Jay-Hawks

Add me to the growing list of people interested in this.

Actually the system and house wasn't that old. The home was built in 2002 so I would have expected more. With everything related to that home it did seem that decisions made regarding cost on it's construction tended to on the cheap side so I'm sure that applied to the HVAC as well.

The reason that manual control is such a big deal for us is that while in our past two homes we have had our nest thermostat we have still had a lot of problems with consistent temps throughout the house. The design of our prior HVAC systems has been to have one large return in the house located in a back hallway by the thermostat. Since the hallway didn't have any windows and no real sources of heat (windows, kitchen or TV's) the temp registered back there was typically very different than the true living spaces. We had our nest on a program and I was constantly having to tweak the program to try and keep the wife happy. It was very common for us to be hot until the AC would kick on and then shortly there after the wife would complain about how cold she was. To combat this we would program the fan to run 30 minutes of every hour to try and even out the temps but still this was and continues to be an ongoing issue for us and one that we hope to resolve in the new house by doing the following: As described before we are going to have a lot of separate zones. No more single stage units. We are going to have two separate 2 stage units instead of the single stage units we had before. With the single stage units it did seem that when the units were on they were really on. By reducing the fan speed and the units running for longer periods of time we hope to avoid the big temp swings that we have had in the past. Multiple returns. Instead of having just one large return we will have a separate return in each bedroom and the other living spaces in the house, total of 10 in the whole home. Better insulation. Our past homes had fiberglass batt insulation and I don't think it was installed worth a crap. We could go up to the wall in some rooms and you could just feel the heat on the wall. The new home is going to have spray foam throughout and a conditioned attic. Better windows. I would joke that our old house window panes were so thin that they only had one side to them. Single pane windows create hot spots and our new Simonton Storm Breaker Plus triple pane windows should be far superior to what we used to have.Living where we do (Texas coast) our issue is cooling and not really heating so while most of what we have done should help both sides of the issue our focus has clearly been on the AC side of things.

What alarm panels do you suggest?

Now that might be an idea for later! I could see us doing that but many moons from now.

I understand what you are saying that I can access the thermostat is multiple ways with the Control4 but the issue is that it's not just me making adjustments to the thermostat. While I love technology I can't say the same for my wife and if I tell her that she has to get out her phone, open an application, wait for it to connect, select the proper thermostat and then change the temp one degree I wonder how long I will be married. The one thing that my control4 setup has to do is make our lives easier, not more technical and for my wife and my two little girls going up to a thermostat in the room and pressing a button up or down is easier so this is how I must proceed. Will I be sitting in my recliner using my phone to change the temp, you bet I will but by placing the thermostat in the room my wife won't have to. I would be interested though to find out more about the location of the iphone feature though. I assume this would also apply to Android as well.

While I haven't seen one of the Control4 Thermostats in person yet the videos I have seen on YouTube don't make them look that bad. I ordered a couple yesterday so I guess I will find out what they look like soon enough. I guess you will have to balance the thought of having this "ugly" thermostat on the wall against convenience of having to go to a remote location to change the temp. The touchscreen idea is interesting but initially I don't plan to install any of those just to try and keep costs down.

Normally you have to worry about someone you don't know hijacking your thread but I have to worry about my wife doing it. Thanks for all the great replies, I have found the information to be very helpful. I think that the best way for us to go is probably using the control4 thermostats and then figure out later how best to utilize the possibilities with the control 4 system.

Hello. This is "Jay-Hawks'" wife and since he left this post open on MY computer I thought I would add to the discussion. Here are how our zones are broken down followed by the anticipated use. 1) Living Rm/Dining Rm/Kitchen/0.5 Bath - This will be the hub of our home and represents a full 30-40% of our entire house. Use will be high but also highly variable as my work schedule is highly variable (I work both day and night shifts, sometimes on different days of the week). Ideally this zone would go to an "away" mode when no one is home so as to save $$ on cooling but when I am home I would also like to be able to fall asleep on the couch and not wake up sweating because the thermostat has kicked into "auto away" mode due to lack of motion (what happens now). 2,3) Kids' bedrooms - Predictable use on 5+2 schedule, prefer manual control. The day my husband talks me into thinking our kids NEED motion sensors in their bedrooms is the day I know we've both lost our minds. 4) Fish tank/Home automation - Small rooms but knowing my husband he will want some highly complex cooling schedule with cooling integrated with lights and chiller usage etc... 5) Upstairs Gameroom/Guest bathroom - Medium sized area open to zone #1 above. Sparse use during the week, heavy use on the weekends. This area may be best served with a motion sensing device because there is no door to the Gameroom and the main users are currently ages 5 and 2 and probably not to be trusted with a manual thermostat. 6) Guest bedrm - Manual. Mostly will be off. 7) Master suite - Large area. I think manual here too. Mostly off during the day.

What kind of limitations have you run into? I see that there is a new Control4 thermostat out, is there really any benefits of this thermostat over the old one(CCZ-T1-W)? Also I have read that you have an exterior temp sensor with the control4 thermostat (at least with the CCZ-T1-W), if I were to have multiple thermostats would I also have to have multiple exterior temp sensors or could they all use just one?

Another question regarding the Nest, can Control4 set the Nest to away? My thought is that I may eventually install an alarm system (one that will communicate with Control4) and I was wondering if I could set it up that when I arm the alarm that my nest(s) would all then go into away mode? Could I use a multi button switch to set all of the Nest's to away as I walk out the door?

Haven't looked at the Ecobee's. After a quick review I wonder how well it would work with my HVAC since I will have a zoning system with 7 zones total. As best I can tell I would have to have a separate ecobee to control each zone. Still love the idea that it uses your cell phone to know when you are headed home to adjust the temp, pretty cool.

We plan to have 7 zones in our house (currently under construction) and some of the zones temps won't change so no need for an advanced thermostat but for the other areas (5) would I be better off putting nest thermostats in those rooms or should I go with the control4 thermostats?

I have seen were Control4 has announced that Nest thermostats are now compatible with Control4, but I wondered what exactly that would mean for me. So I have been reading the forums and all around the web to try and understand how the Nest thermostat will work with Control4 but I'm still confused about how they do or don't work together. The only thing that I have seen in multiple places is when the Nest goes into "Auto-Away" mode that Control4 won't be able to communicate with the Nest, but that's about all I know. Can Nest and Control4 do any of the following? Can I adjust the current set point on the Nest using Control4? When the Nest goes from "Auto-Away" to "home" does the Nest communicate that to Control4? The reason I ask is we are going to have multiple zones in our home and I was hoping that when the Nest changes to "Home" that Control4 would know this and then be able to change the temperature in other areas of the home (plan to install control4 thermostats in those rooms).Can I adjust the schedule of the Nest through the Control4 interface?Does it matter which generation of Nest I have?Any information on how my Nest will and will not work with Control4 would be very helpful. Thanks...Scott