Which thermostat?

[t_garp]

HI all,

After lots of research, I have decided to automate my new house with an Elk M1Gold, OnQ ALC for lighting, an Elan S8.6 & V883 plus touchscreens for A/V.

My HVAC guy does not sell communication thermostats, so i was wondering what should I use?

House split into 2 zones. I have a 2 stage Gas furnace with an A/C system.

I was thinking of the Aprillaire 8870 or the HAI RC-122B or the nicer looking RC-2000. Is there any benefit buying the more expensive one?

 

[toymaster458]

HI all,

After lots of research, I have decided to automate my new house with an Elk M1Gold, OnQ ALC for lighting, an Elan S8.6 & V883 plus touchscreens for A/V.

My HVAC guy does not sell communication thermostats, so i was wondering what should I use?

House split into 2 zones. I have a 2 stage Gas furnace with an A/C system.

I was thinking of the Aprillaire 8870 or the HAI RC-122B or the nicer looking RC-2000. Is there any benefit buying the more expensive one?

I personaly like the RCS TR-40. Not as generic looking as the HAI and not as expensive as Aprillaire.

 

[CORT]

I know that you are not considering the Proliphix thermostats, and let me give a vote against them. I installed 3 proliphix thermostats in my house 1.5 yrs ago, and they cannot even keep accurate time. Lately, one of the thermostats has unexpectedly "disappeared" from the network. Save yourself the headache and stay with the brands you are considering.

 

[Mike P]

Hi,
I was also trying to deside what type to use. I saw the new HAI and it was nice, But the wife has been Bi$%&#n about me spend to much money on HA "stuff". I decided to go with HAI(not the new ones), I figured I could score some at a good price on Ebay. I have got 4 so far off of Ebay. The costs were $36-60Ea. Not to bad. I have 8 more to go and I am good.

BTW I did not tell the wife I need to buy 1 M1xsp per 4 stats....Shhhhhh

Mike

 

[Lagerhead]

I know that you are not considering the Proliphix thermostats, and let me give a vote against them. I installed 3 proliphix thermostats in my house 1.5 yrs ago, and they cannot even keep accurate time. . .

(CORT, sorry to hear of your trouble. Mine have been essentially trouble-free for over two years.)

I have the Proliphix residential models, and I haven't found their clocks to be any worse than a typical PC clock. You just need some code to set the clocks periodically. Maybe I was lucky, as I recall that the company was investigating the matter a year or so ago.

The main reasons not to consider Proliphix are (1) they are individual stand-alone units and (2) they are not widely supported (again AFAIK -- but I have been corrected on this point in the past).

On the other hand, these units are GREAT to hack because the interface is wide open and well-documented (and it's reasonably secure). A lot of what is not documented, you can infer from the embedded HTML. I know it's not for everyone, but a little PHP or other code and you can do all kinds of things with these thermostats.

 

[t_garp]

I ended going with 2 HAI RC2000's. Automated outlet had them for $248 each!

I will probably need other thermostats in the basement for the electric baseboards and i liked the fact that I could buy the lower end HAI models and keep everything the same brand. (don't think it makes a diffirence, but hey!)

I will probably by the lower price RC80's for the baseboards and the infloor radiant heating.