I’m really thinking about switching out my Wayne Dalton WDTC-20’s with the Trane’s. Can anyone share their experiences with the Trane’s? Would you consider them, better, worse, the same? I’d rather not spend the money if I don’t have to, but if I’m going to, I’d rather snag them while the are on sale at Radioshack. The one near my house has them in stock, so I’m thinking of braving Christmas Eve mall traffic to go pick one up.
I bought one last week at Radio Shack when they were on sale for $99 but haven’t installed it yet.
I did buy one of the 2GIG Z-Wave thermostats at Asihome for $79 and installed it. It works well (and doesn’t require 24VAC connection although I have one available) but doesn’t have Auto-Switchover from Heat/Cool like the Trane units. The Trane requires 24Vac from what I understand and uses Batteries for emergency backup only.
The Tranes are on-sale at RadioShack.com until tomorrow for $75…
I did end up purchasing the Trane and it is quite nice. I like it a lot better than the Wayne Dalton. It feels a lot more sturdy and well built. I’m probably going to write up a review and post it on my blog comparing the two of them when I get a chance. I found one of the thermostats at a shopping center store, the only other one near me is in the mall. I think I may brave the mall traffic to go get it.
As a side note, the Trane does not have a backup battery that I can see. It looks like it is powered only off the 24vac common.
Have had 4 Tranes running for almost a year … the battery is not a problem cause if 24v is missing your heat source is without power 
Just set up the Trane tstat from Radio Shack a few days ago in my mountain home and I monitor temps from my home about 150 miles away. No problem enrolling it on site or addressing it remotely but I am disappointed that the functionality isn’t more than just basics (setpoint, heat/cool, etc.). For example, I can’t tell if the heat pump is running or it’s on electric aux heat. Can’t change differentials or fine tune through z-wave. Don’t know if the Schlage service is more functional but I’m not paying a monthly fee, for sure.
In retrospect, I’m sorry that I didn’t buy the Ecobee IP tstat. They have great customer service. My Vera2 and Trane stat are for sale to any adventurous soul out there.
Correct me if I’m wrong here guys, but I believe the problem there is going to lie in the Z-Wave protocol, and not in the Vera or the Trane thermostat. Z-wave thermostats report the current temperature, and allow control of the set points and the thermostat mode. AFAIK Z-Wave does not have built in controls for these other variables. I suppose if you know the variables, you could control them manually, if the Trane thermostat allowed control of them. If you are looking for a whole home automation solution, then Z-Wave is the direction you want to go. If you are looking at just something to fine tune and control your HVAC, then an IP thermostat is probably where you will need to go.
@grumpyolman the features that you mention are hidden, to access them you have to enter to the installer menu… press menu and then press the two center buttons until the installer menu appear.
Here is a full manual http://link.schlage.com/Products/Documents/Product/PDF/thermostat_user_manual-c.pdf
If you look at the RCS manual for the TZ43 (basically identical stat), near the end you can find most of the configuration parameters that you could also setup in Vera.
[url=http://www.resconsys.com/docs/thermostats/zwave/TZ43%20INSTALLATION%20MANUAL%20141-01652-04.pdf]http://www.resconsys.com/docs/thermostats/zwave/TZ43%20INSTALLATION%20MANUAL%20141-01652-04.pdf[/url]
One important difference in the WDTC-20 and the T-Stat is the battery back-up in the WTDC-20. If you read the WD manual it says if the battery fails during a power outage the unit will not recover when the power comes back.
I learned this first-hand in December using Hawking Home-Pro with WDTC-20. The battery went dead after the power outage. Home-Pro servers are so undependable that by the time I realized the thermostat was no longer working my vacation home in the mountains went from 55 deg. to 28 deg. The toilet tanks froze and split and flooded the hickory floors. $2000 repairs later I switched to MIOS and the T-Stat that is continuously powered and comes back on after power outages. Both much more reliable.