I have a pair of Ecobee 3 Lite thermostats. They are no frills, but have been working great for a couple of years now. I replaced a pair of Nest thermostats. I find the temperature control to be much better, resulting in more comfort when using the Ecobee.
Make sure you check with your power company to see if they offer a discount on smart thermostats. I recall buying both of mine with a significant discount.
Doesn't that lock you into their load shed program for peak shaving?
Not necessarily. Some electric utilities have rebates for smart thermostats without requirements for load shedding.
Not for me, at least not when I bought mine.
I have 9 thermostats - none had C wire. I bit the bullet one weekend and got C wires to all. I use T6 Pro's. They are compatable with my system and have worked absolutely perfectly. Some people have heating or cooling systems with features that may not be supported by the T6, so you should confirm.
OMG - there has to be a story here… I can’t be the only one dying to hear it.
Nothing exciting. My detached garage is one, then I have 8 heating zones in my (small) house. I have 2 cooling zones - 1rst floor and 2nd floor. The 2 cooling zones are shared on 2 of the centrally located thermostats (that are also near the returns) on each floor. So, when I redid my house, I used cast iron (sunrad) radiators throughout. I did home runs to a manifold with zone valves. At that point, I realized it would be pretty easy to let every room have it's own thermostat just by having a zone controller with enough zones - so that is what I did.
I have an ecobee as my main thermostat because I rely on the remote sensors for my particular setup. However, for my garage and detached workshop, a basic centralite was dirt cheap and works flawlessly. Search ebay for "Centralite 3156105." They don't look fancy, but for $20 the price is right. Many are surplus xfinity products but they'll work perfectly with HE.
Are the Centralites repeaters? Battery only? Thanks.
Not much information, above, about adding a C wire. I just did it to add a T6 Thermostat to an wall heater, and thought I would add some info. In most cases there will be AC power at/near the heating/cooling unit. You provide power to the 120V to 24V Tranformer from this power source. This Transformer reduces the power from 120V to 24V, which is the voltage used for a "C" wire. You will need to have a 5 wire thermostat wire run from the heating/cooling/Transformer to the thermostat. In my case, I was able to connect the new 5 wire to the old 2 wire, and pull it back through the wall to the thermostat location.
Here are the items you will probably need:
That's a good question...mine are battery powered with no c wire... non-repeating. Not sure how they would behave with a c wire and without batteries.
This endorsement helped put me over the edge. I already planned to move our thermostat and update the wiring. This morning, the missus asked about the humidifier settings and I grumbled about the dumb secondary control installed in the basement. We almost simultaneously said that we should just look for a smart thermostat that can also manage the evaporative humidifier. She will love the features - air quality monitor, voice assistant, and having the remote sensor in her office.
Turns out that our utility is offering incentives that bring the price to $135 (versus the current $220 sale price). I read the T&C to ensure that we don't yield any control.
Final bonus is that it should arrive in time to have my 14 y/o niece help to install it. It will be a fun, hand-on project (since I already know which wires don't follow conventional color codes).
Take pictures of the wiring at your existing thermostat and furnace control board before you start.
Post the photos here if you get stuck.
The offer is greatly appreciated. I installed a Centralite Pearl 2 years ago, which is why I know that the "Cool" terminal is currently Blue (to thermostat) and Red (to AC unit). "Common" is White (to AC unit). That will all be fixed.
I don't imagine that there is any color convention for the accessory connections to the humidifier, so I will just use goofy colors like pink/brown (bought 18/10 cable, so plenty of options).
Update:
So, if you can't run a C-Wire, check into the Google Nest Thermostat Power Adapter. It's pretty cool and doesn't need running of new wires. The adapter goes between your HVAC unit and the wire that goes to your thermostat. The adapter is specific to the newer Nest thermostats. Once I get the Matter aspects working, I hope to have full local control of this thermostat with Hubitat.
Ecobee offers a similar c-wire adapter (or at least they used to...i installed mine a few years back). Although full local control is not possible just yet.
They absolutely still do. At no extra charge.
And local control is possible (via HA and HADB).
I just I received and installed the ecobee premium thermostat and it comes with the adapter in the box.
Got the Ecobee Premium running yesterday and still nerding-out on settings. My niece helped to fish cable, strip wire, drill holes, etc. Warmed my heart when my brother told me later that she liked using the tools.
Not sure if anyone else does this, but I made a simple distribution box in our basement to join the individual cables - thermostat, furnace, humidifier, and air conditioning.
If you start a new thread posting details of your HVAC install, I'm sure there are community members who will pitch in with suggestions for ecobee premium settings.
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