I currently have 3 Nest Thermostats in my house. One on each level and each is a separate zone. We have a forced-air gas furnace and A/C. Each floor is about 1k square feet.
Also, I have C-wires, so I shouldn't need battery power. If our power goes out, our furnace won't work any way.
Wondering what the best thermostat is these days? I used to have 3 KONOz Lux's but had a heck of a time keeping them connected. Then I put in the Nests. They are OK, but I don't like the cloud dependance and also I'm sick of them forcing this ECO+ setting on me where they can control my Thermostats if the power grid needs it. I've opted out but every month or so it pops up asking me if I want to opt-in. Maddening.
I was thinking about going with Ecobee Premiums, but that doesn't solve the cloud issues and also, I've heard they are starting to prompt users to opt-in to their ECO+ setting as well.
Thanks for any advice you can give!
Edit: Also, I don't like the Nests due to Google getting rid of their APIs, as well.
HVAC needs can vary pretty greatly among different people’s homes, so it’s hard to say that one is “best” since it depends on the use case.
But in general, if you’re a satisfied Hubitat user, I’d suggest going with pretty much any z-wave or zigbee thermostat that’s compatible with your heating and cooling system.
Definitely a happy Hubitat user. I just wanna make sure the one I go with has a good chance of being the "best" one for me because there are 3 of them, so the cost is quite expensive.
Thinking about maybe just getting one for now and seeing how it goes before replacing the others.
Thinking about going with the Honeywell T6 Pro (Z-Wave).
Does anyone have any opinions on that one? Or any other ones?
It is not a good thermostat to use with multi-stage equipment. This is because switching between first and second stage is not controlled by a delta-T (difference in setpoint vs ambient temp). Rather, it is set by cycles per hour (CPH).
My house was very uncomfortable with this thermostat and a 2-stage heat-pump.
I switched from using it to a GoControl thermostat, which like the ecobee, permits multi-stage equipment to be controlled based on delta-T. Even higher-grade Honeywell WiFi thermostats use delta-T in place of CPH.
I really like the Ecobee thermostat and works very well with Hubitat.
I was extremely impressed with Ecobee's support. I ran into an into an installation issue where although there was a c-wire for my thermostat, it just wasn't working. Their support had me open up my heating unit only to find out the HVAC people didn't connect the c-wire to the circuit board. After that, I was up and running and there was no looking back.
Based on client we either install the Honeywell T6 or the Ecobee. We did a lot of large homes with multiple HVAC units 3 to 4 years ago and the primary Thermostat for occupancy was the Ecobee since it runs mostly local except for automation integration where you need to use their cloud. Many of the smaller installs we have done the T6. We have never trusted the contractors' recommendations since they really go the easy route and put in the HVAC manufactures proprietary solutions. You would think if a person is spending lots of $$$'s for a custom house they cheap out on the thermostat because the contractor.
Fully variable speed condensers made by major (traditional) HVAC manufacturers like Lennox, Trane, and Carrier are not supported by conventional thermostats.
The comfort level offered by fully variable speed units far surpasses anything achievable by single and dual stage condensers. So I’m surprised that these $$$ builds aren’t using variable speed units.
That being said, variable speed units from new entrants in the market (like Bosch) do work with conventional thermostats.
A friend of mine used to be a Carrier dealer. He's got an Infinity heat pump with propane and multi zone air distribution and the Infinity controls. His house is very comfortable and the system is very controllable. It's several years old, so maybe not the latest.
I've had two of the Ecobee older, simpler, thermostats for a few years now. They've been good to me. I've tried the integration, but didn't see the point of using Hub resources for continued cloud dependence.
Also, fun fact: Generac owns Ecobee. If you went with Ecobee, you'd be supporting a Wisconsin enterprise...in some way.
