I had a standard, basic "Dumb" Honeywell for many years and worked perfectly, although I had to manually change settings from the basic 5/2 day schedule to override them. Having Alexa, I wanted to have the ease to change it via voice as well as when I am not home, so I bought the "Smart" Honeywell. After a week, here are my pros and cons: PROS - INTERFACE: Despite what other reviewers have said, I find the interface intuitive and just fine to configure the device. - TOUCHSCREEN: I had none of the horror stories about the touchscreen, listed throughout these reviews. The interface worked surprisingly well and I never had to push anything more than once ever. - SIZE: The thermostat is surprisingly small, compared to my "Dumb" Honey, and I like it more. - TEMP: The temp has been spot on. - DOCUMENTATION: The documentation is complete and most DYI'ers will have no issue following them. - WIFI: Zero issues connecting it to my Wifi. - ALEXA: Zero issues integrating with Alexa. Voice control worked instantly after integration. - INTERFACE: One of the reasons I chose this one was because unlike pricier options, this one shows the external temp and humidity which is a great quick check without having to look anywhere else to verify. - REGISTRATION: Registering the device with the Honeywell website was easy. CONS - WIRE CONNECTORS - Having installed many thermostats, this one was easily the worst and VERY delicate to insert wires. I can see why many consumers, even experienced ones, broke the terminal connectors when attempting to insert them. There is VERY little room to work on the wall plate, and there are no screws like all the others I have ever installed. As a result, here is what I found. First, if you push the first wire in too far and forcefully, the other connectors will be "open" and won't accept the next wire. The next connector will be "loose" and never grip the second wire, and the FIRST one will fall out. I had to take a tweezer with a bent end to "reset" the first connector and then all the connectors reset and I could begin again. (I was ready to return it.) Second, on my next attempt, I realized that you insert a wire until you feel resistance and then "gently" push the wire in like .25 mm (barely nothing) until you feel the slightest click on your finger. Believe it or not, that small amount is all it takes to grip the wire securely. Start on the top of each side and work down gently until all the wires are installed. - FAN: Strangely, the "Dumb" Honey had "ON", "OFF", "AUTO" but "Smart" Honey has "ON", "AUTO", "CIRCULATING". As a result, I have to trust the thermostat to run the fan on its own and I cannot turn if off completely, short of turning off the heat or A/C. At this point, the fan seems to be following a more "intelligent" function related to the heating and does turn itself off when it sees fit. -HUMIDITY: Although the temp is spot on, I have 2 humidistats in the house that are both consistent by the humidity percentage on the "Smart" Honey seems off by 5% and varies from the other two. The thermostat has a configuration setting to adjust the default up or down by degrees you choose, but I have fiddled with this setting and have not seen a consistency in "Smart" Honey with my other two humidistats, one which is 5 feet away from "Smart" Honey. After a couple of attempts, the "Smart" Honey seems to lag on internal humidity value, while at other times, it's showing the same value. Overall, "Smart" Honey has definitely won my affections with its verbal attention to my requests and interface. As "Dumb" Honey sits on my counter, dejected, I have assured it that I am keeping it as a backup just in case this new Honey goes bonkers, breaks or increases my utility bills. Read more
Back when we had to have our HVAC serviced, I was told that there was no way to control the aux heat with the Hunter thermostat that I had been using for years. Back when I bought that one, my knowledge of thermostats for HVACs was more limited and since it had a good price and claimed to be able to work with heat pumps, I thought it would be a good one. I have since learned more about them and wanted to find a good one so I chose Honeywell which has been a leader in thermostats for years. I feel that I made a very good choice! Not only does it control the aux heat, it is MUCH easier to read (and from 15-20 feet away), has WIFI capabilities (with an app on the cell but can also use a laptop or tablet), learns your particular unit so it knows how long it takes to reach a desired temp and will adjust appropriately so that it reaches the set temp at the time you want and to beat it all, has the ability to have the background change to ANY color you want to match your decor (or contrast with it). My older Hunter unit worked well otherwise and I certainly realize that as we move forward in time, there are more and more capabilities built in to modern units, but the old one with a simple backlight was still dim and I had to be right in front of it to read the smaller details on it. Another thing is that the new unit does not need a battery to maintain settings and instead uses the required "C" or common wire for power. With the WIFI, you can set the schedule so you can still program it from the comfort of a chair. So far, I'm very happy with this thermostat. About the only thing is that I had to pay extra for a white unit as opposed to a grey unit which seems odd but guess the white one is more in demand. Read more
A very nice looking, easy to operate thermostat. It's easy to program and/or check via the phone app, the web site, or of course the face of the device. The many options for setup and operation can be a little daunting, but it's great to have those options. Once they're selected initially, there's little need to revisit them. I got this thermostat to replace my 18-year-old Trane programmable one. Both the Amazon product description and Honeywell advised me (before and after the purchase) to check with my local utility for possible rebates on smart thermostats. I did that, and factoring in the rebate, the thermostat was an amazing bargain. In addition, a wi-fi capable thermostat like this one may make you eligible for thermostat response programs offered by some utilities. Installation was slow at first; I had a problem determining which wire in my home thermostat wiring served as G - ground; my wiring didn't have a "G". Turned out the wire I needed was available, but it wasn't immediately obvious or easy to find in the Honeywell instructions. Don't get me wrong - Honeywell provides a lot of help related to how to wire the device; it just took me a while to track down the information I needed for my particular wiring. Once that issue was solved, the installation went smoothly. A feature that is particularly nice is the thermostat's learning ability. With this, it is able to begin adjusting to a scheduled change in temperature ahead of time, rather than waiting until that time arrives to begin changing the room temp. I do not use the voice assistant feature, so can't comment on how that works. As with most smart thermostats, this one supports both heating and cooling functions and can be set to automatically switch between heating and cooling as temperatures call for. One feature that I would not pay extra for, given the choice, is the customizable color for the backlit display. I played with that at first, but once the thermostat is in operation, I find I pay little attention to the color of the display. I would have been just as satisfied with a preset non-adjustable display color. All in all, I'm very pleased with this thermostat and would not hesitate to recommend it. Read more
