SteveInNorCal
Active Member
Hi, all. I'm setting up a new Elk M1G system. For many years, I've used a Honeywell Chronotherm III setback thermostat to control our forced air natural gas fired furnace and our AC. The thermostat has been highly reliable and easy to program. When we go out it is quite easy to reduce the temperature and put it on "Hold" to save energy.
Now that I've got the Elk, I'd like to install a communicating thermostat connected to the Elk to automate energy savings when we go out or away. My needs are simple:
These seem like such obvious and desirable features that I'm shocked that they aren't included. On one site, a person contacted one of the manufacturers and was told there was no demand for these features.
I've seen several suggestions where people essentially use the event capability with time and temperature readings to set up rules in the Elk. These essentially completely replace the setback programming already built into the tstat. That seems like a real Rube Goldberg approach to what should be simple -- have Elk tell the programmable tstat to go into Away or Return mode.
Question: Do any of the communicating thermostats out there offer these simple features? Maybe things have improved in the past few years since the various reader comments were last made. I cannot find an answer to these simple questions on the RCS, HAI or AprilAire installer or user instructions.
Thanks in advance!
Steve
Now that I've got the Elk, I'd like to install a communicating thermostat connected to the Elk to automate energy savings when we go out or away. My needs are simple:
- When I arm the Elk, but the thermostat into "Away" or "Vacation" mode and hold it in that mode until the Elk is disarmed.
- Thermostat should be completely operable locally (at the tstat) for make tweaks to the temps if we are too hot or too cold.
- Returning from vacation or a trip, be able to phone the Elk and have it tell the tstat to go off Away or Vacation mode and revert to full automatic setback control
These seem like such obvious and desirable features that I'm shocked that they aren't included. On one site, a person contacted one of the manufacturers and was told there was no demand for these features.
I've seen several suggestions where people essentially use the event capability with time and temperature readings to set up rules in the Elk. These essentially completely replace the setback programming already built into the tstat. That seems like a real Rube Goldberg approach to what should be simple -- have Elk tell the programmable tstat to go into Away or Return mode.
Question: Do any of the communicating thermostats out there offer these simple features? Maybe things have improved in the past few years since the various reader comments were last made. I cannot find an answer to these simple questions on the RCS, HAI or AprilAire installer or user instructions.
Thanks in advance!
Steve