Honeywell Thermostat integration without going to the cloud

Is this at all possible? I am going to replace my Nest Learning thermostat with probably a Honeywell WiFi thermostat. The docs for the Honeywell Total Connect Comfort definitely requires a cloud account. I don’t care for the app because I have access to my HA from anywhere because I have a secure VPN access to my LAN.
Can someone please post a link on docs for Honeywell Integration in HA? I will probably go with RTH9585WF model.

I know this is off-topic and apologize. I have been looking to replace my ecobee cloud thermostats with something local. I was reading on this forum about the venstar T7850 and T7900.

They can be local or API.

Might be worth consideration.

EDIT: Link to Venstar Home Assistant Integration

You can always get the Honeywell T6 and a Z-Wave dongle and you are good to go. That’s what I did to get away from that garbage Nest and have been very happy with it.

I use the Honeywell T5, which supports Apple’s Homekit, and Home Assistant has a HomeKit integration without actually needing to have Apple’s HomeKit products, so integrating the T5 locally was a piece of cake and works flawlessly without the need to use the cloud.

The only caveat I had was that I needed to make a secondary SSID that only supported 2.4GHz wi-fi, as the T5 seemed to get confused from time to time if it used my main SSID that supported both 2.4GHz and 5GHz wi-fi.

Unfortunately, it looks like the model you listed isn’t compatible with Apple’s Homekit protocol. My other recommendation would be to use Zigbee or Zwave Thermostats for your HVAC as there have been some recommended in the forum before.

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Thanks. I am running HA on a Raspberry Pi. Does HA recognize the Z-Wave dongle if plugged into the RPi USB port?

@ski522: I don’t have a Homekit hub so what do I install in HA to be able to control Homekit devices locally with HA?

You don’t need a HomeKit hub, HA handles the protocol and directly talks to the T5 using the HomeKit protocol.

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Thank you for posting this!
The Honeywell T5 is of interest to me as it is one of only two models (it and the T9) which my local utility company is offering a discount on. While reading though the HA Forums and elsewhere, I often see mention of the T6, but less so the T5 model. Do you have any idea why users seem to be recommending the T6 more often? It is just because the T6 supports Z-Wave if you buy the right T6 version?

T6 is the newer model, whereas the T5 only supports the Apple HomeKit protocol. However, you don’t need any Apple HomeKit products, as the HomeKit protocol is built into the native HomeKit application (HomeKit Device - Home Assistant).

The only caveat I’ve had with the T5 is that it requires an SSID on 2.4GHz only. SSIDs that are on both 5GHz and 2.4GHz would cause problems with my T5, causing it to drop off. The only way to get it reconnected was to power cycle the T5. Since I created a secondary SSID that is only on the 2.4GHz frequency, it has been rock solid for connectivity.

Personally, I like the screen and looks of the T5; it has worked fine for me since 2018, once I figured out the 2.4GHz only SSID per recommendation from Honeywell. For a lot of people, setting up a separate SSID on just a 2.4GHz channel can be an issue if their access point doesn’t have good support for that type of configuration.

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I’ve already got a dedicated 2.4GHz SSID, always have, so that’s a none issue for me. My thing is I’m trying to find the best fit for a thermostat that I can use mostly with Home Assistant and Google Home as my backup. The T5 is on my shortlist because it’s got a discount through the utility company. The T6 is not on the utility company’s list, but I asked about it seeing as it seems so popular on the forums. Why aren’t people picking the T9 over the T6?

I have a T9 and use it in HA via the HomeKit integration. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t want to use it without the cloud as there isn’t an option to easily disable cloud support. (I was able to disable cloud access by blocking the sites it contacts). The main reason I disabled cloud access was because there isn’t a way to disable automatic firmware updates. Also I didn’t like it tracking the heating/cooling hours.

Another drawback for me is that manually controlling the fan isn’t supported via HA. I got around this by installing a Shelly relay on the furnace/AC electronics.

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Yeah, I’m investigating Honeywell, but I’m not sold on them.
I’m starting to lean towards the Ecobee Premium thermostat because it seems to be liked by a lot of reviewers, I like the physical appearance of it (I’m not a fan of backlit screens on a thermostat or anything really), and I think using some of Ecobee’s add-on temperature sensors in different parts of the house might be useful data for automation. The research continues but I value all these first hand experiences by current owners!

In case anyone is still looking for an answer to this, the T6 is recommended a lot because it has a z-wave version. There are a lot of home assistant users that prefer z-wave/zigbee over wifi and then obviously there will be no cloud dependency. The T5 is recommended because of the direct HomeKit integration which also eliminates a cloud dependency. The wifi only models (and this goes beyond Honeywell) tend to have cloud restrictions or limitations, as in not all features available.

edit: the T6 Pro WiFi may also support HomeKit.

Not having fan control annoys me. Can you share how exactly you setup a Shelly relay on the furnace/AC electronics? I have a Honeywell HZ322

At the furnace, if you connect the R and G terminals with a wire the fan will run. I used a Shelly 1 for this because the relay is separate from the voltage used to power the Shelly.

The Shelly 1 is connected to 120v power, and one wire for the relay is connected to the R terminal and the other wire is connected to the G terminal. On my furnace these wires carry 24v ac power and turning on the Shelly closes the circuit and the fan runs.

I created a thermostat card that has 3 fan settings. Auto, On and Circulate. The On button calls a script that turns on the Shelly. The Auto button calls a script that turns off the Shelly and the fan is controlled by the thermostat. The Circulate cycles the fan on and off (10 min on, 20 min off).

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I have a new T5. Its not showing up in home assistant. My other thermostat (Bryant) did show up in notifications as a HomeKit and I was able to get it to join. Any ideas?

When I first got mine, I discovered that I had to create a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network specifically without 5GHz. I connected my T5 to that network, and things started working better.

At the time, T5s didn’t like a single SSID that was configured for both 5GHz and 2.4GHz. I would like to think they would have fixed that by now, but wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t.

I didn’t know it was Zwave based, I thought it was just wifi

I just built a new home and had the T6 pro installed. Looking at the guide that came with the T6, it is compatible with homekit so it appears that it can be used with HA using the homekit integration. I haven’t tried it yet but i plan to very soon.

update. It was super easy. a little off-normal from what the instructions say here: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/homekit_controller/.

For me, what worked was powering off the device. Open HA on my phone. Power on device. go to devices and settings and homekit will show a new device.

Be ready with pen and paper to copy down the pairing code (if you wait too long it will change). Enter that code in HA after you select configure the new device.
Presto!