Hello all,
As much as I love the design and broad-based support for the NEST Thermostat, it is simply too expensive to justify within my budget… Furthermore, the lack of support for third-party sensors and single zone control means that most of the “smart” features I need would have to be programmed through Home-Assistant anyway.
Can anybody recommend a more affordable alternative that is supported by Home-Assistant? As far as I can see on the thermostat component page, the only supported models available in the US are NEST and Honeywell? Am I missing something? If I’m not, then would anybody recommend the Honeywell thermostat?
You could use a Temperature sensor attached to an Arduino or RaspberryPi (around $2) and a infrared remote emitter ($5) to turn on your air conditioning based on the temperature sensor.
May not be worth the hassle unless you are into tinkering.
I am using this Honeywell one and it works fine in both HA and my Wink set up. A little more expensive but still much cheaper than a Nest or Ecobee.
Not sure about the one you mentioned but since it appears to work with the Honeywell app it may work.
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I moved to a an ecobee 3 in the interim, but the Honeywell was cloud based. HA interacts with it through the API, like the ecobee 3.
If you’re looking for something without cloud connection, you’ll need to look into ZWave thermos. Honeywell has one and it was rated highly in this review which also includes a list of others with pros/cons.
Not using the cloud is a personal choice which I won’t debate but I’ll just say that I never had an issue with either thermostat and both were cloud based. Just an FYI - whatever choice you make for your home is the right one for you.
@rpitera, I’m sure there have been some heated debates re: to cloud or not to cloud. In my case, it has more to do with how often my ISP loses its ability to route packets. If I’m going to bed and want to adjust the thermostat, I can’t depend on CenturyLink (at least where I live) to reliably get that message out of my house, to the cloud, and back.
I had figured that z-wave was probably where I’d wind up. I’ve known about z-wave for years but have never deployed it. Looks like another learning opportunity is coming my way.
Thanks for the link!
Like I said, there’s no right answer in Home Automation besides what’s right for you. Every use case is as personal as every home. (Possible exception is security and permissions! LOL)
ZWave is still a bit of a black box to me, but it’s working and everything runs great with my HA setup and an Aeotec smart stick in my Pi. Sometimes I’m not always sure why it’s working great…
Let me suggest this video from @bruhautomation as a great starting point on getting ZWave to work in HA and how it works in general and in comparison to Zigbee… it’s awesome and entertaining as all of Ben’s vids are. If this is the first time you’ve heard of him do yourself a favor a sub to his YouTube channel.
I got Netatmo in Amazon marketplace at a 100 Euro.
You need to wait when it comes though.
There is a HA component, I think with that is like beeing off the cloud (not sure about this last sentence)
Check with your electric and gas companies and see if there are rebates. I got $150 off my nest between electric and gas rebates.
The “Radio Thermostats” mentioned above come in a lot of brand names. Search for the model name on Ebay. I just installed a CT30 which was only $25 on Ebay. It has 2 plug in boxes on the back of it for radio transmitters so you can use or change which wireless protocol it uses. I have mine set up over Z-Wave but you can buy a WiFi (and I think Zigbee?) box to plug into the back of it.
Very simple, works great. I couldn’t justify the cost of a Nest either as my building only has heat, no AC.
In my area a lot of people are switching from an older Nest to the ecobee for the sensors. Maybe try craigslist or kijiji for something used?
I started with a zwave one from Lowes, but didn’t like the fact that it was only controlled via zwave and couldn’t be manually adjusted by my family. I opted for a used honeywell 8580 (about $70) that is cloud based and similar to the 6580 listed above but is touchscreen. I can monitor settings using HA and send it changes (to the cloud that is) and it provides the necessary functionality. Also it’s easy for others to use outside HA. I also wanted something cheap that was compatible with Google Home. But like someone mentioned earlier, it really comes down to what works best for your situation.
I personally think that you can’t go too far wrong with a Sensi thermostat. I think that they offer great value for money. Some of the pros of this thermostat (apart from the amazing price) are:
[1] Easy to install
[2] Great Customer support
[3] Remote Control
[4] Alexa Ready
You can find out more by visiting
you have the manual, any link for downloading it?