Total Connect Comfort for Pc

Last year I had to replace the entire first floor HVAC system. The company providing the new HVAC system also removed my old Honeywell programmable thermostat and replaced it with another brand name thermostat. I didn’t think much about it at the time as I thought I was getting an updated thermostat. It was a horrible mistake! With two different manufactures of smart thermostats trying to adjust temperatures in the house, in short, was not working! I finally got mad and replaced both of them with these new Honeywell units. I really like the iPhone interface with both units. It is extremely easy to program and very versatile. My home is maintaining a much better comfort level while not having two HVAC units fighting for control or one not running at all. I am a little disappointed that Honeywell will not provide a common interface between the two thermostats. Ie. Both HVAC units should be running at same time so that one unit is not carrying the entire load of the home. If one unit is on, the other will not since a need to operate (at least for a little while). But, I’m not an HVAC engineer and there may be other issues here, such as a confused homeowner. Regardless, these two thermostats seem to balance my home much more effectively and efficiently than my previous set up. And the two HVAC units seem to get along with each other now. So, 5-star because they are working better than I expected!

The good: I can control the thermostat remotely. It's been reliable over a couple years of use. The "air circulate" mode is very useful and helps inhibit mold and stale air. This mode circulates air about 8 hours per day even if the heat or a/c isn't on. I like that I can see system status remotely - in other words, in addition to turning it on or off, I can see if the system is actively operating at the moment. The mediocre: The "air circulate" setting can't be customized. Also, it's not intuitive. The app interface makes it seem like I have to leave the system in heating mode (but set to 55 degrees) in the summer time if I want to use the air circulate. The app should have a dedicated setting for "air circulate" that doesn't have an apparent requirement for the system to be left in heating mode. I can't see the status of my system fan in the app when in "air circulate" mode. The bad: There is a "marketplace" icon on the main screen which I don't need or want. This replaced the equally useless "contractor" icon which the app used to have. Now, each and every time I adjust the heat, Honeywell wants to present me an upsell. This "marketplace" should be buried in a submenu somewhere. Voice control is not implemented well and I'd prefer not to have it at all. There should be a way to disable voice control.

I just installed a new Carrier high efficiency furnace in our vacation cottage up north Michigan. I had bought a $99 Honeywell RTH6580 at first, installed it and found out it didn’t have any battery backup. Since it’s a vacation home, I want the thermostat to remember the settings because I’m only there if you times per year and the power seems to go out regularly. No where could I find anything about a backup system, so I tested it by turning the furnace off for a while and reconnecting. The thermostat went to a much higher (probably a preset) heat setting than I had it. So that thermostat came off the wall and went back to the store. Then I tried a $99 Sensi. It was very difficult to set up, I never could get it to connect plus it only went down to 50° and I needed to go down to 42 because that’s the temperature I keep my cabin in the winter. So they one came off the wall and went back as well. I then bought the Honeywell RTH9585. It stores settings in permanent memory, not just limited battery back up, which is great because sometimes power is out for several hours, and no batteries to change. its goes down to 40, was really easy to set up and connect to my router, app has worked flawlessly. I love it so far. And I’m getting a $50 rebate from the electric company for installing it...awesome.

This thermostat works great when it works right. I don’t know how it reads outside temperature but most of the time is not in agreement with actual temperature in the area (does it read “official” temperature at some other location?). The other thing is that it is supposed to be a “smart” device and adjust itself according to our usage trends, but it has never changed its set preferences from the day it was installed. One thing I don’t like is that it changes the heat mode to “emergency” mode too often, seems to kick in more often above 71°F which I think it’s too much too soon. The remote works great, it even works overseas! Other than that the device works great, it keeps the house at the desired temperature, although I liked the two-degree differential the other thermostat had to kick on; this one turns itself on at a one-degree differential, so it turns on more often during the day, but I haven’t noticed a difference on the electricity bill and that is fine with me. The major flaw I think is that it doesn’t change “Modes” automatically (Cool to Heat and vice-versa), a feature I was looking for but could not find in local stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s, at least I can do that from my Iphone and don’t have to go to the actual device to change it! Hope this helps, happy hunting!