Smart Thermostats

[dex08]

Just curious if any of you have installed a smart thermostat and if your utility bills have decreased or increased? Is it worth the $ to change out my old thermostats? Also, do you have more than one installed in the same house (we have two a/c units - one for downstairs and the other for upstairs)? Which model do you have (Ecobee, Nest, Honeywell Lyric or other) and why did you select that particular model?

I’ve done some research and can’t decide.

We only have 4 wires and would need the 5th C-wire connected in order to install most of these fancy new thermostats - the 5th unused wire is in the wall already but not connected to the furnace so it won’t need to fish another wire in the walls but would need to hire a HVAC professional to connect it.

TIA!

 

[pklein09]

I don't have a "smart" thermostat - the kind controlled remotely via smart device. I do have 2 programmable thermostats because we have 2 zone heat/ac. I can program individual days if I wanted. I only program for M-F and Sa/Su. Downstairs is different from upstairs. For the downstairs in the winter, I think the temperature changes 4 times during the week - before we get up, after we leave for work, when we come back from work, when we go to bed. It only changes twice on the weekends. For upstairs in the winter, I have a different set up. It goes up before we wake up, goes lower than the downstairs temp all day (there's no one up there), goes up before bed, a little lower to sleep, and up again about 30 min before we wake up.

AC is different. I keep that pretty much at a constant temperature upstairs all the time. At night, I turn the AC off downstairs. There's no one down there and the coolness stays until the next day. I'll turn it back on when I get warm.

That being said, my high temp in the winter is 70. In the summer, it's 78. I don't like frigid temperatures. I also have ceiling fans in all the bedrooms as well as the kitchen.

I saw an immediate change in my heating/electric bill when we installed them 6-7 years ago. I wouldn't have a house without them. Oh, the other thing we did was insulate our house really, really well and install energy efficient HVAC units. My bills dropped 35% or so. For a 2800 sq. ft. house in NJ, my gas bill is $89/month and electric is $99/month for equal billing. It readjusts once a year, but never more than a few dollars either way. Gas dryer, gas hot water heater, gas stove, electric well pump.

ETA: It was a combination of insulation and efficient HVAC units coupled with the programmable thermostats that lowered our bills. Just the thermostat alone probably won't save all that much.

 

[tvguy]

I had a programmable thermostat for several years. Had it set to be off when we weren't home, and only heat or cool when we were. I couldn't detect any difference in my electric bill.

We found the best way to save energy was to keep the house at the same temperature all the time, albeit a bit cooler than we had in the past in the winter, and a bit warmer than we had in the past in summer. But, I have a heat pump, not a separate furnace and A/C and I have just the one unit for a 2010 square foot house. I also have solar....I don't own the panels, so I pay for the energy from them at a lower rate than my utility charges, and I sell power back I don't use. My combined electric and solar bill is about $150 to $190 a month year round.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I have a Honeywell smart thermostat. It connects via Wifi and allows me to change the temperature remotely. I have it programmed with an upper and lower threshold, so that it never gets above 74 and never goes below 66. But if the temperature is anywhere in that range, I am alright with it. This means that my furance/AC will kick on less frequently, especially during Spring and Fall. It has saved money on my bill, though I had additional insulation installed at the same time as the thermostat, so it is hard to say exactly how much is attributed to one versus the other.

I find it particularly useful when we go away on trips. I will put the threshold higher/lower than usual when we are away for long periods of time. I then set it back to the normal range a few hours before we get back home. This definitely saves us money.

 

[MrPTato]

Just curious if any of you have installed a smart thermostat and if your utility bills have decreased or increased? Is it worth the $ to change out my old thermostats? Also, do you have more than one installed in the same house (we have two a/c units - one for downstairs and the other for upstairs)? Which model do you have (Ecobee, Nest, Honeywell Lyric or other) and why did you select that particular model?

I’ve done some research and can’t decide.

We only have 4 wires and would need the 5th C-wire connected in order to install most of these fancy new thermostats - the 5th unused wire is in the wall already but not connected to the furnace so it won’t need to fish another wire in the walls but would need to hire a HVAC professional to connect it.

TIA!

I didn't have the C wire attached either. I looked in the furnace and I could see where it would connect right to the unit. All the wires running from the thermostat went right to a circuit board. Just needed a philips screwdriver and hit the breaker to shut the power off. Take a look before spending money for a tech to come look at it.

I have the nest and I like it for the most part. I had a honeywell in the last house that was also great. Both work fine and are easy to use. Nest learns your routine but in this house, it is never the same everyday so no benefit here.

 

[MrPTato]

Also, check as some thermostats may have a rebate from your utility. I got my nest for around $50 as I was able to double dip on rebates.

 

[FredtheDuck]

We have a Nest thermostat. We liked the form factor, the ease of programming, and the ability to change temp from your phone. Yes, it saved us a little money when we allow it to go in to "away" mode when we aren't home. We don't allow that so much anymore (we have someone home all day right now, so we don't want them to freeze), so the difference probably isn't huge. A funny little thing I really appreciate in the early mornings: It detects motion and lights up, which makes it like a little nightlight when I'm walking from our room to the kitchen.

We also have the Nest Protect fire alarms and our toddler's room has a Nest Cam (older generation) in it. I really like that everything is integrated in to one application.

Like @MrPTato said, check for rebates. We got one from our power company.

 

[wenrob]

We just had the duct work for upstairs redone and a couple of dampers put in. We had an issue where my room gets extremely warm but in order for it to be comfortable my DS could build an igloo in his room on the opposite end of the hall. At the same time I bought two Ecobee 3s, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. I chose them for a variety of reasons but the two main ones were, you can add sensors for your rooms and it works with Alexa and/or Apple Home. I haven’t decided which I’m going with so I wanted something with both options. I managed to find kits with the Ecobees and three sensors for only $20 more than an Ecobee with one sensor.

So far, I really like them. The sensors detect when someone is in a room and average all sensors to determine whether to kick things on or off. If one room is a little warm or cold but unoccupied and the other rooms are fine it will disregard that temp when determining if it should kick on or not. I’m particularly excited about being able to create “Night Shift” and “Day Shift” scenes. My DH works a rotating shift and trying to set that up on a programmable thermostat was pretty much impossible. The price of the Ecobees was worth that alone. Whether it saves us money or not remains to be seen come this summer. I can only imagine it will help since the air upstairs won’t be running near as much.

 

[wenrob]

We have a Nest thermostat. We liked the form factor, the ease of programming, and the ability to change temp from your phone. Yes, it saved us a little money when we allow it to go in to "away" mode when we aren't home. We don't allow that so much anymore (we have someone home all day right now, so we don't want them to freeze), so the difference probably isn't huge. A funny little thing I really appreciate in the early mornings: It detects motion and lights up, which makes it like a little nightlight when I'm walking from our room to the kitchen.

We also have the Nest Protect fire alarms and our toddler's room has a Nest Cam (older generation) in it. I really like that everything is integrated in to one application.

Like @MrPTato said, check for rebates. We got one from our power company.

I have those fire alarms in my wishlist. Do you like them? I would need 8 minimum so a pretty big investment if I decide to go with them.

 

[FredtheDuck]

I have those fire alarms in my wishlist. Do you like them? I would need 8 minimum so a pretty big investment if I decide to go with them.

We love them. They're carbon monoxide detectors, too, and when we had our new AC installed they detected a small leak (very, very small) that we were able to have the AC company come out and repair before it became dangerous.

A couple of things I really appreciate:
- They give you a bit of a warning if they're going to go off (most of the time): "Caution. There's smoke in the kitchen. The alarm will sound. The alarm is loud..." And that usually gives me enough time to go shut it off in the warning stage before it goes off.
- Two ways to silence: A button on the alarm itself, and a notification on your phone. For some reason, DH gets the notifications on his phone faster than I do, so the latter only tends to work for him. I just poke the button with a broom and it stops. Silencing one silences the whole system.
- If it DOES go off without the warning, it's because it detected a good amount of smoke or really does think there's a fire, and it won't let you silence it until you've remedied the source of the problem (read: let some smoke out of your kitchen).
- It has the same nightlight feature the thermostat has, so if you walk near it, it'll put out a gentle light, which I love.
- The system works together. So the warning could start in the kitchen but the one in the back of the house will stay silent UNTIL the actual alarm in the kitchen goes off, at which point the one it the back won't immediately blare, but it will verbally say "Caution: there's smoke in the kitchen." In a full-on emergency, they'll all blare.
- It also works with our Nest cam and records incidents. For us, it's a dumb feature, because it records my kids room when the "action" was in the kitchen, but I could see that being of value to others.
- It automatically tests itself routinely and sends a message to everyone's phone that is connected to it warning you that it will test and the results of those tests.

Now, you might have noticed that I gave a lot of examples of kitchen events. It IS a sensitive alarm (at least in my galley kitchen). I find it to be no more sensitive than the old "classic" white fire alarm I had before (and at least I get a warning before it screeches), but it will trigger in the kitchen if you're searing something and not running a vent fan, for example. Now that I've had it for a couple of years, I typically know if I'm making something that could trigger it, so I'm better about running the vent fan or opening a window up front.

 

[wenrob]

We love them. They're carbon monoxide detectors, too, and when we had our new AC installed they detected a small leak (very, very small) that we were able to have the AC company come out and repair before it became dangerous.

A couple of things I really appreciate:
- They give you a bit of a warning if they're going to go off (most of the time): "Caution. There's smoke in the kitchen. The alarm will sound. The alarm is loud..." And that usually gives me enough time to go shut it off in the warning stage before it goes off.
- Two ways to silence: A button on the alarm itself, and a notification on your phone. For some reason, DH gets the notifications on his phone faster than I do, so the latter only tends to work for him. I just poke the button with a broom and it stops. Silencing one silences the whole system.
- If it DOES go off without the warning, it's because it detected a good amount of smoke or really does think there's a fire, and it won't let you silence it until you've remedied the source of the problem (read: let some smoke out of your kitchen).
- It has the same nightlight feature the thermostat has, so if you walk near it, it'll put out a gentle light, which I love.
- The system works together. So the warning could start in the kitchen but the one in the back of the house will stay silent UNTIL the actual alarm in the kitchen goes off, at which point the one it the back won't immediately blare, but it will verbally say "Caution: there's smoke in the kitchen." In a full-on emergency, they'll all blare.
- It also works with our Nest cam and records incidents. For us, it's a dumb feature, because it records my kids room when the "action" was in the kitchen, but I could see that being of value to others.
- It automatically tests itself routinely and sends a message to everyone's phone that is connected to it warning you that it will test and the results of those tests.

Now, you might have noticed that I gave a lot of examples of kitchen events. It IS a sensitive alarm (at least in my galley kitchen). I find it to be no more sensitive than the old "classic" white fire alarm I had before (and at least I get a warning before it screeches), but it will trigger in the kitchen if you're searing something and not running a vent fan, for example. Now that I've had it for a couple of years, I typically know if I'm making something that could trigger it, so I'm better about running the vent fan or opening a window up front.

Thanks so much for this review. One of the reasons I’ve been considering them (aside from the carbon monoxide addition) is that pre warning and the ability to shut it down with my phone. If I’m searing something now the whole system goes off and won’t shut down even if it’s minimal. You’ve got me leaning towards this.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I had two new A/C units and 2 new furnaces installed last October with two smart thermostats. One on main floor, the other on 3rd floor with bedrooms. We went with Lenox for everything. I can't comment too much on difference in heating bill. We had a very cold winter and ran it more often and higher than usual. I also have a very large house (7500 square feet) and the highest the bill was $500 for the month. It's gone down since then. With the summer months approaching, it will be interesting to see the AC bill. I did run it once to see how it worked/how well it cooled and it cooled the house pretty fast. The old unit(s) were nearly 20 years old from previous owner. Everything was done with a very reputable company. Very pleased with their work.

 

[wishuponastar1984]

I have a Nest and didn't really notice a drop in my bills but I like the convenience factor. I travel a fair amount and would always set my thermostat on like 80 degrees when out of town but hated coming home to a hot house. I can now set it to a comfortable temperature from the airport/car when I am on my way home. The home/away feature didn't work well for me partially due to where my units are located. I have a home office and I could work for hours and it would think I was gone and then the house would get hot. My new favorite thing is that Nest integrates with my Amazon Echo so I can control it with my voice by saying "Alexa, turn the down temperature in the living room"

 

[FredtheDuck]

Thanks so much for this review. One of the reasons I’ve been considering them (aside from the carbon monoxide addition) is that pre warning and the ability to shut it down with my phone. If I’m searing something now the whole system goes off and won’t shut down even if it’s minimal. You’ve got me leaning towards this.

Yeah, just keep in mind that YMMV with regards to how effective that phone warning feature is. Works for DH all the time, spottier for me. We have the same phone, so I have no idea why the discrepancy happens. Maybe because he's the "primary" on the Nest account? Pure conjecture. But if that's the one reason you really want it, I want you to know that it's not always consistent. Again, you can still shut it off by hitting the button on the unit, and again, it works in zones, so those are plusses still.

 

[wenrob]

Yeah, just keep in mind that YMMV with regards to how effective that phone warning feature is. Works for DH all the time, spottier for me. We have the same phone, so I have no idea why the discrepancy happens. Maybe because he's the "primary" on the Nest account? Pure conjecture. But if that's the one reason you really want it, I want you to know that it's not always consistent. Again, you can still shut it off by hitting the button on the unit, and again, it works in zones, so those are plusses still.

No, not the only reason but it’s a plus. I’d be the primary because DH has no interest and is helpless to stop me in my quest for a Smart Home. I appreciate the heads up. Like you said, the zones would still be a plus. My kids freak because the whole house goes off and it won’t let me shut it down unless things are 100% clear. I get why it does it but if I’m manually pressing the button I feel it should take my word for it, lol.

 

[Ciao Mickey]

Our kids dragged us kicking and screaming into the 21st centurary by installing Nests, Wimos, fire alarms that light up halls, Amazon echos (which I unplugged, don’t need bozo spying) etc.

I don’t understand how the Nest will save you money though.

I set them all up so I turn them off and on when I want and not on a fixed schedule. What I love about the Nest is I can turn it on downstairs when I’m still in bed so it’s nice and warm when I decide to go down there.

It’s also great when you are gone on vacation and can just raise the heat before you get home.

 

[kool_kat]

We have 3 AC units (3 story house) and have Nests on all three of them. We really like them. We have them hooked up with our Alexa so I say "Alexa, what's the temp in the family room" or "Alexa, turn the heat to 72". I love that or that I can turn it up/down from my phone.

I'm not sure why we chose Nest other than we heard about it, liked it, and found a great deal. We installed them when we moved into this home, so I don't know about savings.

My brother/sister in laws recently installed the ecobee. Their reasoning for that was that their house heated / cooled unevenly and apparently it comes with sensors that somehow detects this and moves the heat / air to the areas needed. They said since installing, they are seeing a money savings. They got theirs from Costco and it was apparently a much better price than elsewhere.

 

[MikeNamez]

I love my Nest Thermostat and Cameras. Entire house is "Smart" as i converted all lights to Philips Hue with Wink Relays controlling them. The heat/AC bill has absolutely dropped but not a ton of money.... There's nothing cooler than telling google to "Watch TV" which will turn my lights on, kick up the heat and turn the TV on.

One important thing to note with most of the Smart Thermostats is that some local energy companies offer a rebate for buying.

 

[Ngwira]

We have a Nest 3rd generation and I really love it. It appears to be saving us money.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

We have a Nest and it's pretty cool! I don't know whether we save any money with it but it looks great and is easy to use.