Best smart thermostats
There are so many smart thermostats to choose from, we’ll help you pick the perfect model. MICHAEL BROWN reports
The best smart thermostat will have an outsize impact not only how comfortable you are in your home, but also on your household budget. Heating and cooling your home accounts for nearly half of the average home’s utility bills, according to the US Department of Energy.
A programmable thermostat can help reduce those costs by turning your HVAC system on when you anticipate being home, and off when you don’t think you’ll need indoor climate control. A smart thermostat goes far beyond relying on a simple schedule. It will not
only enable you to create more sophisticated schedules for every day of the week, and give you complete control over your HVAC system, even when you’re away from home.
What to look for when shopping
Ease of installation: A thermostat shouldn’t be difficult to install, even if you’re only moderately handy. The manufacturer should provide comprehensive, yet easyto-understand instructions with plenty of photographs or illustrations to guide you through the process. The thermostat itself should be clearly indicate which wires go where, and most companies provide labels that you can attach to the wires coming out of the wall as you disconnect and remove your old model. The wires themselves should be colour coded, but a good practice is to photograph your old thermostat for reference before you take it down.
Geofencing: This feature uses the thermostat’s app and your smartphone’s GPS chip to establish a perimeter around your home. When you leave the perimeter, you presumably no longer need to heat and cool your home, or you can at least have the thermostat adjust the temperature so that it’s not running unnecessarily. When you cross the perimeter again as you come home, your HVAC system can kick into action so your house is comfortable when you walk in the door.
High-voltage heater support: Most smart thermostats are designed to work with central HVAC systems. If your home is heated by high-voltage heaters (baseboard,
radiant, and fan-forced convector, for example), you’ll need a thermostat that’s specifically designed to work with that type of heater.
Remote Access: Remote access enables you to control your thermostat from afar, so that you can check in and adjust the temperature from wherever you have a connection to the Internet.
Sensors: Geofencing is great – provided everyone who lives in the home has a smartphone. Motion and proximity sensors offer an alternative means of determining if your home is occupied and therefore in need of climate control. The original Nest thermostat was often criticized for relying too much on its motion sensor. If no one walked past it often enough, it would decide that the house was empty and it would stop heating or cooling. Some smart thermostats can also tap into door and window sensors as well as the motion sensors for your home security system. And proximity sensors on the thermostat itself can trigger a thermostat’s display to turn on when you walk past it, making the screens a handy feature in their own right, even if for no other reason than providing a night-time pathway light.
Smart-home system integration: Every smart thermostat comes with an app so you can control it with your smartphone or tablet, but the best models can also be integrated with other smart-home devices and broader smart-home systems. This can range from being able to adjust the temperature with a
voice command via an Amazon Echo or Google Home digital assistant, to linking to your smoke detector so that your fan automatically turns off when fire is detected, preventing smoke from being circulated throughout your home. Other options to consider include IFTTT and Stringify support, Apple HomeKit compatibility, smart-vent connectivity, and tie-ins with home security systems.
System complexity: Each of the thermostats we tested support multi-stage heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, as well as heat pump systems. If your home is divided into zones that are
heated and cooled independently of each other, you’ll probably need one thermostat for each zone. A single app should be able to control multiple zones.
User interface: Long gone are the days when a thermostat’s user interface consisted of numbers on a dial. The more sophisticated a device becomes, the more difficult it can be to learn to use. The last thing you want to be doing is staring at inscrutable hieroglyphics on the wall when all you really want is to be warmer or cooler. A smart thermostat should convey important information at a glance and should easily adapt to your specific needs.
Best smart thermostat Nest Learning Thermostat
Price: £219 from fave.co/2NRzSqr
Google’s division has worked harder than anyone to build out a comprehensive smart home ecosystem with its own products – the Nest Cam security camera series and the Nest Protect smoke and carbonmonoxide detectors – as well as a wide array of third-party products: everything from ceiling fans to lighting controls and even smart appliances. The recent addition of the Nest Temperature Sensor makes this device even smarter.
So why does it garner runner-up status here? Nest counts on your buying other Nest products to help determine when you’re home and away, for starters. And anyone investing – or planning to invest – in Apple’s up-and-coming HomeKit ecosystem should steer clear of Nest products.
Best budget thermostat Honeywell Home T6 Smart Thermostat
Price: £137 from fave.co/38qjo22
If you don’t need all the bells and whistles that fancier smart thermostats offer (and you don’t need to control a humidifier, dehumidifier, or ventilator), Honeywell’s Lyric T6 is a great choice. It’s not as sophisticated as our top picks in this category, but it’s considerably less expensive.