ano said:
Strange because my Omni does that for me automatically. At sunrise it reads the outside temps to decide what schedule it applies for the next 24 hours. Works great. Often in winter it can be in the 80's here, so I don't want the AC running in the afternoons even if its slightly warm in the house. I only use winter and summer schedules but I could do many more if I found the need.
"Many generic brands offer humidity and random fan cycling."
The OmniStat2 can do both. It doesn't have "random fan cycling" but it certainly does have fan cycling. Random fan cycling sounds like you might have a broken thermostat.
"I recently had a customer complain the omnistat didn't have different colors"
Your customers must not read the instructions either. The Omnistat2 can certainly change the color. There are 100 colors actually.
"Of course I imagine many of us do agree that the default single green color is very dated."
That is probably why they let you change it. I use dark blue to match my UPB switches.
"Even many inexpensive models track filter changes"
When you select "Settings" Setup" "Filter Reminder" what do you see? Hmm looks like a filter reminder to me. You really didn't know that?
"Of course with the omnistat one can keep a cell phone handy and purchase Snap Link Mobile to change the temp but fumbling in the middle of the night from the bed, opening the app, selecting the app, pressing the right button can be more of a task than pressing an up button in the dark with no need to add 20 extra minutes to going back to sleep."
So how again do you change the setting of your other thermostats when you are in bed? So Snaplink, for example, open the app, press temp, select the thermostat and there you go. Three clicks. Does that actually take you 20 minutes. :rofl:
Awww and no weather forecast on your thermostat? How did you live all those years when you had one of those round Honeywell thermostats?
I get my weather from any device connected to the Internet. Why spend money to put that in a thermostat? Can your thermostat view stock prices, news and porn? My Internet can.
Hello ano. I hope you are well and appreciate your reply.
My responses were to answer your question where you believed many thermostats could not do the same thing as the omnistat. Of course many devices can do more when you add a backend controller, but I was simply responding about the omnistat needing to function as other thermostats where different schedules were programmed on the thermostat without need of extra hardware. Sadly the omnistat doesn't support this older feature natively and does require an expensive controller.
Random fan cycling is common with most all the various digital thermostat brands, which by the way are not broken.
I see your play on words - whoops! I should have written "simultaneous" colors. Single backlight color is not the same as a device that can show millions of colors on a display simultaneously. While cool that we can change the backlight to a single color, the customer's complaint was that her old Rite Temp 6080 had buttons of different color that helped her determine which was which at a glance and she liked how modern it looked in comparison to the dated looking omnistat with when she first saw it, the same old default HAI green backlight. Having to change the color out of the box immediately to try and make the omnistat look more modern is an extra step and should be default out of the box. Too bad an Omni controller can't program omnistat color, as otherwise instead of you having to add the DIY power filter to resolve the unwanted backlight color change issue, your Omni could simply put it back whenever the backlight changes to an undesired color. I'm happy to say unwanted color change isn't a feature of modern thermostats. Can you imagine the average Home Depot customer having to build a small electronic circuit because their thermostat couldn't maintain it's single color...
I was aware of the filter reminder, but simply mentioned the omnistat does not track UV Purifier bulb aging like some others do. Of course not everyone has a UV purifier, or humidifier or dehumidifier, but many thermostats do offer those options.
You misunderstood about the 20 minutes which is why I mentioned the reference to many of the sleep studies about viewing "devices" before bed. The 20 minutes is based on a study that found sleep disruption occurs when a person views a computer, electronic device, or phone at bedtime resulting in an additional 20 minutes to fall asleep. Viewing your phone and walking through apps to raise the temp cool but not the same as pressing a single simple button in the dark on a handheld remote that is always by the bed or arm chair as example.
About the weather on the thermostat, its just a modern feature the omnistat lacks and people want more modern features like that. No violins here and frankly, even if the omnistat showed weather information, single color still wouldn't look very modern which would be like going back to an old green backlit Honeywell.
You asked about spending less money to get a thermostat that looks modern with modern day features or why I would pay the price of an omnistat2 but get something that looks beautiful, has more than a single backlit color, and shows weather....I would respond that many customers are about vanity, they are about getting top dollar when they sell their renovated home, or they simply want to be more connected, just like they are with many other devices in the home that provide such modern day features. Why do phones do more than make calls today - why do thermostats offer weather, power usage estimates, and run time info? That's a facetious question - I already know the answer.
I'm not saying the omnistat is pretty or modern looking, I'm not saying it offers modern day features - I'm writing that you put in a lot of work just to fix the omnistat's failure to maintain its single programmed color that most people don't have the talent to do and that I admire your DIY skills in being able to resolve this shortcoming of the omnistat. The omnistat design was modern back in the day when it was first created but doesn't seem like it has been updated with exception to replacement of the HAI logo for the Leviton logo.
Frankly I don't want an omnistat to be visible in my personal home and the same is true for many of my customers. My house is techie looking and an omnistat in view would take away from the modern look - and I dislike that it can't natively support two different schedules for heat and cool without help from my OPII which has to burn a bunch of the limited programming lines that are available. If the omnistat supported different schedules for heat and cool natively, hooray - I would have more programming lines available to do more cool stuff rather than basic programming that should already exist.
The counterpoint of course is a drawback to some modern thermostats, it is that they won't interface with the Omni for special programming, like turning off the heat when a window has been opened, or changing temp when arming away but as some modern thermostats and control systems do support RS232/RS485, those can interface to an Omni and offer the best of the modern world with a modern thermostat, which is not the omnistat. Of course some modern thermostats have their own backend controller which does provide some really nice functions and others have cloud-based controls which can be modernized with each update but staying out of the cloud to me represents less risk.
Anyway, I seriously admire your fix for the omnistat and that your solution may fix this issue for quite a lot of people. Maybe Leviton will incorporate that into the next version of the omnistat so we don't have to.