in dependence on said calculating.