Hello everyone, I recently bought a HE and I'm planning to use it to set it up to manage the climate in the home. I live in a ~720sqft apartment in Arlington, VA, and have four areas in the home I'd like to control: bedroom, living+dining room, den, and washroom.
Initially, I had thought of getting an Ecobee thermostat with its temperature/motion sensors and door/window sensors, together with Flair's smart vents. But as I researched further in this forum and on other places, it seems like there are better alternatives, going by: ability to work without Internet (ZigBee/Z-Wave), more direct control (vs a black box by the manufacturer), and lower price.
Here are my questions:
I am considering between the two highly recommended thermostats: Zen and Honeywell T6. From what I have found on the forum so far, it seems that both work equally well. Are there any specific quirks I should note?
Because my original plan was to use Ecobee's sensors for temperature, motion, and door/window detection, without that thermostat I'd need recommendations for alternatives. It would be good if they run on ZigBee or Z-Wave, though currently I'm using ZigBee for everything lighting-related.
(I actually own two AirThings View Pluses but I understand that they are not presently supported by HE and need the Internet to retrieve data.)
The biggest question I have is whether there are smart vents that work well with HE and/or the two aforementioned thermostats. The original plan was to use Flair with Ecobee, but without Ecobee, this is up in the air. I heard that Keen's products despite some quirks is still the best recommendation since it works without the Internet. Is this still the best practice?
Are there any other things I should note in setting this up? I'm new to all these so any advice will be greatly appreciated.
I like the Hue Motion sensors connected directly to HE for Motion and Temperature. They can also do Lux which can be very useful. Also, they require standard AAA batteries which seem to last pretty long. (I haven’t had to change mine yet, so not sure how long they last…)
Aeotec also sells the Smart Things Motion sensor which is equally as good and does both Motion and Temperature.
For contact sensors, I would recommend either the Ring Contact sensors which are Z-Wave or the Aeotec Smart Things contact sensor which are Zigbee. There are also Aubess Tuya Zigbee Door Sensors (AliExpress) which use AAA batteries if “standard” battery type is an important factor. I have ordered 4 of those recently and they seem to work well enough, though the adhesive they come with is not the best (it seems it may unsticks after a short while…). Also note that I can’t speak to the reliability of those Tuya sensors - they are too new and used in an area in which they don’t get activated much…
There are many other options out there, but in my opinion, these ones would provide ou with the most reliability and value.
It sounds like you may have enough repeaters for the Zigbee versions. If not, you may need to get more. If you go with Z-Wave, depending on where the sensors are located, you may want to look at repeaters. Aeotec and Ring make some pretty good ones.
I don’t have answers to your other questions, so hopefully someone else in the community can help you with those.
