I just bought a Hubitat and anticipate playing around with it primarily because it will be in a vacation home and I would like to use remote access. I have zero experience with the current generation of HA hardware but years ago I put X-10 hardware in our current home and wrote a few thousand lines of VB to run the house. Scenarios, synthesized voice, power control via Opto-22 industrial stuff, etc. It has fallen into disuse due to powerline interference from outside the house and general sloth.
Anyway, we are building this new house and the HVAC contractor is proposing a Ruud LP furnace and a Ruud AC system with their "EcoSmart" thermostat, but not a Ruud smart water heater. For the time being this will be a stand-alone KISS system, but I am looking ahead to playing with it. I have reviewed a huge thread re using the Ruud thermostat and it seemed kind of discouraging because Ruud apparently has no interest in having or supporting an automation API. So, I am wondering if another thermostat would be a better choice. I lean towards Honeywell because of their experience in HVAC control. I will not consider thermostats like the Ring due to general distrust of "the cloud."
So, folks, what would you advise a newbie to do here?
Depends on what you want to do with your HVAC from home automation. Some folks just want to get data from their thermostat to control additional functions on their controller, other want the Hubitat to be the smarts driving the HVAC, and others are mixed in the middle.
If Rudd doesn't have services then the choice is Honeywell or some of the other supported thermostats. Just do a search here and you will find hundreds of posts on the pluses and minuses of the thermostats on the market.
The Zen zigbee thermostat is also popular...should be available on eBay, and maybe via some sellers on Amazon. Local control via hub, no cloud required.
The Honeywell T6 Pro z-wave (also local, no cloud needed) and Zen zigbee thermostats can integrate w/the HE thermostat controller app:
