Insteon Thermostat

[EddieRock]

Will Insteon be introducing a new thermostat any time soon? I have 4 of their existing TStats and I love them. They work like a charm. No issues. 

Butt... Yah, spelled that way... They are ugly. Today's TStats are much nicer looking. 

Does anyone know if Insteon/Smarthome will be releasing a new TStat anytime soon? If so, would there be a delay in integration with ISY?

I'm feeling my options are limited here. My wife doesn't (and never has) liked the way they look. Big and plain

EddieRock

[lilyoyo1]

Not that I'm aware of. Even if they did, I highly doubt it would look as good as anything else out there. Wouldn't even be close

[bretta]

On 12/24/2019 at 10:46 PM, EddieRock said:

Will Insteon be introducing a new thermostat any time soon? I have 4 of their existing TStats and I love them.

EddieRock

You and I must live on different planets.  I agree they are ugly, they're also horrible.   Without a doubt the worst iteration of Insteon devices ever.   I have been looking for something NON cloud based to replace them with for over a year.  A search that just got more urgent given I had FOUR of them fail last week.

 

[larryllix]

I would be just as happy having an on/off switch for my HVAC that gets flipped on/off every time somebody passed it than another Insteon thermostat. Most non-functional piece of junk I have ever purchased. I have one that reports it received Insteon commands from ISY but never does anything. Reporting and accuracy is about as accurate as the manual on/off switch ad less dependable..

[paulbates]

4 hours ago, bretta said:

You and I must live on different planets.  I agree they are ugly, they're also horrible.   Without a doubt the worst iteration of Insteon devices ever.   I have been looking for something NON cloud based to replace them with for over a year.  A search that just got more urgent given I had FOUR of them fail last week.

 

The venstar colortouch series has an API that is 100% local for control. The "cloud" portions are:

• mobile apps that it can use and is great,  
• its local weather display.
• you can shut them both off but I've had good luck with them

Using ISY V5 and Nodelink, the conversation between stat and ISY never leave the house

Paul 

[EddieRock]

On 1/24/2020 at 8:01 PM, bretta said:

You and I must live on different planets.  I agree they are ugly, they're also horrible.   Without a doubt the worst iteration of Insteon devices ever.   I have been looking for something NON cloud based to replace them with for over a year.  A search that just got more urgent given I had FOUR of them fail last week.

 

Other than them not being calibrated,. Mine have been perfect. Maybe your furnace sent a spike to them or something. 

[bretta]

20 hours ago, paulbates said:

The venstar colortouch series has an API that is 100% local for control. The "cloud" portions are:

• mobile apps that it can use and is great,  
• its local weather display.
• you can shut them both off but I've had good luck with them

Using ISY V5 and Nodelink, the conversation between stat and ISY never leave the house

Paul 

Thank you Paul.  Info I was looking for.

 

[bretta]

56 minutes ago, EddieRock said:

Other than them not being calibrated,. Mine have been perfect. Maybe your furnace sent a spike to them or something. 

That's exactly what happened.  5 other thermostats survived just fine. The Insteon ones didn't.  That's not why I hate them, but it is the reason my search for viable replacements has moved up in priority.

 

[BCreekDave]

I’ve got a 2441TH running my garage Hot Dawg gas furnace. Hasn’t failed me in 4 years. Actually been rock solid. Was contemplating getting one for the house,but read so many negative reviews I’ve held off waiting for a replacement which may never come. No interest in a Nest or Ecobee or other cloud based tstat.


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[TrojanHorse]

I’ve got a 2441TH running my garage Hot Dawg gas furnace. Hasn’t failed me in 4 years. Actually been rock solid. Was contemplating getting one for the house,but read so many negative reviews I’ve held off waiting for a replacement which may never come. No interest in a Nest or Ecobee or other cloud based tstat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Are you running any programs based on the thermostat? My problem with my garage thermostat is I think a communication issue so my programs aren’t seeing the triggers consistently. Otherwise it seems to “work” as a dumb thermostat as far as I can observe. I’m thankful I avoided the Insteon thermostats for my main HVAC systems.


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[BCreekDave]

I mainly use it just for remote control using MobiLinc so I can adjust the temp up or down. I do have a program that runs from the IOLinc that runs the main garage door to turn off the furnace when the door raises and then turn it back on when it closes. I also have a program that emails me total furnace run times for the day.


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[bretta]

The problems with these thermostats are many fold.   

Immediate issues I can think of are serious communication issues, it's very rare that they can be adjusted remotely, reliably.   (I have over 300 Insteon devices on the property, so signal is not an issue)

There's also the fact that some genius decided to jump the RH and RC terminals internally.  EVERY other thermostat on the market uses an external jumper wire for this, for very good reason.  This decision makes the thermostats unusable in dual system homes.

They consistently have to be manually reset.  Showing 22 or a blank screen.  Sometimes still operating while blank, other times not.

That's just the short list.  Fact is, you CANNOT risk using these thermostats for heat in an unattended house in cold weather areas.  

The majority of Insteon products are a great idea, poorly executed, but the thermostats are the lowest of the low on the scale.     I have 13 thermostats on my property.  Until a week ago, 7 of them were Insteon.   There was no option for Insteon in the other 6 locations for either physical application incompatibility (see above) or peace of mind during winter.     4 of the 7 have now failed due to a power spike that did not effect non Insteon units running on that same transformer, so while technically not Insteon's fault, their hardware is too fragile.  

Looking very closely at the Venstar right now.   It's a decision to not take lightly given the dollar figure involved with 13 thermostats.

 

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, bretta said:

The problems with these thermostats are many fold.   

Immediate issues I can think of are serious communication issues, it's very rare that they can be adjusted remotely, reliably.   (I have over 300 Insteon devices on the property, so signal is not an issue)

There's also the fact that some genius decided to jump the RH and RC terminals internally.  EVERY other thermostat on the market uses an external jumper wire for this, for very good reason.  This decision makes the thermostats unusable in dual system homes.

They consistently have to be manually reset.  Showing 22 or a blank screen.  Sometimes still operating while blank, other times not.

That's just the short list.  Fact is, you CANNOT risk using these thermostats for heat in an unattended house in cold weather areas.  

The majority of Insteon products are a great idea, poorly executed, but the thermostats are the lowest of the low on the scale.     I have 13 thermostats on my property.  Until a week ago, 7 of them were Insteon.   There was no option for Insteon in the other 6 locations for either physical application incompatibility (see above) or peace of mind during winter.     4 of the 7 have now failed due to a power spike that did not effect non Insteon units running on that same transformer, so while technically not Insteon's fault, their hardware is too fragile.  

Looking very closely at the Venstar right now.   It's a decision to not take lightly given the dollar figure involved with 13 thermostats.

 

...and yet the only thermostat that can interface with ISY with no further hardware dependence.

[EddieRock]

1 hour ago, bretta said:

The problems with these thermostats are many fold.   

Immediate issues I can think of are serious communication issues, it's very rare that they can be adjusted remotely, reliably.   (I have over 300 Insteon devices on the property, so signal is not an issue)

There's also the fact that some genius decided to jump the RH and RC terminals internally.  EVERY other thermostat on the market uses an external jumper wire for this, for very good reason.  This decision makes the thermostats unusable in dual system homes.

They consistently have to be manually reset.  Showing 22 or a blank screen.  Sometimes still operating while blank, other times not.

That's just the short list.  Fact is, you CANNOT risk using these thermostats for heat in an unattended house in cold weather areas.  

The majority of Insteon products are a great idea, poorly executed, but the thermostats are the lowest of the low on the scale.     I have 13 thermostats on my property.  Until a week ago, 7 of them were Insteon.   There was no option for Insteon in the other 6 locations for either physical application incompatibility (see above) or peace of mind during winter.     4 of the 7 have now failed due to a power spike that did not effect non Insteon units running on that same transformer, so while technically not Insteon's fault, their hardware is too fragile.  

Looking very closely at the Venstar right now.   It's a decision to not take lightly given the dollar figure involved with 13 thermostats.

 

I live in Minnesota. -20F sometimes. Have 4 of these thermostats. I can't remember how long I've had them. Maybe 5+ years. I only use them for heat on my 24V boiler. Well, that's not true. I have 1 on a furnace. 

I too think the internal jumper was a bad idea. I'm sadly looking to replace 1 because we added a whole home AC and we want to run it off of one level in our house. An ecobee is going to replace it. Eeek! 

[bretta]

OK. so picked up a Venstar 7850.

Same old garbage in a prettier package.   No separate RC and RH terminals, so won't work in many houses, including mine.

Figured I'd try the app, as I haven't got around to installing a computer to run a node server.    App is pure garbage.   Rated 2.7 and dropping fast by the looks of it.  Couldn't even get started with it, so deleted it.

Still looking for thermostat suggestions if anyone has any.

[lilyoyo1]

All's been said unless you go with zwave which presents it's own issues in regards to building out your mesh network as well as updating (polling) issues. Unfortunately, the best thermostats are cloud based wifi thermostats

[larryllix]

3 hours ago, bretta said:

OK. so picked up a Venstar 7850.

Same old garbage in a prettier package.   No separate RC and RH terminals, so won't work in many houses, including mine.

Figured I'd try the app, as I haven't got around to installing a computer to run a node server.    App is pure garbage.   Rated 2.7 and dropping fast by the looks of it.  Couldn't even get started with it, so deleted it.

Still looking for thermostat suggestions if anyone has any.

Get an ecobee. They have both Rc and Rh terminals. No outside sensor though but weather is based on cloud information.

Much more professional thermostat design and accuracy.