Saturday, April 5, 2014

Lux TX9100E 7 Day Universal Programmable Thermostat Review

Lux TX9100E 7 Day Universal Programmable Thermostat
Customer Ratings: 4.5 stars
List Price: $79.99
Sale Price: $56.89
Today's Bonus: 29% Off
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It took more time to remove the old thermostat than it did to install this new one. I did read the instructions carefully, but I did not look all the way through the packaging materials. I made my own wire labels from masking tape and carefully noted what each wire was connected to on the old thermostat. As I was getting the new thermostat out to install it, out pops a complete set of stick-on wire labels! Using those would have saved a few minutes.

The only thing that was not real clear was just when to attach the new thermostat to its wall-mounted base. Since I am using the optional battery backup mode, I found that I could sit in my recliner and program the thermostat, then click it into place on the wall mount. I don't use a lot of alternate programs ... just the same one each day. The "copy" option worked great. Just set up your first day, and copy it to the other days. Simple.

I have a heat pump with a second stage (very expensive to run) electric heat strip. My old thermostat would kick in that second stage whenever I clicked up the temperature setting a bit. This new thermostat lets you set just how far apart the setting for the heat pump and the second stage should be. Also, it has an "early recovery" mode that anticipates the morning "warmup" phase ahead of time, and it starts the phase early and gradually ... once again so that the second stage heat does not kick in unless it is really cold outside.

If there are any negatives, the backlight is not very bright. When you press any button you can see the display in the dark, but it isn't near as bright as a computer monitor or flat-screen tv. Still, if you are going to use this with the batteries as the sole source of power, this level of brightness would probably use minimal battery resources. If your wiring allows powering it directly from the furnace / heat pump, then it is too bad that there is not a brighter setting for the display.

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This very versatile programmable thermostat is a great alternative to purchasing a more expensive Honeywell thermostat. This thermostat will readily wire up to any single stage or two-stage heat pump system electric or gas; my unit is a Rheem all electric two-stage heat pump system. Lux shipped the unit promptly and well-packaged. All necessary mounting accessories and clearly-written instructions came with the unit. Installation was a breeze. I must note that if you are a do-it-yourself type, I strongly recommend that you contact Lux and/or your A/C-heater manufacturer to compare notes on which color wire goes to which terminal on your thermostat when connecting the wires. Each system's wiring codes are different, and thermostat makers add extra connection terminals to accommodate as many different systems as possible. For example, in my Rheem system, I have a brown "C" wire that is used as a common for the thermostat and a blue wire that is used to activate one of the heater controls. I connected the brown "C" wire to the "C" terminal and the blue wire to the "B" terminal of the thermostat. In other systems, there is no "C" wire and the blue wire is used as a common. In this particular case, if you were to connect the blue wire to the "B" terminal on your thermostat instead of connecting it to the "C" terminal, you could possibly damage your system. Once wired up correctly, the unit is very easy to program it takes maybe 15 to 20 minutes to set up a 7-day routine that once set, can be left alone and never touched again and it will provide you with round-the-clock automatic temperature adjustments that will save you money and keep your home comfortable.

There is only one small negative to the Lux TX9100E thermostat. In some wiring applications, it may be necessary to insert a jumper wire between two specific terminals to correctly accommodate your particular system's requirements. Lux does not include this jumper wire in its package. You are required to make one yourself if your system requires it.

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Installed this Lux 9100E programmable thermostat two days ago. My wife and I just bought our first house a few months ago and it had a very old Honeywell mercury thermostat. It wasn't bad, it worked very well but wanted a thermostat I could program to turn on and off at certain times with set temperatures. We have a Rheem gas furnace with forced hot air and central air with a Rheem air conditioner on the side of the house. So I guess we have a one-stage HVAC system. I did a lot of research on other thermostats (i.e. Honeywell, Hunter) and finally decided to go for the Lux 9100E. Didn't want to spend 100 dollars on a stat so this seemed like a good choice for me as far as bang for the buck, features and most important it has a temperature swing setting. I paid 40 dollars for it on sale at Lowes. Installation was pretty simple and took me 20 minutes......just read the manual and label all wires accordingly as you remove them from the old thermostat. I removed the old thermostat, placed the supplied stickers on the corresponding wires from the old thermostat (G, Y, RH, RC and W) and just matched them to the new thermostat terminals. I needed to jump the `RC' terminal to the `RH' terminal using the supplied wire in the kit. This was shown in the diagram instructions as well as how the old thermostat was set up so I just did the same thing. The only thing that made me scratch my head was I noticed the old thermostat had two wires connected to the old `Y' terminal. I wasn't sure if both should go to the `Y' terminal on the new thermostat or if one of them should go to the `C`(common wire) terminal. It was a Saturday, tech support was not available until Monday, so I thought the best thing to do was to replicate the same thing on the new stat and connect both `Y' wires on the Y terminal of the new stat. That seemed to be ok since the heat works fine. I like the swing setting which allows you to set a desired temperature swing range of when you want the heat\cool to keep running and remain off. This decreases the on/off cycling of your system which should increase its life. The swing settings are from 1 to 9 in .25 degree temperature increments. In other words, if you have the heat temp setting at 70* and the swing setting set to 4, the heat will turn on at 69* then turn off when it reaches 71*. Keep in mind that this thermostat also has a built in delay feature which basically delays the on and off time. The default setting is 5 minutes and can be changed to 2 minutes. So, if you have the heat temp set to 70*, the swing set to 4 (one degree .25 x 4) and the delay set to 2 minutes, then the heat will turn on 2 minutes after the thermostat drop to 69* and turn off 2 minutes after the thermostat reaches 71*. Hope that wasn't confusing. The delay is set by switching the jumper switch on or off on the back of the thermostat. For some reason though, whether I have the delay set to 2 or 5 minutes, the delay is always 2 minutes. My thermostat for heat is set to 70*, the swing setting is set to 4 (one degree) and the delay set to OFF (5 minutes). With these settings the heat should turn off 5 minutes after the thermostat reaches 71*, but it turns off only after 2 minutes. Same thing happens when the heat is supposed to turn on. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? That's really the only negative thing, or at least the one thing I couldn't get to work as I wanted. No big deal, 2 minute delay is fine or I could even increase the swing setting to adjust accordingly. The LCD display is a light blue which is very nice, stays on for 12 seconds when activated by pressing either the up or down button. Programming was very easy and the thermostat is very accurate. Looks nice on the wall as well. Also has a filter change reminder which can be set to `remind' you to change the filter at whatever setting you have it set to. I have mine set to 30 days. The LCD does not display both current and set temperatures, it just displays current temp. Just hit either the up or down arrow to see the set temp. The one feature that this thermostat does not have is that it does not automatically switch from heat mode to cool mode when called for. In other words, you need to manually change the program mode from heat to cool and visa versa. I live in the northeast so it's really not an issue at all.....just leave it on Heat mode during the winter months and switch to Cool mode in the summer. All in all, this is a very nice thermostat, it's accurate, looks good and has all the features I was looking for that works for us.

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I went from a non-programmable thermostat to this LUX model. It has 4 time settings per day and is programmable for 7 individual days in both heating and cooling. That's 56 different times and modes that can be set. It's extremely flexible and is super easy to install. Having the unit adjust temperatures for the different zones in my house automatically during the day so that zones are adjusted for our usage has cut my electricity bill almost in half.

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Hello,

This is just to let buyer be aware that Lux offers another model, TX9100U which for roughly $10 less but offers adjustable Set Back program and Special Days Program and more (Energy monitor, etc...But only these 2 I think are more significant). For some reason, it's hard to find and I only found it at Lowes, special order for $46. The Model # at Lowes actually listed as LTX9100U. It's easy to install and operate. The only thing I am not sure I like is the battery compartment is not accessible from the front lid. The unit has to be popped out from the base plate to get to the batteries but it might be the same with other Lux models. The window also displays more info on the screen. I thought I let everyone know about this model.

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