Best Zigbee Thermostat in 2020?

So my Zen arrived today, to compare to the Honeywell T6 that I had originally purchased to replace my Nest.

Paired easily w/the Hub, just pulled the battery strip out and set the hub in inclusion mode and it joined immediately.

One thing that I'm not clear on, is there are settings under the "Info" option that I don't get. Can someone explain what these "Info" settings are? Searched for "Info" in the Zen install PDF and didn't find anything.

When I tap up or down arrows on "Info" the options below appear.

It also won't let me out of "setup" mode...I can't get it to go on to the standard display screen. I've set cooling and heating set points on the device page. It appears I can't play w/it if it's disconnected from an actual HVAC system.

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Is the Installer guide of any help?

Nope. :wink:

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oops, I missed that. :man_facepalming:

Btw, Amazon hadn't shipped my Pearls so I was able to cancel the order - Im looking forward to getting the Zen's.

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Good news! :slight_smile:

It does look kinda cool, and the display is much more readable than it looked to me in pics, so that is good. Just would like to start playing w/it but want to have all the settings done right before I start messing other things up. :slight_smile:

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Just looking thru that manual, it appears "info" is just:

If you press the Setting icon, does that exit?

Btw, did you run through the online configurator to generate your config code? Without this it wont know what type of system it's managing.

https://zenecosystems.com/zenthermostat/install/install.php?hub=smartthings

eg my upstairs system looks like this (I couldnt help myself):

Yeah, didn't do that yet...since I'm just going to play around with it, I guess I can go ahead and configure. Would still like to know what those Info settings are for... :slight_smile:

One of those is the firmware version, but I'm not sure what the other version-looking number is. (I have the most recent firmware update on these that a SmartThings update around a year or so applied to it. This is thermostat firmware 2.32. It was never the same since...but that's another story.) My guess is that "XXX" would display your configuration code (e.g., "31N" if you have the same setup as in the manual example above). I can tell you I never used "Info" in my years of using a Zen Thermostat except for checking the firmware version after that update. :slight_smile:

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I'd suggest doing that as the manual seems to imply that it won't operate correctly until you complete the config.

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Cool...thanks for that info. I'll see what I can find out about 2.16 and 2.52. Either way I don't have 2.32, so maybe both are good news? :wink:

So here's the FW release info from SmartThings:

So looks like I have 2.16, so I'm happy? :wink:

@bertabcd1234 - what don't you like about 2.32? I believe I actually could get the update (I stil l have my ST hub connected) but based on your comments my tendency would be to skip it.

I was trawling thru the manual again and I found this:

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I can't remember everything it broke, but I know some commands and reporting to/from the thermostat did not work, specifically with respect to fan operating state. If yours is working fine for you, I would advise heeding the old adage about fixing things that aren't broke. :slight_smile: (On the other hand, I'm really curious if this problem was just me, but it happened after a reset and when paired to either Hubitat or ST, so :man_shrugging:.) Nothing super-important to me like setpoint-setting broke, locally or remotely, but I'm pretty sure I could only turn the fan on physically, and I ended up replacing the device since I had something available and am not aware of any way to downgrade.

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Thanks...yeah, my motto is if it ain't broke, it must belong to somebody else. :wink:

I'm still deciding between the Zen and the T6. We are still bouncing back and for between severe heat waves, so I'm not touching anything on the HVAC until that is over for this year. The Zen looks like it would be a little easier for my wife to change set points on (slightly simpler up/down arrows) and it will look a little nicer on the wall (a little less chunky than the T6) both things that she will likely favor. Since my interactions with it will be 99% through HE, all I really care about is that it communicates status and reacts to commands promptly.

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"I assume they are zigbee and not wifi versions?"

Yes, Zigbee version. I've been checking the website and nothing since I posted unfortunately.

All good, Im happy with ~$50 each I paid for mine. I'm just waiting for Aus Post to deliver them, hopefully this decade! :roll_eyes:

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I got my Zen Zigbee Thermostats yesterday and installed them - Im really pleased with them, they look amazing and work great. The wife thinks they look much nicer than our Gen2 Nests so that's another big win! :sunglasses:

The only thing I'm wondering is how I tell Hubitat that my Downstairs unit is Heat only?

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I think I found a solution:

That looked interesting, but I was wondering about what happens when you change drivers back to the Zen driver and don't hit Configure (I assume he didn't) and the Zen driver you end up on doesn't support those capabilities "left over" from the previous driver. Are those "left-over" capabilities then actually still available for use? Seems odd...