I’m looking to get opinions on which smart thermostat I should go with for our home. Very typical HVAC setup consisting of one air conditioner and one furnace. We do have a powered humidifier installed on it, however it has its own separate controller on it and since we typically set it once at beginning of winter and shut it off in springtime, I see no reason to complicate things by trying to automate the humidifier. I also have many 4-in-1 sensors (zooz) already placed around the house so I don’t think I would need any thermostat-specific sensors (ex:ecobee), however it also doesn’t hurt either. Already have a very robust z-wave plus network. Zig bee network is smaller but no connectivity issues so far. Also using two hubs in a server/remote combo. Currently server hub has no physical devices to it, so it could be used as a standalone hub for the thermostat, and would be plenty close.
Up for consideration
Honeywell T6 Pro z-wave
Zen (zig bee or WiFi?)
Looking for opinions and input. I’ll gladly consider other options as well.
Now, you didn't indicate whether you want it to be a programmable thermostat or not.
It might not be "flashy" (who is sitting around looking at their thermostats enough to care is completely beyond me though...), but I still advocate for the GoControl GC-TBZ48L z-wave plus model. Works perfectly, zero quirks (no weird temperature readings on occasion like the T6). But it is NOT programmable - you would have to do temperature scheduling external with thermostat scheduler app, or RM rules.
Can be found dirt cheap on ebay too (I paid I think $29 for the last development one I picked up).
$36 New in box, but there are even cheaper ones on ebay if you want used:
If you need/want local programmability, then probably something like the Honeywell T6.
Does the GoControl have built in safeguards if it were to lose communication with the hub? Basically does it have high/low limits so if it does lose communication, it doesn’t continuously run either the AC or furnace.
As Jason said, GoControl is a great thermostat. Nothing fancy but if you want a dependable thermostat that utilizes Hubitat's thermostat app and at a great price, I to would recommend GoControl. One important note, I'd definately recommend you have a C wire to power it . i was using batteries and it eats them up. Never got more then 2 weeks. Once I converted my Fan wire to a C wire , its ran great!
Now as safeguards. If you lose power NATURAL nothing is gonna run. I've NEVER had it drop connection to Hubitat. I have my hub on a battery backup so if power goes out its still communicating with my hub ( if the thermostat is utilizing batteries, which I don't recommend) BUT AGAIN all appliances are down anyway. If the hub goes down AND you still have power to the house, the thermostat will draw power from the C wire and you can manually control the GoControl. BUT your schedule will not run until Hubitat is up. One benefit to running on Hubitat is if your internet goes down , the majority of your devices will still function unlike a wifi thermostat. Believe me, for the money you can't go wrong and the driver for it is listed in Hubitat.
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If communication to Hubutat is lost, it retains whatever the last mode and setpoint was. Now if that last mode was "off" for some reason, well that's where it would stay.
Jason, wouldn't you manually be able to set mode and temp from the GoControl thermostat when Hubitat connection was lost?
Yes, of course. You can always set mode and setpoint locally at the thermostat with the buttons on the thermostat.
I was thinking more along the lines of what happens if communication is lost and I'm on vacation/not in the house. Good point on local control, though!
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