Friday, November 29, 2013

Cheap Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007/U Z-Wave Enabled Programmable Thermostat

Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007/U Z-Wave Enabled Programmable Thermostat
Customer Ratings: 4 stars
List Price: $159.99
Sale Price: $136.00
Today's Bonus: 15% Off
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I have been using this thermostat for a few weeks and it connects to my network and controls my HVAC well most of the time. The problem is that the battery backup does not work in some of these units. I have now tried four different batteries and have had a new version of the thermostat shipped to me from Amazon. Same problem. The biggest problem with this is that the unit will not function after a power outage until the date & time are reset. This means that if your power goes out while you area way from home, there is no way to turn the hvac system on without getting home to reset the data/time. To make matters worse, Honeywell refuses to provide an technical support, stating that this is not a consumer product and must be installed by a licensed technician. This is really frustrating.

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I purchased 3 of these and they work great. I replaced Honeywell touch screen thermostats that looked and operate nearly identical to theses so the operation was something I was familiar with. Linking them up to MiCasa z Wave was simple. I did a full power link to the z wave network and never had to move the MiCasa controller to the thermostats.

I can now look up and control current temperatures for each of the three thermostats from my IPhone, computer and I pad very conveniently.

One thing worthy of knowing... the units have 7 days programing with 4 different setting per day. The 4 daily time settings (time slots) and the temperatures per slot are all adjustable. You can also put the thermostat on permanent hold.

The previous thermostats had provisions where you could hold a temperature for a specified number of days, then it would revert back to its normal cycle. I would use this if I was going to be away from the property for say a week or two and wanted it to return to my desired temperature for my return. My arrival didn't always perfectly coincide but it was close and worked ok. These new thermostats only have permanent holds. No holds for a specified number of days. But now it doesn't matter because I can control it remotely. When the thermostat is NOT in permanent hold, your remote changes last only until the next time slot. If the thermostat is on permanent hold, the remote changes the temperature and keeps it there. It doesn't not get automatically altered by the next time slot setting. This works fine, you just need to know how it works as the book doesn't not adequately describe this.

All in all, a wonderful unit.

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Written Sept 2011

I just replaced my two Honeywell Thermostats with the Honeywell TH8320ZW1007/U Z-Wave Enabled Programmable Thermostat . The old thermostat, a Honeywell TH8321U1006 VisionPRO Universal, had a "more" display that showed humidity and days left to change the filter. The Z-Wave version doesn't have the "more" display. Otherwise they are quite similar. The Z-Wave thermostat base is slightly larger than the older Honeywell unit, so I did have to move the wires from the old base to the new base. The units paired just fine with a Vera 2 controller and I'm accessing the thermostats from my iPhone using iVera. The iPhone display doesn't show the fan status even though I run both HVAC systems with the fans ON all the time.

In my setup I have a Trane 2-stage gas furnace/air conditioner on the bottom 2 floors and a Trane heat pump/emergency electrical heat on the top 2 floors of a townhouse. Installation and programming took about half an hour for each thermostat. Pairing went fast once I figured out the flashing light sequence in the Vera 2 to determine when to tell the thermostat to pair.

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Update Oct 20, 2012

I've only had this setup 2 days now, but it is really nice to be able to monitor and control the furnace from the iPhone from anywhere. I'm anxious to add more z-wave devices to the house. These thermostats were my first two z-wave devices. I did download a plug-in that allows the Vera 2 to capture data from a TED 5000 gateway via the IP network in the house. So the integration of the thermostats with the power monitoring device worked well.

These thermostats are wonderful and if you are used to the non-Z-wave Honeywell Thermostats you will really like the Z-Wave version.

I've been running this thermostat for over a year now. It has worked extremely well. The only hassle that has occurred is that the thermostat lost "connectivity" 2 times during the year. Once after a long power outage and another time when I added other z-wave devices. To get the thermostats to "communicate" I had to unplug the thermostat from the base and then plug it back to the base. For some reason the date and time then have to be manually reset. The remaining programming stays. So I still feel this is a really good thermostat, but I've dropped the rating from 5 to 4 stars because the thermostat doesn't attempt to reestablish connectivity without a power cycle and it doesn't keep the date and time with a power cycle.

Honest reviews on Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007/U Z-Wave Enabled Programmable Thermostat

Purchased this thermostat through Amazon last month and my HVAC contractor installed it a couple days ago. So far it seems to function as described except that the LCD screen is defective in one corner (which does not seem to affect functionality). I contacted Honeywell support to have the thermostat exchanged since the Amazon 30 day return period expired. They stated this thermostat is NOT for sale to the end user and they will only honor the warranty if purchased through an authorized HVAC professional. The following is the support email I sent and the reply from Honeywell:

Questions/Comments:

I purchased this thermostat through Amazon on June 12 and my contractor installed it yesterday, July 26. It has a defective LCD screen in the lower right hand corner and I would like to exchange the device for a new unit. I cannot go through Amazon because they have a 30 day return policy. Thank you for your help in this matter.

Thank you for contacting Honeywell.

The YTH8320ZW1007 thermostat is designed to be installed by a professional and available through contractors only. We recommend you speaking to a licensed HVAC contractor for replacement. Honeywell does not sell these (professionally installed) products directly to a homeowner, we also recommend you to check with Amazon.

For assistance finding a contractor near you, please use the following

Honeywell Customer Care

My thermostat was professionally installed but I made the mistake of buying this product myself online. Honeywell will be useless for support if you purchase this unit through Amazon. In the future, I will steer clear of Honeywell products due to their poor service.

UPDATE: After talking with Amazon customer service they have agreed to exchange the product with a new unit. Amazon customer service is excellent.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007/U Z-Wave Enabled Programmable Thermostat

Its great to see Z-Wave thermostats go mainstream and offer great features. When I was considering upgrading my existing Z-Wave thermostat, I considered several other "new" thermostats, such as the Nest Learning Thermostat T100577, but I had invested so much in my Z-Wave network I really wanted to stick to that type.

This Honeywell thermostat replaced an older Z-Wave Thermostat I bought several years ago, the Wayne-Dalton WDTC-20 HomeSettings Controls Thermostat. Both units cost about the same money, but the amount of progress made in 3 years is astounding.

Like the Wayne-Dalton Thermostat, I chose to have this Honeywell one installed professionally. Unlike the Wayne-Dalton one, which was almost impossible to install (you can read the reviews to see why), my heating/cooling folks put this on in about 15 minutes.

This what I love about the Honeywell:

Touchscreen! Nothing, of course, like an iPhone or iPad touch screen, but completely responsive and solid feeling.

Large screen so easy to read (I chose to keep the backlight on continuously (no timing out)

Filter reminder, with many options (days running, calendar days, etc).

Adaptive intelligent recovery

Ability to have fan run all the day, only when unit is cooling/heating, or at a set interval

And of course, the Z-Wave function. I'm using 5 year old software Leviton CCTEP-20W ControlThink ThinkEssentials 2.1 Professional with ThinkStick but I'm still able to set "normal" and "energy-saving" features for both heating and cooling. The Honeywell is immediately responsive to Z wave commands (the Wayne-Dalton took a few minutes go think about it...)

The one negative is that there are many options, but none of them are available through intuitive menus on the screen. Instead you have to put in specific codes provided by the instruction manual. Clearly, the idea here is to have your installer do the programming for you, but as a gadget freak, I wanted to do all the programming. Once you figure out how to do one, you can do them all. Just don't lose the instruction manual!

In sum, the Honeywell has everything I want, both in terms of a good Thermostat and in terms of a Z-Wave device.

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