Thermostat recommendation for ISY

[scottbasilius]

I'm looking to add a thermostat to my current ISY home automation.  Looking for a recommendation on a thermostat brand / model that is known to work with ISY.

 

scott

[kissfan]

If you’re running zwave, I have two of these in my house that work great.

https://www.smarthome.com/honeywell-th8320zw1007-u-z-wave-touchscreen-thermostat-with-wiresaver.html


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[paulbates]

To back up Kissfan's recommendation, if you want direct connection to the ISY and feature rich Thermostat, z-wave is the place to look. The honeywell recommendation is great, also, RCS has a 20 year history of making thermostats that integrate with home automation and have z-wave options as well.

Amazon or smarthome will have them too. They are not the slickest in terms of looks or screen presentation, but they have solid, reliable HVAC designs and work well as thermostats. Its controlling one of the most expensive and important things in your house. To me that means getting a brand that has a history of building solid HVAC devices. Honeywell and RCS are on that list.

Another thing to look at is not just the Home Automation capabilities, but how feature rich they are on the HVAC side. A lot has changed in the last 5 - 10 years and thermostats can do a lot more things on their own, in addition to remote control and enhancement by a controller like the ISY

Paul

[mwester]

Not sure where you live -- but I feel compelled to comment that if your HVAC system is doing more than just "comfort" you should consider your thermostat first and foremost for reliability, not automation.  As noted above, that would put Honeywell and the like up at the top of the list, not the Insteon nor the any of the numerous "fancy feature" thermostats from startups.

Up here in the frozen north, if my HVAC system fails, my house freezes -- and that would result in a multi-thousand-dollar event if I were at home, and 10x that if I were out of town when the house froze.  I integrate automation with the system, but only to "nudge" the existing controls -- there is no way that my automation can result in a failure that would prevent the unit from heating.

Search the forum and read the posts -- you'll find almost nothing positive about "Automation-enabled" thermostats, especially the Insteon ones.  Stay away... don't go there would be my advice!

[larryllix]

Always select a hardwired stat for HVAC control. Monitoring and remote control is secondary.

I tried various stat brands and ended up with two ecobees. Ecobee isolated it's sensors very effectively from the smart electronics. This is extremely important for good home comfort.

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[lilyoyo1]

I'm with Larryllix. I use ecobee 3s in my home and im highly satisfied with them. While they aren't directly compatible with the ISY, they can be added for additional control. With that said, I've found I haven't needed to add mine. It natively does what I need it it to do saving time and effort.