Smart Thermostat Questions

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1) Are they actually worth the investment of roughly $250 or so?

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no

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2) Assuming all play nice with my heating/ac units, does anyone think any are the best? I'm interested in the Nest and ecobee 3.

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get you a rock solid honeywell without colored moons and shite and you will save a fortune. i've set up 6 of these on everything from multi-stage systems to heat pumps, forced air & propane/NG units.


Amazon link, but cheapest is around $95 right now

keep an eye on marketplace, i didnt pay over $70 for any of the units i've bought.

i can tell you EVERYTHING about these.

they are smart like nest and get firmware updates OTA from time to time from honeywell and no monthly fees and work with wink.

they can learn over time how long it takes to heat up or cool your house & adjust the timing of when the heat comes on to meet the time you arrive.

and they're rock solid having been installed in millions of commercial buildings worldwide.

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get you a rock solid honeywell without colored moons and shite and you will save a fortune. i've set up 6 of these on everything from multi-stage systems to heat pumps, forced air & propane/NG units.

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I have two of these installed at the house and work perfectly.

i would never argue with any of what you are saying but the thermostat you linked is just flat out ugly.


Sure a thermostat isnt a painting on the wall but if you are going to get a smart one you can pay an additional $70 and at least get one that doesnt look like its from the 80s.

From what I've heard, I think Nest is on the decline while ecobee is moving up.

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I have a Nest in my office and I hate it.

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this is where the 1 billion in R&D dollars honeywell spends every year comes in handy

the best part of the honeywell is its a mature hardcore commercial product with an army of engineers at their disposal to program it to never fail.

Love my Nest at home. Looks great (mine thermostat happens to be out in the open) and has easily paid for itself already.

this is similar to the honeywell, but looks a little better. emerson also a major commercial system player LINK

i have no experience with either, but i have been looking into these lately and trying to decide which i want.

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But it's not that much extra to have it look a little nicer.

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not true. i needed two and $70 x 2 = $140

nest v3 is $250 x 2 = $500

no way i'm spending $360 more on something that isn't as robust as honeywell because it has a color moon that winks at me when i pass by on my way to bed

ah gotcha

i thought you (or someone) was arguing about the nest v3 over the honeywell.

both of my units are out of the way (one is way down the hallway by the bedrooms) and the other is on a side wall by the laundry room so they're not in locations anyone would see unless they go looking for them.

I got the ecobee 3 about a month ago. I looked into the Nest as well as the cheaper Honeywell that CAD703X is pimping but I went with the ecobee 3 because I wanted Apple HomeKit/Siri integration.

I like the ecobee 3 a lot. My office is filled with electronics that heat up the room, so having the motion sensor temperature monitors pick up when I'm in there and adjust the system accordingly is nice.

However the Siri integration isn't as useful as I thought it'd be. Because I set up my schedule on the thermostat, I pretty much never have to adjust it; it does everything itself. So I never really use the available Siri commands. Being able to ask Siri "What is the temperature in my kitchen?" or tell Siri "Set the thermostat temperature to 72 degrees" is fricking cool though.

It also lets you log in with a computer and see a full schedule of everything your thermostat has done on a calendar with a timeline where you can see how often the system is running compared to your heat/cool settings and desired temperature. You can see the impact the outdoor weather is having on your home temperature (weather vs. how often the system is running, etc.) and also a timeline of where you were in your house at different times (which is kinda creepy, haha).

Ultimately I really like the thermostat but I'm not sure if I should have dropped $250 for all these bells and whistles. I probably would have been satisfied with the cheap Honeywell thermostat. If money is tight, you might want to look at that Honeywell. But I really do think the ecobee 3 is the best thermostat on the market. If you want all the bells and whistles, look no further.