"Smart" Thermostat, tried and true recommendation

[Searc]

Our most recent 2 homes were equipped with programmable thermostats that did not connect to the internet. We thought they work great and you can program individual days separately along with storing various programs. It lets you program to turn up the heat about 1 hr before you expect to get home during the winter and similarly turn down the A/C during the summer. If you have a seldom used guest bedroom, you can simply close the door and/or adjust the outlet for that room. If you have an older home where the windows or insulation aren't as good or perhaps have an older A/C & furnace that has trouble keeping up, then these devices will probably be of less value to you.

Good luck if your complicated programmable system has issues and you have to spend a frustrating hour on the phone with some off-shore non-English speaking help desk person. You might also have trouble finding a service person who will come out to your house if something goes wrong. Lately it seems service people can't be bothered with small jobs.

Our HVAC company installs/repairs thermostats.

 

[_19disnA]

I have read in other places if you have issues that cross products (like getting your Alexa type device to work with say a thermostat), you will likely have trouble figuring out who really owns the problem. Each company will say it is an issue with the other product. Installing a thermostat is the easy part and even someone with limited home handyman skills can do that.

While the OP is asking about 'smart' devices, the end result is still being able to adjust temp settings and there are some solutions which are more reliable/elegant/complicated then others.

 

[Etonduf]

I have read in other places if you have issues that cross products (like getting your Alexa type device to work with say a thermostat), you will likely have trouble figuring out who really owns the problem. Each company will say it is an issue with the other product. Installing a thermostat is the easy part and even someone with limited home handyman skills can do that.

While the OP is asking about 'smart' devices, the end result is still being able to adjust temp settings and there are some solutions which are more reliable/elegant/complicated then others.

And by the same logic, we could all be using flip phones from 15 years ago and have a reliable, elegant way to make calls and send texts, and we wouldn't have to worry about all of these security issues, update problems, apps crashing, etc. And we'd be saving tons of money in the bargain. But if we want to take advantage of new technology and convenient features, we take on some risk that things won't integrate perfectly.

It sounds to me like OP is willing to give it a shot, and I'm sure they could pop their old thermostats back on and return the new ones if necessary.

 

[_19disnA]

Depends on if the new technology adds enough value to be worth it and works reliably. Every year there are a few new electronic gadgets introduced and obviously the marketing people want us to believe we can't live without them. Just bought a new car and my current smart phone now has 'issues' with some phone features that worked fine on my prior car. The car dealer tells me the problem is the phone. Went to the phone store last week and they told me the phone is fine, the problem is the car..............go figure. Store offered to sell me a newer phone for some $500+.................I said no thanks will keep the phone I have.......LOL.

 

[wenrob]

Our most recent 2 homes were equipped with programmable thermostats that did not connect to the internet. We thought they work great and you can program individual days separately along with storing various programs. It lets you program to turn up the heat about 1 hr before you expect to get home during the winter and similarly turn down the A/C during the summer. If you have a seldom used guest bedroom, you can simply close the door and/or adjust the outlet for that room. If you have an older home where the windows or insulation aren't as good or perhaps have an older A/C & furnace that has trouble keeping up, then these devices will probably be of less value to you.

Good luck if your complicated programmable system has issues and you have to spend a frustrating hour on the phone with some off-shore non-English speaking help desk person. You might also have trouble finding a service person who will come out to your house if something goes wrong. Lately it seems service people can't be bothered with small jobs.

This is kind of a weird post. They’re thermostats, what kind of problem do you think there would be? And they’re not complicated at all. They’re very simple to install and use. They’re a hundred times easier to figure out than the kind you’re suggesting. I’m going to guess you’ve never used one or played around with one in Home Depot.

 

[wenrob]

Depends on if the new technology adds enough value to be worth it and works reliably. Every year there are a few new electronic gadgets introduced and obviously the marketing people want us to believe we can't live without them. Just bought a new car and my current smart phone now has 'issues' with some phone features that worked fine on my prior car. The car dealer tells me the problem is the phone. Went to the phone store last week and they told me the phone is fine, the problem is the car..............go figure. Store offered to sell me a newer phone for some $500+.................I said no thanks will keep the phone I have.......LOL.

You probably just need a software update on one or the other.

 

[_19disnA]

My point about the thermostat is the connectivity with Alexa/bluetooth, etc. COULD pose issues. I have installed various standalone thermostats at my house, so that is NOT an issue. Was simply trying to provide some alternatives for the OP to consider.

(I asked the phone store about my phone needing a software update. They checked and indicated the software is current.)

 

[Disneyfan754321]

In our Texas house we have a Honeywell. TXU provided it in a deal i found in a bill insert.
It runs through an app. our electric bill went down an average of $25 a month.
Check with your electric provider they may have a special deal for you too.

 

[wenrob]

My point about the thermostat is the connectivity with Alexa/bluetooth, etc. COULD pose issues. I have installed various standalone thermostats at my house, so that is NOT an issue. Was simply trying to provide some alternatives for the OP to consider.

(I asked the phone store about my phone needing a software update. They checked and indicated the software is current.)

They are separate things. You don’t need Alexa to run them. The WiFi can go out occasionally but it’s not a big deal. No different than the power going out really. The advantage of these is you don’t lose your programming if/when that happens.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

We have alexa, i never use it to control the ac/heat. I reallly don't know many people that do. Just fyi

 

[Searc]

My point about the thermostat is the connectivity with Alexa/bluetooth, etc. COULD pose issues. I have installed various standalone thermostats at my house, so that is NOT an issue. Was simply trying to provide some alternatives for the OP to consider.

(I asked the phone store about my phone needing a software update. They checked and indicated the software is current.)

You don't need to use them with Alexa, google home, etc. I don't, because I don't want to.

 

[DisneynBison]

I just put in a Honeywell T6 lyric wifi. It works great. There are 4 times each day that you can set the temp change. My wife works from home a few days a week and I get done early on 1 of the other days. We are able to set up each day of the week to what schedule to run and then the app combined the like days. I actually have 3 different settings for M-F and the weekends are then another setting. It has geofencing but we don't use it, so cant review it.

I can turn it on or off and switch between heat and cooling.

I love having the Wifi connection. Crawled into bed a few nights ago when it was below 0 and it was a bit cold upstairs. Grabbed the phone and bumped up the temp a couple degrees and let it go back down to normal temp at the next time setting which was a 1.5 hours later. Worked great and I can be anywhere and know the temp or get alerted if the temp gets out of the range I set.

Setting up the app was a bit tougher than it should have been as my phone kept switching to cellular from the wifi. Went great after I put phone into airplane mode but made sure wifi was on. Also when setting up the App my email spam filter kept grabbing the email confirmation so had to find it in spam.

 

[landscapelens]

we love our nest system too. Great to to be able control the thermostat from the phone.

 

[mikehn]

I love my Nest simply because I can control everything from my phone. But I must admit, it's way smarter than I need it to be and sometimes I just override it. I dont like being outsmarted.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Another vote for Nest. We have 2 (one on each floor, separate units). It's REALLY easy to install and use. It learns as you use it so you never have to program it. I can adjust it from work, from 1000 miles away while on vacation, or even from bed. THAT is about the nicest feature you never knew you needed.

 

[ImDMous]

We love our Nest. I installed it and I'm not an HVAC tech so it can't be too hard. We replaced a older programmable Honeywell to get the connected features. Works great with our Google Home when we ask it to adjust the temp. We also have a Nest CO2 detector, 2 Smoke Alarms and 2 cameras and they all work great together.