Need Thermostat Recommendation

I am about to have a new Heating and AC put in my house in the next couple of weeks. I am currently limping along with a Vera Lite, and won't be moving to Hubitat for a couple of months.

I am looking for a recommendation for a Z-wave thermostat that:

  1. Can be manually programmed so that I can use it until I move to Hubitat.
  2. Is easily supported and functions well with Hubitat.

Thank you for your time.

I've been through more than a few different z-wave/zigbee thermostats. I currently have Honeywell T6 Pro Z-Wave and am very happy.

The only issue I have is the Humidity reports too often. It reports on every 1% change in humidity. This causes it to send more messages to the Hub than I think is necessary but it doesn't effect my system

NOTE there is a Honeywell T6 Pro WiFi which I don't have experience with. I personally try to stay away from WiFi devices. PLUS I don't believe the Hubitat driver works with WiFi.

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I've been using a GoControl Z-Wave thermostat for a while now. It's rock solid with Hubitat and includes both wired and battery power. Looks like it's about $90 on Amazon.com. Not sure of the manual programmability though.

https://www.gocontrol.com/detail.php?productId=3

Doesn’t natively have a schedule function just a heat set point and a cooling set point, but the Advanced GoControl driver combined with the Thermostat Scheduler app are a solid combination.

I really like the Vivint CT-200 “Element” thermostat. Clean. Simple. Reliable. The only downside is that they don’t sell retail, so you have to find one on eBay or somewhere similar.

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The Zen thermostat is well liked, it's Zigbee, and those who have it seem to feel it's a good option. I have one I've been playing with (not hooked up) and the display is easy to read in person (looked a little washed out in pics, but no problem live) and the interface is easy to use.

You should decide if you are OK with your home automation system being the place where you make your HVAC intelligent. Or if you'd prefer something that integrates well, but is a pretty smart thermostat on its own if you suddenly decided not to have a hub any more.

I fall in the latter camp, and chose Ecobee. It is working out well for me. Having said that, I used to say I love Ecobee. Lately it has been more I sorta like it. The company is not without faults.

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Heating and A/C are way to critical to be performed by a HA Hub. I have always used the thermostat as the controlling source of the HVAC. There has to be good integration where you can override the device and safeguards in place for HA that devices like Ecobee provide.

I currently have Honeywell T6 Pro Z-Wave and also am very happy.

I have an Ecobee. It's wifi, but Hubitat has a driver for it, and there's also a user-developed driver with more features. I find the Hubitat driver sufficient for everything I need to automate.

I, too, don't think the home automation hub should be used for critical things, but I limit that to home security. Using the hub for HVAC is fine in my book, so I'd be happy with a z-wave thermostat that does what I want.

To me, the big advantage of the Ecobee is that it has integrated remote temperature monitors with presence detection, so you can optimize your use of HVAC.

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And you can control Ecobee all locally using Apple HomeKit (and then bring it into Hubitat if wanted), and not worry about their shitty cloud service.

I bring 4 Ecobee thermostats and a half dozen external sensors into Home Assistant via HomeKit, then into Node-red where I do my logic. I own literally zero Apple devices (I'm an android/Google guy), so that is not a requirement.

I don't really do anything with the Ecobee info in node-red, but it's there if I wanted to.... LOL.

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I thought you had to have at least one Apple device (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, etc.) to use HomeKit. How do you use it w/out any Apple devices?

Home assistant has a homekit controller as an add-on/integration. Or one could use homebridge.

You have to have an apple hub or tv to do local automations, but not to just connect things to a homekit controller.

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Also, if you're putting a fancy system in (multi-stage) and/or variable speed, some (most) smart thermostats may not work with it.

I have an American Standard Platinum Heat Pump/AC system, and the only "smart" thermostat is a Trane/American Standard Nexia enabled POS, that wants to be your Zwave hub, not a member of your network.

S.

Some thermostats are good about accepting information from Hubitat, but not good about providing information to Hubitat. Ecobee is in that category. If the scenario you are planning for is to have Hubitat adjust setpoints or change the thermostat among modes (heating, cooling, auto, and off), the Ecobee will probably work well for you. It is a cloud (Wifi+internet) integration as opposed to being local.

In terms of reliably exchanging information with Hubitat locally (both receiving and sending), I have had good results with GoControl (ZWave) and Zen (Zigbee). I have heard from others that Honeywell T6 (ZWave), and Vivint CT-200 (ZWave) are also good. I have a Radio CT-100 which works well only if I call the Refresh() function frequently. I don't know whether any of these manage schedules on their own. I know Zen does not.

Some general advice unrelated to home automation - make sure your contractor does a proper load calculation. HVAC contractors are notorious for installing oversized equipment. They often either skip the load calculation and just use the size of the old system or put in incorrect inputs to the Manual J software so that it overstates the loads.

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I have written an HVAC control App for Hubitat which I am using to control my furnace and AC. I have made it available to others but I don't know whether anyone else is using it. A high percentage of the code is devoted to making sure the system doesn't do anything too bad if a message from a sensor or to an actuator is missed. For example, it wouldn't run the furnace indefinitely if the command to the relay to turn off the furnace got lost. If Hubitat goes completely AWOL, it can be set up to revert to working as a single zone non-automated system. Some of the fail-safe features are in the software itself and some are in my recommendations for wiring the system, like having one wired thermostat.

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I am new to Hubitat, and I do have this same thermostat on my old smartthings hub, and was wondering if you might be able to walk me through how you got yours to work. It looks like all the batteries are to be removed and then replaced while you hold down the "MODE and FAN" at the same time till "RESET" appears. Nothing comes up while the z-wave looks for it. I copied and pasted the driver but I might need more education as to how this all works. Any help is greatly appreciated, Thanks

I bought mine after I got Hubitat, so I didn't have to go through the reset process you mention. That said, the online instructions should provide assistance.

Once it's been added to Hubitat, you can change the device type to 'GoControl Z-Wave Thermostat' if it didn't automatically select that driver. It's a built-in driver so no need to copy and paste a custom driver.

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Looking for a smart thermostat that stays local (have nest and don't want ecobee etc). Any good recommendations that would keep my thermostat controller local and that works well with the hubitat. Thanks

I've stuck with my CT-50, but I never got the Z-Wave module to work, never got a refund from the manufacturer, and had to run a power wire to the thermostat to get the WiFi to work.

Wife: "Why are you pulling that wire through the wall, Jim?"
Me: "To make the WiFi for the thermostat work."
Wife: "So you are WIRING a "wireless" device?"
Me: "Grrrr..."