I’m sure I’m overlooking something, but I can’t figure out why I actually would need a ‘smart’ thermostat. If I have a module in the roomt hat has a temperature sensor (e.g. a qubino switch) and I have a module controlling the AC/Heat, do I need a themostat? Wouldn’t a program in the Vera which says e.g. if the temperature is below X turn on the heat do the same thing? Is there something I’d be missing?
For a start… I would not trust the reliability of Vera enough to give it full control of a home’s heating and cooling system. This is especially true if you live in a cold climate and you depend on the home heating system to keep the pipes from freezing. A thermostat is a pretty basic device that is almost always going to be more reliable than Vera.
Another consideration is the complexity of your home’s heating and cooling system. Most high efficiency heating/cooling systems have at least two operating stages and thermostats are designed to optimize the use of these stages depending on the amount of heating/cooling required. Vera connected to a simple on/off switch would not provide this feature, whereas even many basic thermostats provide multistage control.
For these reasons most people simply use Vera to control the heating/cooling setpoints of the thermostat, and leave the task of controlling the heating/cooling system to the thermostat itself.