It's always warm in the computer room in my house. I usually have three PCs and a Mac doing various things in there. In addition, my grandkids like to watch videos on the PBS Kids website, and the three of them add to the heat in the small room. Not to worry. Since I upgraded my thermostat, I can tell Alexa, Amazon Echo's personal assistant, to crank up the air conditioner and, in a moment, I'm cooling my heels.
The update came about thanks to my ongoing quest to make my smart home even smarter, which led me to recently purchase Honeywell's $200 Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat. It can be controlled manually, of course, but what fun is that? Since it works with the Amazon Echo, I simply tell Alexa to talk to the thermostat when I start feeling uncomfortable. Unlike the Insteon lights setup I already have, the thermostat communicates directly with Alexa and doesn't need a hub.
The thermostat, which I bought from Amazon, comes in a plain brown box, as if it was pulled off the shelf in a heating and air-conditioning supply store. No fancy packaging here, although it can be bought at your local home-supply store with fancy packaging if you really want it and are willing to pay a bit more.
Installing the thermostat is not the breeze some reviewers on Amazon say it is. It's not for the unskilled or the impatient. Amazon offered to send out an installer for about $100, which turned out to be a bargain. The installer climbed up to the attic, did some fiddling with the heater, went downstairs to fiddle with the compressor and electrical breakers, and spent the next hour connecting a bunch of wires from the old, failing thermostat to the new one. Even then, he had to go back to the attic to do some more fiddling. It took the experienced installer an hour and 20 minutes to finish the job. I'd never used an Amazon-approved technician before; this experience was positive.
One more word of advice: This thermostat is smaller than most, including my old one. You'll need to buy a face plate if you want to cover the old paint and holes in the plaster. Amazon has them for about $15.
That aside, the thermostat works mostly as advertised, with two exceptions. I didn't think it measured the actual room temperature accurately. According to my room thermometer, it was off by 2 degrees. So I called Honeywell tech support (just five minutes on hold). The tech told me that the thermostat had been calibrated at the factory, then did some research and told me how to compensate for the 2 degree disparity. He explained that the thermostat measures wall temperature and ambient room temperature to come up with its reading. The second issue involved programming the fan; it sometimes didn't come on as it was programmed to. Honeywell sent me a new thermostat, and after that, all worked fine. Replacing it was a snap _ literally _ since the actual thermostat snaps off its base and is replaced as easily. I didn't mess with the wires, since the tech was certain the problem was in the thermostat itself.
Programming the Smart Thermostat is intuitive. Once it's connected to a Wi-Fi network, you register it online. The device doesn't rely only on Wi-Fi if the signal is lost; it can be programmed on the colorful touch-screen itself. You can change the color scheme of the home screen, which displays room temperature, programmed temperature and temperature and humidity both inside and out. For the outside temperature, it relies on a service that's free for users.
But the real fun comes when you program the thermostat from an iOS or Android device, or on your PC. Basically, the thermostat can be programmed wherever you are, as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection or have access to a PC with internet access.
There are four programmable segments _ wake, leave, return and sleep. All of the default times and temperatures can be changed, and there are settings for heating and cooling. The thermostat will switch automatically from cooling to heating as long as there is a 3 degree difference between the two. For example, it you want the air-conditioning to come on when room temperature reaches 76 degrees, but also want the heater to come on when the temperature dips to 73 degrees, both schemes can be set up. I try to conserve energy, and set the air-conditioning to come on at 77 degrees, and the heat to come on at 66 degrees. Gold star, please.
The folks at Honeywell told me the thermostat temperature issue is normal, and I believe them. The fan issue could have been the result of pilot error due to my inexperience programming when it should come on. At any rate, the replacement is working just fine, fan included. It's doing a great job regulating the air conditioning during a California heat wave.
Then there's my friend Alexa. I just told her to lower the temperature a degree, which she does.
Very cool.
