Three geo-thermal units and four zones, which thermostats?

[wkearney99]

We're building a new house and I'm looking to find thermostats I can automate.  In the old house we had a single NG/AC unit controlled by a Proliphix thermostat.  Worked well and had a web page control for altering the temps and the setback schedules.  Not the prettiest UI but it did the job.
 
Now in the new house we've got three geo-thermal units, one each for basement, 1st and 2nd floors.  The basement unit has a dual-zone air handler to allow separate control over a theater space.  As in, modulate the temp in the theater first, rest of the basement rec room 2nd.  This to keep the theater from becoming an oven when there's lots of people in there.  Anyway, that part is reasonably sorted out.
 
What I'm interested in finding are thermostats for these that will allow at least the same level of remote control and programming as the old Proliphix unit.  The HVAC folks want to go with some Honeywell units that have their 'RedLink' protocol.  Apparently there's a gateway that can be had to allow remote control of it.  How well this works I have no idea.
 
Two local automation installers have had less than satisfactory customer experience with the NEST units.  And given the 'stable temp is best' nature of geo-thermal it's not like I really need the features the Nest claims to offer.  
 
This is a new build and I'm in rough framing now.  So I've got plenty of access to put wiring or units wherever we want.  My plan currently is to pull  regular thermostat and a CAT5 cables to the thermostat or sensor positions.  Might not need it now, but can't hurt to have it already buried in there for later needs.
 
I'm not (at this point) considering a central automation controller.  The lighting is all Lutron Radio RA2, as we really liked how well their RA1 system worked, and want to integrate their shades with it.
 
So I'm wondering what other thermostats to consider?   Suggestions?  Warnings of what to avoid?

 

[IndyBrian]

I have two Water Furnace Geo-Thermal units each running two zones.
 
I have an OmniPro II, and I have four HAI Omnistat Thermostats.  I am pretty sure these are no longer made and the new one is the Omnistat 2.

 

[CinciJeff]

I'm in the same boat, and I'm trying to figure out my HVAC control system before they begin installing.
 
My house is framed and they're currently working on roof trusses and sheathing. Total heated/cooled area is about 6500 sq. ft and it sounds like I'll be getting a single Water Furnace geothermal system with 4 zones. (I say "sounds like" because I'm having trouble getting a hold of the installer and I still don't know exactly what I'm getting).
 
Since I'm almost certainly going with an OmniPro II system, it sounds like the Omnistats are the best bet. Thing is, at around $225 each it's an expensive proposition to buy four of them. Are there any alternatives? I really don't need the multi-color lighted LCD blah blah blah especially if I'll be controlling everything from my HA system. If this is the only way to do it, then so be it, but I'm curious if there's another way. Thanks!

 

[neillt]

If your lighting is going to be RadioRA2, is there a reason you don't want to go with Lutron's TouchPro thermostats?  They would be part of the RadioRA2 wireless mesh network.

 

[ano]

If you just want to remotely control the thermostats, it really doesn't matter which you pick, but if you want to monitor and control a thermostat with a controller, there is no better combo than the HAI Omni Pro II and the OmniStat2. I have four of them controlling two systems, one with three zones.  You can read any data from the OmniStat2 and control anything you can imagine.  I control mine, change set temps, in response to motion, home/away status time and outside temps. I use the humidity read from them to control ventilation.
 
I really don't care about the color changing but how you can adjust the brightness, and even have them turn on and off in response to motion is great in a bedroom where you don't want lots of light.
 
The OmniStat2 also has lots of programmability so it is very flexible even when running in solo mode.

 

[ano]

Thing is, at around $225 each it's an expensive proposition to buy four of them.

Hmmm.. So just how much is that Geo-thermal system with installation?

 

[CinciJeff]

Hmmm.. So just how much is that Geo-thermal system with installation?

 
Point taken... however the 30% rebate moved up the break-even point considerably and made it feasible.
 
I checked into the specs a little more and it is nice that it can display outdoor temperature and detect motion. That might be enough to make them worthwhile.

 

[ano]

So there is no misunderstanding, the motion detector just turns on and off the backlighting, but the Omni can't see this motion event. Before I bought it I figured that the motion detector in the thermostat can trigger some event, but it can't. But it can display the outdoor temperature and the time, if you like. The relays in them click a bit, but otherwise they are pretty solid.

 

[wkearney99]

To follow up a little, the system has honeywell visionpro 8000 thermostats, hard-wired to the hvac. I just today added a Redlink gateway. It pairs wirelessly with the thermostats. It's wired to the LAN and there's a web site at honeywell for remote access. No direct link to the gateway from within the LAN, but the service is free.

Not a lot of frills on the website or the IOS app. No logging or stats. Nothing Nest-like, at least not today.

 

[wkearney99]

At some point I'll probably put a Wireshark sniffer on the link to see what's going back/forth.
 
I've attached a picture of the board that's inside the case.  I had to reduce it to black & white to get around the 150k size limit on attachments here.  
 
The back of the board shows solder pads for what's probably a USB port, on the front edge of the board.  Could be it's a reference design or they're present for development versions of the hardware.

 

[gatchel]

Hmmm.. So just how much is that Geo-thermal system with installation?

 
No doubt! :throwup:

 

[signal15]

Keep in mind that the HVAC installer community *hates* Nest because they can't make money off of it.  Most of them make an effort to say bad things about it, even if they have no basis for it.  The Nest is a great thermostat.  I had one in my last house, and I loved it.
 
That said, in the house I'm in now, I have 2 dual stage furnaces and 2 AC units.  I went with Ecobee this time around.  They integrate with home automation equipment much easier, are much more robust in the options you have when setting them up, and provide you with much better data for later analysis.  If your geothermal does hydronic heat in the floors, it also supports that.  I was able to determine with the data provided that one of my furnaces was doing about 90% of the work to heat my house, and the other was only doing about 10%.  I had rooms that were too cold on one side of the house also.  I was able to make some changes which made everything comfortable, and spread the load out to 60/40 (taking into account the BTU ratings of the furnaces, it's more like 50/50 now).
 
One of the drawbacks to the Ecobee is that the touchscreen is resistive, and it's frustrating to use.  Luckily, you only need to deal with it much during the setup.  Also, their HomeIQ doesn't have a mechanism to tell it all of your thermostats are in the same house.  So when you get your monthly report that says what you used compared to other people in the same area with similar sized homes, that report is not accurate.  I spoke with their main developer guy about this a couple of weeks ago, and they are fixing this.
 
I have both models of their thermostat.  The one with the touchscreen can control a humidifier and fresh air exchanger, the other one cannot.  I only have a humidifier on one of my furnaces, so I put that one on that furnace.  Then I put the cheaper one on the other furnace.
 
I'm happy with these so far.  I've only had them since November, but they've worked great all winter.  I recommend taking a look at them.  Something interesting to note is that the Ecobee used to cost like $700.  They lowered their price to compete with Nest.

 

[wkearney99]

I would very much like to get collected data from the Honeywell setup.  Can't get it right now, nor has there been any news from them about whether it'll ever be possible.  I can get alerts and mode changes from the thermostats via exporting to microSD cards.  But that's not terribly useful, at least not for what I'm after.  
 
I do intend to dig into just what I can use their website to extract.  Ideally I'd like to be able to at least extract that data from the LAN-connected gateway directly.  But otherwise it ought to be possible to make the necessary network SOAP calls to grab it from the Internet.  

 

[hult]

I recently ditched a three-thermostat Aprilaire/Enerzone-Statnet installation for three (actually four) Ecobee thermostats at the same time as I installed three (soon four) ground-source geothermal units. They are the cat's meow in my experience.

Especially appreciated was the possibility of adding additional temperature and humidity sensors to determine when to actuate relays to switch to outside air rather than active cooling/heating. I did have some trepidations about depending on the company's (free, no fee) servers, but I've gotten over that ..,

The interface is great. The installation menu works you through a maze of installation options and bingo, it's operational. So far (two months) it has been flawless. I've connected from three continents without a hitch. I'd need to have some experience with heating before I could recommend, but so far, for cooling at least, it's a 9.0. I have to ding it a point for the lack of connectivity with my HA software but truth be told, now that seems hardly necessary. A few keystrokes and it does what I want.

 

[wkearney99]

I don't have ducting to allow for pulling in outside air.  But around here, given the humidity, that's not usually something that helps system efficiency just to get cooler air.  I could see where some places could make better use of it though.
 
I take it you're just adding another exchanger to the existing ground-source loop?