Best Thermostat with MCV - Please share your experience

Other Devices & Integrations Climate Control & Temperature Sensors
1

These forums have been so helpful in making decisions :slight_smile:

  1. I ordered Trane TZEMT400BB3

  2. Learned that only 4 wires are coming to my old Thermostat - the C/Common wire is not in the wire bundle

  3. I saw on Homeseer that they’ve a 2GIG ZStat CT30 Z-Wave Thermostat which would work without the common (C) wire

  4. Apparently, the Trane would need the C wire for the 24 V AC power it needs.

From any of your experience, what do you recommend? Your input is greatly appreciated

  1. Redo the wire bundle and pull the C wire and go with Trane
  2. Leave the wire bundle as it is and go with the 2GIG

Thanks a lotttttttttt!

2

I pulled a new wire for both my Trane TSTats. I have not tried the 2 gigs but have had the WDTC-20’s and from my experience the Tranes are far superior.

3

Z-Wave appliances are much more responsive when they’re AC powered. Battery powered devices “sleep” most of the time and sometimes miss the network heal, and queries.

Additionally- AC powered devices can act as a bridge between Vera and other devices for better range and more consistent communications, battery operated devices don’t offer that benefit.

My old t-stats had only 2 wires so I pulled new 4 wire cable to both Trane stats… it was a royal PITA but it was worth it.
Incidentally, I power both of them from the same $10 26v transformer I use for my sprinkler system.

I do use one of the battery operated 2GIG ZStat CT30 as a simple room temp monitor in the MBR, sometimes it’s a bit slow to respond.

4

I have the Trane TZEMT 400AB32MAA which has the indicator LEDS
I had the extra C wire in the thermostat cable which made the hookup easy.
You could use your old thermostat cable as a drag and pull in a new thermostat cable with extra wires for any future use.
I still haven’t figured out how to do automatic schedule changes using the micasaverde Vera2 scenes with my Trane thermostat