[Smart Home] Programmable Thermostats advice?

dav3yb

So I've been looking and considering picking up a smart thermostat of some sort, and I'm sure i'd be happy with just about any of the top reviewed ones out there, but I figure why not try asking here?

I'm mainly looking for good programming settings, and would like to be able to set min and max temp ranges. I'd REALLY like to be able to set some things up like: If temp = 65, heat to 68, which I'm not sure anything does. It seems like most will allow you to do things over the network/internet at this point, which is nice in case I forget to turn it off sometime when I'm at work or go away at some point.

If anyone has any information on some, or can expound a bit on how robust programmable features of any particular unit are, I'd certainly appreciate it.

a5ehren

I don't know of any that allow that level of granularity. They assume that if you want the house to be 68, you'll set it to 68 and walk away.

I think all of the major models will allow you to set a min/max range. I know Nest calls it "Heat-Cool Mode", and I think it's the default on Ecobees as well.

dav3yb

a5ehren wrote: »

I don't know of any that allow that level of granularity. They assume that if you want the house to be 68, you'll set it to 68 and walk away.

I think all of the major models will allow you to set a min/max range. I know Nest calls it "Heat-Cool Mode", and I think it's the default on Ecobees as well.

I didn't think id be able to find one that let's you do that level of programming, but I feel like somewhere it would be helpful. I'd think it would be better to leave a unit on cooling a few degrees instead of cutting on and off constantly at a single set temp. Idk. I'll be digging into them at least a while later until I get the work done on mine.

I wonder if any of the manufacturers have a demo page to see what their interface is like. I know in the past some home router manufacturers would sometimes have a page you could play around with the interface to see how it was.

bowen

Sounds like you want a programming API for a thermostat and to write some code.

ecobee and honeywell have thermostat APIs for their smart-home stuff, IIRC

This way you can pick up a programming language and tell your thermostat to do stuff. You can do a quick check of the weather, and if it's 65 out, heat the house to 68.

https://www.ecobee.com/home/developer/api/introduction/core-concepts.shtml
https://developer.honeywell.com/api-methods?field_smart_method_tags_tid=39

dav3yb

bowen wrote: »

Sounds like you want a programming API for a thermostat and to write some code.

ecobee and honeywell have thermostat APIs for their smart-home stuff, IIRC

This way you can pick up a programming language and tell your thermostat to do stuff. You can do a quick check of the weather, and if it's 65 out, heat the house to 68.

https://www.ecobee.com/home/developer/api/introduction/core-concepts.shtml
https://developer.honeywell.com/api-methods?field_smart_method_tags_tid=39

Oh, now that is neat. I'll have to dig around in that to see I might be able to get enough out of it.

Having asked around, so far the nest is getting quite a lot of praise though. I'm sure I'll be happy with just about anything i go with, but if it's easy enough to really customize another one, it'll certainly be nice.

bowen

Nest is good, I have one of those. It's more about scheduling and all that and requires a bit more babysitting than what I'd expect out of a truly smart house. It guesses too much and is often wrong about what it's guessing about (how hot I want it because of how hot I had it last thursday, etc). But if you disable all that stuff and just use the scheduling and phone app, it's pretty amazing.

dav3yb

bowen wrote: »

Nest is good, I have one of those. It's more about scheduling and all that and requires a bit more babysitting than what I'd expect out of a truly smart house. It guesses too much and is often wrong about what it's guessing about (how hot I want it because of how hot I had it last thursday, etc). But if you disable all that stuff and just use the scheduling and phone app, it's pretty amazing.

This is what I was mostly planning on. I'm not crazy about the whole "leaning" aspect of it. I do like the idea of geofencing, where using your phone location, it can determine what kind of mode it should be set to. Sometimes I'll forget to cut mine off when i leave for work, but really anything i can control across the internet would do fine for that kind of thing.

Shadowfire

Don't Nest, ecobee, and Honeywell thermostats all support IFTTT?

dav3yb

I got everything put in this past weekend. New unit and a Nest installed. I jumped on the nest because I was able to stumble upon it on Amazon at $50 off. I like it so far, although I've turned a lot of the auto stuff off for now. Being able to use the app or website to control it is great.

I did have a minor scare with it the night it was installed. I noticed in some of the settings the type of fuel wasn't set correctly, so I went digging into the menu to try and fix it. I hit something that i guess was supposed to require me to redefine some of the wiring, but i didn't know, so my a/c was blowing warm air. Finally found where it was to set everything up, and got the fuel type fixed and the a/c blowing cool again.

I'll probably see about digging into more of its functionality this summer when I'll be using it more.