Honeywell Lyric T5

[Teken]

This week Honeywell introduced yet another smart thermostat into their line up. For those still interested in buying one this unit may offer that first step into HVAC integration. Keeping in mind integration in this context means someone who has nothing like Insteon, Z-Wave, ZigBee, or a controller.

 

If history is any indicator this device will be tied to their cloud hosted service and whether or not a open API or limited one is made available who knows.

 

For $149.99 its not the cheapest unit out there but its also not the most expensive. Even though I didn't do a comprehensive review of the unit this appears to be a basic TSTAT with remote connectivity and not a lot more.

 

But since its Apple Home Kit certified and works with Amazon Echo along with being WiFi enabled there are more possibilities for the end user(s).

 

http://www.honeywell.com/newsroom/news/2016/09/honeywell-expands-lyric-family-of-smart-thermostats-in-time-for-home-heating-season

 

 

 

Honeywell has announced the Lyric T5, a new Wi-Fi-connected smart thermostat with support for Apple's HomeKit platform.

HomeKit compatibility lets users operate it by way of Siri or Apple's native Home app for iOS 10 and the Apple Watch. It can also be controlled via a black-and-white touchscreen, Honeywell's Lyric app, or Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, found on devices like the Echo.

As with some other smart thermostats, the Lyric T5 can be set to heat or cool based on a weekly schedule, and will adapt to a home's normal cycles to optimize temperature changes. Significantly, it can use geofencing — polling a phone's location — to determine when a person is leaving or on their way home, and adjust temperature automatically.

Some other features include filter change reminders, and alerts about extreme heat or cold.

The Lyric T5 will ship in October for $149.99.

[paulbates]

Reads like a Nest wanna-be. Not terrible looking, decent integration via homekit and echo. They don't mention the IFTTT channel that the Lyric Round has, I have to beleive that would work too. If so, ISY portal integration via IFTTT is possible. Not sure if NodeLink for Honeywell would support it, which I believe uses only TCC.

 

It works with their family of Lyric home leak sensors, etc.. Fully agree with your comment that it looks like a basic stat with established remote control features like apps / geofencing.  Doesn't appear to control humidification/de-humidification, have openADR support, etc.

 

However the Nest will highly likely integrate with Google Home out of the chute, this doesn't say.  

[Teken]

Its interesting you indicated humidification /  dehumidification has anyone ever noticed this isn't top of mind for many vendors? Given the whole lets save energy and be green one would think there would be more effort to track and render the energy consumption never mind run time.

 

As I recall you have the latest Venstar smart TSTAT how do you like it after many months of use and experience? Does it offer the energy monitoring / energy management you expected in a smart TSTAT?

[paulbates]

Its interesting you indicated humidification /  dehumidification has anyone ever noticed this isn't top of mind for many vendors? Given the whole lets save energy and be green one would think there would be more effort to track and render the energy consumption never mind run time.

 

As I recall you have the latest Venstar smart TSTAT how do you like it after many months of use and experience? Does it offer the energy monitoring / energy management you expected in a smart TSTAT?

 

Agreed on having usable control of Humidification / Dehumidificaiton from the thermostat.  Nest does it I believe, but I haven't spoken directly with anyone that's configured and run it to see how well it works.

 

I have a T7900 and a T5900 that are operationally identical, the former is faster and has no wifi card sticking out. After 2 years of watching and tweaking, I can officially say I've arrived and not changing it any more. Using the color touches and Nodelink,  These features are extremely valuable to comfort and efficiency as my house is older construction.

 

Temperature and Humidity are distinct comfort factors and the fact that they can be managed separately via the thermostat help comfort, health and efficiently greatly:

 

Humidification in winter.

The T7900 has a humidistat and a separate terminal to control the humidifier. When humidity is too low, regardless of heat call, the fan is turned on and the humidifier activated, plumbed with hot water. It keeps the humidity with in a few percent of setpoint, always. As a result we can actually keep it lower than we used to, at 34%. It works better this way because stays in the range always and does not normally drop and rise a lot with the heat calls.  Nodelink, the interface from ISY to the thermostat, has the 'special venstar sauce' to lower the humidity in response to large drops in outdoor temp so the windows don't frost up.  It raises it back up when it gets warmer outside.

 

Summary: Works great technically, and the even humidity has made health demonstrably better here the last 2 winters respiratory wise, and the pets much less "itchy".. and the windows don't frost up.

 

De-humidification in summer:

Some days the temp is where it should be but the humidity is too high in the house and it doesn't feel comfortable (another symptom of an older house). The T7900 has two de-humidification settings: 

1. Call a de-humidification unit... I don't have one of those... or...
2. It will turn on the air and  lower the temperature up to the # of degrees you specify. I have it at up to 1 degree below setpoint. This worked really well this summer in keeping it comfortable but running a lot less.

In the past,  the occupants would revolt and turn down the setpoint when they were uncomfortable, even when due to humidity, which meant a long run to the next lowest degree. Instead, with this feature, the thermostat will call for AC at the cool setpoint until the humidity drops into range, typically 5 - 10 minutes of running.  Occupants feel "normal" and the AC does not run continuously until its too cold. 

 

I had to tweak my fan cycle program a little, putting a 20 minute "wait" after a cool cycle. Running it sooner just blows the humidity right back out of the condenser into the living space, raising the creating an un-necessary cycle loop. This gives it time to drain out. This is an argument not to run the fan all the time, especially in summer.

 

Monitoring can be a lot of things, its fair to say this meets my needs. The Venstar Skyport cloud web site provides detailed graphs of total HVAC runtime for the property, and each stat individually. I also modified the default HAD page to show heat cycles and runtime, cool cycles and runtime, It also displays humidification cycles and runtime. io_guy has total fan runtime passed through in Nodelink.

 

This is an older example of one of the coldest days, 2 winters ago ....before adding insulation to the south part of the house, so the numbers are a lot lower these days! The programs to support this HAD page are found here. 

 

[Teken]

Paul,

 

It looks to me you have been able to integrate and find the best of both worlds to ensure consistent temperature, humidity, and over all comfort. Utilizing middleware, some code, and integrating with the ISY Series Controller it comes very close to the perfect system.

 

My hopes are more companies from large and small will see value in offering a open API. Next, to offer more capabilities which don't rely on the cloud for those data points or advanced features. Perhaps 2017 will offer more of what many of us are looking for in terms of tight home automation integration.

 

BTW: Love the custom HAD interface! I really wish Benoit had more time to develop and integrate its use. Having the ability to take sample templates or be able to modify existing ones is something I truly believe would bridge that UI issue many of us have talked about.

 

Thanks for sharing as always and look forward to your follow up on this winters insulation improvements in terms of energy consumption etc.