I am pretty new to HA, and I have been searching and searching for integrations and comments here on the forum to try and find a good compatible thermostat that works with HA. I thought I should pause my search and ask the smart people on the form.
I have found suggestions for Honeywell T9/T6/T5 that use the HomeKit integration, but they seem to have issues with operating the fan. Is this still the case, and does it impact all HomeKit thermostats?
I have found suggestions for ZWave thermostats, but I would think that they would need additional hardware to provide the connection over that network, right?
Then there was Ecobee that seems to have an API issue currently.
I feel like I have pretty simple needs. To be able to control a normal furnace, AC, and fan from a dashboard. I am sure I am missing the solutions that “just work” so well that no-one posts about them Any suggestions? Thank you!
ZWave require an additional controller. If you already have a dumb control unit in place that operates your 3 functions then its possible to do it with a zwave, you’d just have to find one.
I do not have any zwave devices at this time, and am looking for recommendations on a good purchase of a new thermostat that will be compatible with HA. Since I need to buy one anyway, it makes sense to me to not add a new network (zwave) to my house, unless there are no other options.
Something frustrating about a lot of mainstream IOT stuff is that it is programmed to require cloud connectivity which I prefer to deny to IOT devices. My window AC for example. Just brought it out for the season and I had to give it internet to work with HA. After initial connection I locked it down again and it worked fine. A few hours later when it tried to phone home it went unavailable and didn’t come back. I gave it internet again and now it works. It’s clearly capable of local commands, but it’s not programmed to be satisfied without phoning home.
I don’t have experience with the Honeywell thermostats. Depending on the model, i believe you have the option to either use the HomeKit integration or the native Honeywell integration, if the thermostat supports their cloud service.
I have been using an Ecobee thermostat for a number of years. Unfortunately, as you noted, they’ve stoped registering new developer accounts, which are needed by the native integration for API access. There is still the option to use the HomeKit integration with the Ecobee thermostats. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/how-to-migrate-from-ecobee-cloud-integration-to-local-homekit-controller/491319
-Brent
I have three Honeywell thermostats and they work great, using the HA integration and/or the Honeywell app or web site.
That said, it violates my “local only” policy. I’d much rather have a fully local thermostat which doesn’t need to “phone home” to the vendor’s cloud servers. Unfortunately, when I looked around there weren’t many options, and those all had problems and/or compromises.
So, I’ve learned to love my Honeywells. As long as my LAN and internet connection are working, HA can manage them. If HA dies, I still have access through the Honeywell app and web site. And if the internet is down, the thermostats still run their internal schedule. It does seem a bit silly for HA to go through my LAN to get to the internet, to get to the Honeywell servers and back through the internet to the thermostat on my LAN. But it mostly works.
Another feature I like is that they don’t just turn the HVAC systems on and off at a high and low setpoint. They actually calculate the ideal cycle times to keep the room at the the desired temperature, tuned to be most efficient for the type of system. And they’ll start the system ahead of a scheduled temperature change so that it’s at that temperature when the time arrives, rather than starting the cycle then.
One thing I hate is that Honeywell doesn’t give me an API to access my data. Just to rub it in, every month they e-mail me a summary of my HVAC system runtimes. So I know they have the data, but they won’t let me see it. But of course HA does all that for me.
Any suggestions? Thank you!