I have restaurant and will be installing 7 5-ton heat pumps. Would like to use ZWave and Vera to control all 7 t’stats (and other automation in future). Can members recommend most reliable and low cost thermostat option I should consider? I would be grateful for any guidance.
I have the Trane thermostats and really like them, standalone or with Vera.
Make sure you have 24VAC available at the wall; these tstats don’t take batteries (but settings are preserved indefinitely, and time of day is preserved for 24 hours, without power).
Trane is the best option out there. As oTi stated, you’ll need 24vac at the thermostat for it to function. As long as your HVAC is wired that way, you’re all set.
Totally agree with the above. I’ve used both the Trane and the Wayne Dalton and in my mind the Trane is the clear winner. I’d buy this thermostat even if I didn’t use z-wave.
Another good option is the 2GIG (Radiothermostat.com) CT-30. It’s under $80, battery powered (doesn’t need 24VAC), can operate standalone and Z-Wave but it’s not Automatic (doesn’t switch between heat and cool).
It’s completely touchscreen…
I looked at those a while back, but am personally in favor of the Trane. Touchscreen without dot-matrix display seems kind of odd.
What I really like about the Trane is the LEDs. One glance and you know if the system is idle or not.
I do wish the backlight came on when a change is made through Z-Wave.
yeah, i like the Trane Therm already too… and I don’t even have mine connected yet! LMAO!
It’s just sitting there on my bookshelf in my living room and it looks really nice. Much better then my POS Honeywell that I currently have connected. I still have to locate and find the 24VAC common terminal on my HVAC unit. I found what should be the 24VAC Common Term. but every time that I connect the 24VAC Common wire to it, it pops the fuse on the circuit board. I don’t want to risk damaging the board so i’m probably going to hire an electrician to come out.
You could just buy a “rainbird UT-1”, which is just an external 24VAC power supply, and power the Trane locally. That’s what I had to do in my house, 2 of the thermostats only had 4 wires for heat-cool (you need 5 to power the Trane via the furnace/HVAC). The 2 other thermostats are for wall furnaces that are heat only, and only have 2 wires running to them… Local power works fine, when the walls/ceilings are all drywalled and it’s impossible to fix the wiring.