Honeywell RTH2300B1012/A 5-2 Day Programmable Thermostat Review

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I had a really basic thermostat that I was replacing. One of the round ones with the mercury switch inside. (Made by Honeywell, I might add). Once removed, just two wires came out of the wall. When you touch the two wires together, the furnace comes on, and when you keep them apart the furnace is off. Couldn't be simpler.

But can you imagine that this thermostat doesn't have instructions for that scenario? I was able to Google instructions eventually, but it is ridiculous that it describes what to do if you have 5 different colored wires but not what to do if you have only two. By the way, what you had to do was remove a jumper and attach your two wires to the RIGHT two posts. After that the thermostat works fine, but it was unnecessarily complicated for such a simple use case.

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This thermostat was a good price, had decent ratings, and had the features I wanted. So far, it's done everything I need it to. I'm not sure if I'd agree that it's as simple to program as other people have said. I figured it out, but it seems like it could still be confusing to people. If you never figured out how to make your VCR stop flashing 12:00, this may still be tricky for you. The good news is, you can ask your 5 year old kid to program it for you!

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I bought this as a replacement for an older model honeywell programmable thermostat that had batteries that expired that made the unit become temperamental (worked most of the time but the readings on the screen kept indicating batteries needing replacement even though new batteries had been installed). This new thermostat was smaller than the unit it was replacing. The new thermostat had more features. When I first installed this unit the old tags on the wires fell off as I removed each wire from the old thermostat so I could not be certain which wire went into which position on the new one. Being a little flustered by losing the wire tags, I skimmed the directions and dig not pay close attention to where the wires connected with the thermostat. I plugged the wires into the back of the unit instead of on the top of the back of the unit. The front of the unit could not be snapped into place because the wires were where the prongs were supposed to be engaged. The wires were larger in diameter than the prongs, enlarging the holes for the prongs to connect. After moving the wires where they were supposed to go and connecting the faceplate in position I could not get the system to turn on. I was not sure whether the wires were in the wrong position or if the prongs were not making contact. After several adjustments, everything started working. The unit works great and was easy to program. We have used it for both air conditioning and heating. Just take time to mark your wires with the tags provided and follow the directions for how they connect to unit as part of the installation and you will have a great programmable thermostat.

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I bought this to replace a White-Rodgers non-programmable thermostat (it looks like this one: http://www.acsuperstore.com/store/WHITER08.html). This product is a fine replacement.

I bought my house with an 80% efficiency gas heater installed (Trane, around 7 years old), but no air conditioning. Around a month ago, I had air conditioning installed (Carrier). The non-programmable thermostat became a bit annoying because it got too hot during the day and too cold at night, depending which direction I changed the temperature.

I took a look at the old White-Rodgers thermostat and had the following connections: white to W, red to RH, a red jumper from RH to RC, blue to C, green to G, and yellow to Y. (A very good reference for what those all mean is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_thermostat.)

The Honeywell unit does not have an RH terminal, only an R and an RC. I assume R, RH, and RC are all the same (at least in this situation), but not wanting to start a fire or something, I called the customer support number and was incredibly surprised to find that the person I spoke with was actually able to help me.

Turns out--and please don't blame me if it breaks your system--that red goes to R on the new unit and the jumper between R and RC (there by default) remains in place.

Minor annoyance: the Honeywell *requires* batteries. The White-Rodgers unit operated without batteries (the person I spoke to told me the blue wire, C, supplies power). Since the Honeywell doesn't take a C connection, it must run on batteries. (Hopefully they last a couple of months at least.)

My final connections: white to W, red to R, jumper from R to RC, green to G, and yellow to Y.

One more minor annoyance: you'll need an incredibly tiny flathead screwdriver to tighten the terminal connections. If you have an eyeglass screwdriver or similar (and know where it is), you'll be fine.

Otherwise, I'm very happy with the unit and Honeywell's phone support.

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I purchased one of these locally and the price was much higher. However, I was so impressed I purchased this one as a gift for a friend. She installed it herself without any difficulty.