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For many years, we have been testing, evaluating, recommending thermostats for our customers. Some have been good and others awful but we have never found one that we were willing to endorse outright… until now. We are preparing to launch an amazing and low-cost WiFi thermostat on ZoningSupply.com

First, a little background. I have been testing thermostats for more than 20 years. I have some of the very first WiFi thermostats back before Ecobee ever existed. Then in 2008 ecobee released their first version of an internet connected thermostat (I bought 2 the day they were released). The US market became largely aware of “internet connected” thermostats at this point. These were pretty “crude” but we didn’t know that yet because they were all that was available. Next the NEST hit the market, 3 years later and for a while it was the gold standard. Even though other thermostat companies tried to jump on the bandwagon (Honeywell) there products were no match for the elegance and ease of the NEST. Ecobee released some better versions and these held their own with the NEST but at $250 average cost, these were still not for the masses. And the price point made them difficult to justify on a zoning system such as SmartZone because you needed to buy multiples (one for each zone). This has led us to look for a lower cost option so when you need to buy 3 or 4 to complete your zone control system, it doesn’t break the bank.

With this in mind, we have recommended a couple of different thermostats in the past. Predominantly, we have recommended the Wyze thermostat and the Ecobee3 Lite but both of these two have their cons. Although these are not bad choices, there were still not up to the standards we were looking for.

Over the last two years, many “low-cost” WiFi thermostats have hit the market. I have tested all of them and for the most part they all fall short of our standards in one way or another. An example of this is the “Amazon Thermostat” which is a decent thermostat for a lot of situations but it requires the installation of the APP just to configure it. Or the Sensi Lite thermostat which uses an aggressive power-stealing circuit across the W output and can make the equipment energized in Heat when not calling.

If anyone is interested in a comprehensive article about all my tests, please let me know in the comments. I plan to also make a video about this process and will put a link here when it is available.

This is an abridged list of the criteria we used for WiFi Thermostat evaluation. Almost none of the thermostats we tested met ALL of the below. We expect the basic functions of a thermostat to work simply and easily, beyond that, we also wanted something that would be a perfect match for our SmartZone system.

PRICE: Under $100

FUNCTION: Multi-Stage, Heat Pump, Gas, Electric, Dual Fuel, Fan: auto, on or circulation. Must be easy to navigate the menus, change modes and set temperature at the thermostat.

DETAILS: Scheduling & Configuration can be done on the thermostat, No need to use the APP at installation, 7 day programming

ENGINEERING: RELAYs (NOT triacs/solid-state) for equipment interface, Ability to install without a common wire but WITHOUT “power stealing”

BONUSES: Color touch-screen, high-quality knob for easy and quick adjusting temp