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Best thermostat for C4


Nehsmit

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Hi all,

I have the original C4 native thermostats and was wondering if any of the new thermostats had clearly been declared a favorite? I know many like Nest and others Ecobee. My HVAC guy thinks Ecobee in general is just not good quality. Thoughts are appreciated.

Thank you.

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Most secure integration is the new C4 t-stats. Undoubtedly bulky though.

Aprilaire is a perfectly fine option.

Ecobee is not bad, but requires cloud service.

Not a fan of honeywell BECAUSE it requires total connect (cloud connection is just never a first choice), but have no particular issues with those either - at least since it's no longer Houselogix' convoluted driver...

Nest - nah. HVAC may like them, but they get a bonus for every one installed...

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I like the Ecobee thermostats themselves, but the C4 integration has been very problematic. I know Ecobee has done some work to address this on their end, but it is still a problem with the driver needing to be reconnected to their service a lot.  I'm with Cyknight on this as far as cloud goes...but not sure why he likes Ecobee but not Honeywell when they both require cloud.

Venstar is another option...They have a local API so don't require the cloud to work and they connect over IP.  

 

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We had consistent problems w/ the C4 thermostats. They swapped them out numerous times with little to no improvement. A friend had a similar experience. They worked fine for another gal I know. We wanted to avoid them for our new house so some research...

Our integrator loves Ecobee but recommends against them if they are to be in a C4 installation and said if we installed them he'd do initial setup but any further support would be full hourly rate. HVAC folks were very strongly against Nest as they apparently do unpredictable things that confuse homeowners and frustrate installers.

We ended up w/ Honeywell Redlink and six Prestige IAQ thermostats (three each on two systems). Worked great as a system and with C4 (including a number of programming bits to control them) for about 3 months. Haven't worked right since. LOTS of communication errors with thermostats. C4 integration works, doesn't, works sort of, doesn't...  We just migrated from Honeywell's TCC to Honeywell Home which seems to be working better but C4 integration is still wonky. Redlink and Honeywell controllers in general are extremely antiquated.  

@Hizzle, I'd like to hear more about your experiences.

 

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16 hours ago, TundraSonic said:

We had consistent problems w/ the C4 thermostats. They swapped them out numerous times with little to no improvement. A friend had a similar experience. They worked fine for another gal I know. We wanted to avoid them for our new house so some research...

Our integrator loves Ecobee but recommends against them if they are to be in a C4 installation and said if we installed them he'd do initial setup but any further support would be full hourly rate. HVAC folks were very strongly against Nest as they apparently do unpredictable things that confuse homeowners and frustrate installers.

We ended up w/ Honeywell Redlink and six Prestige IAQ thermostats (three each on two systems). Worked great as a system and with C4 (including a number of programming bits to control them) for about 3 months. Haven't worked right since. LOTS of communication errors with thermostats. C4 integration works, doesn't, works sort of, doesn't...  We just migrated from Honeywell's TCC to Honeywell Home which seems to be working better but C4 integration is still wonky. Redlink and Honeywell controllers in general are extremely antiquated.  

@Hizzle, I'd like to hear more about your experiences.

 

Funny had only 1 issue where all my C4 therms went offline. Rebooted them all w battery pull and have worked great since (over a year) without any issues. 

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Only issue I've ever experienced is that they had a bad run where you would get them out of the box and half the buttons would just fall out.  They replaced all the affected units.  It was obviously either a manufacturing or shipping issue, but I had like 20 in a row that did that.    I think I've had maybe 2 that had the back part that you connect the wires to go bad.  But overall, they have been "install and forget" units.

 

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Yeah, zero issues with the new ones as far as performance within their functionality. The OLD ones had issues unless you could get a COM wire to it, ie in 'powerstealing' or battery operated mode, maybe you have experience with those?

On 10/16/2021 at 4:21 PM, treynolen said:

.but not sure why he likes Ecobee but not Honeywell when they both require cloud.

Ugh, because I wasn't firing on all cylinders I guess, I've edited the post to what I meant.

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I have had Honeywell TotalConnect and Ecobee thermostats.  I found the Honeywell thermostats to respond to complex programming much less reliably than the Ecobee.  This is especially true if you are addressing many thermostats -- we have 7 different thermostats in a zoned system.  The Honeywell driver may have gotten better, but this is based on my experience with it about 2-3 years ago.

I also find that the Ecobee "comfort mode" paradigm very convenient for programming, because you can essentially set up 3-4 "scenes" for each of your thermostats and then switch among them programmatically.  Plus, it's easy to edit the "scenes" on the thermostats without having to redo or unwind all your programming.  

I agree that the cloud service can be a bit of a drag; I find myself reconnecting every couple of months.

 

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On 10/13/2021 at 1:03 AM, Cyknight said:

Not a fan of honeywell BECAUSE it requires total connect (cloud connection is just never a first choice), but have no particular issues with those either - at least since it's no longer Houselogix' convoluted driver...

Thanks for the heads up. Just noticed that there is a native driver now https://drivers.control4.com/solr/drivers/browse?&q=&fq=manufacturer:"Honeywell+Home"

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That is the driver I'm using for Honeywell too.  A few years ago the only Honeywell Home driver was provided through Blackwire(?).  It wasn't great.  It's much more compatible now.

I love the thermostat.  It is responsive, looks good, and has the "smart thermostat" features (like learning how long it takes to cool a room and starts cooling early so that the final temp is reached when you have it scheduled).  Works quite well.  I don't like managing the thermostats schedules in C4.  Honestly once they are built, I never touch them.  I just use the manual setting if I need to adjust temperature, which is what C4 does in the driver.  So it does exactly what I want.  I don't know how difficult it is to build the schedule in the current driver.  It was a big pain in the Blackwire one.  The Honeywell Home app makes it easy to build and copy the schedule days and times and also allows grouping of days (weekday and weekend), so that's fine with me.  As far as cloud control, I've never had an issue with the cloud system being down and not adjusting my thermostat via C4.  So again, not an issue.  It manages 4 thermostats in the house and everything has been working great.

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On 10/13/2021 at 12:03 AM, Cyknight said:

Most secure integration is the new C4 t-stats. Undoubtedly bulky though.

Aprilaire is a perfectly fine option.

Ecobee is not bad, but requires cloud service.

Not a fan of honeywell BECAUSE it requires total connect (cloud connection is just never a first choice), but have no particular issues with those either - at least since it's no longer Houselogix' convoluted driver...

Nest - nah. HVAC may like them, but they get a bonus for every one installed...

Cynight,

One comment about Aprilaire.  Our HVAC guy recommended Aprilaire and when we got the thermostat it was huge and the screen was just not as crisp (low resolution) as the Honeywell or Nest or Eccobee.  They also required another bulky module to go along with it.  I can't remember what it was for but the size and chunkiness of it was a deal breaker.  I was excited to try something new, but went back to the Honeywells.  

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6 hours ago, Hizzle said:

it was huge and the screen was just not as crisp (low resolution) as the Honeywell or Nest or Eccobee.

Fully agree - they aren't the prettiest, but i was merely commenting on integration (we aim to have ZERO t-stat visible whenever possible, so not as big of a deal).

Understand that we've got no issues integrating (such as they are) Ecobee, Honeywell or even Nest - especially in retro-fit situations where aesthetics are a concern.

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The Control4 Thermostat has the best integration I've seen.  They are bulky but they support remote thermostat.  My plan is to have them down by the HVAC and then use remote temp sensors.  

I haven't seen any other thermostat that has as many features on the C4 interface as the Control4 Thermostat.  I can schedule right from the thermostat.  I can copy that schedule across multiple thermostats.  I haven't seen any other driver do as much as the control4 driver does. 

-Dan

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