Smart Home Thermostats – Find the Best Home Thermostat

Are you a bit perplexed about buying a smart home thermostat? Most probably you might be confused in selecting the best one, What are the top WiFi smart thermostats in the industry? What are the advantages and disadvantages of these different WiFi smart thermostats? Which one is right for you? Lets have a look at the review of the best smart home thermostat suitable for you based on features and budget.

Why you need a smart thermostat?

Tired of your home/business electrical bills? Do you think you are wasting a lot of unwanted money paying your electrical bills? Are you lazy enough to turn down your electrical devices? Using thermostats will be your best solution. As per Energy Information Administration, heating and cooling contributes 42 % of your energy bills. So the best solution is to cut down this heating/cooling process, and here is where you need a thermostat.

How much can you save using a thermostat ?

Many people save an average of 20 percent of the annual energy bill using a thermostat. Lots of average house owners save from 150-1500$ or more annually. Have a look at this cost saving experience of Nest thermostat users. Check our Thermostat savings Calculator to know how much you can save using a wifi smart thermostat

So what all are the best smart thermostats available currently in the industry?

1. Nest learning thermostat
2. Honeywell
3. Ecobee

What is in common(features) for all?

1. WiFi enabled– All these thermostats can be connected to your home wifi so that you can control it from various parts around the world
2. Smart phone/gadget controllable– All these 3 thermostats do have ios/android apps which allows you to manage your heater/ac via your thermostat from anywhere around the world or any place in your home
3. Touch Panel– The panels are touch enabled for all the three

Well, these WiFi smart thermostats are different in many manners but they do have some bunch of common features which will be very interesting for you from the perspective of a buyer.

Rank 1. Nest Learning Thermostat

So why do we gave rank 1 to Nest learning thermostat? Lets have a look.

Advantages of Nest WiFi learning thermostats.

1. Learning Capability– The best and unique feature of Nest thermostats. It does have the ability to learn your behaviors and to respond with respect to it. Nest take 1 week to analyze your common behaviors. For example, if you are setting 23 degree Celsius or 73 degree Fahrenheit during 10 pm every day(before sleep) and turning up to 82 degree F when you wake up at 7 am, Nest will learn and store it. No matter if you do something unusual(like turning the temperature down/up drastically). Nest is very intelligent that it doesn’t record such kind of unusual activity. Nest adapts itself to your most preferred settings. In short, nest makes your life damn easy, it acts as a personal assistant for you. It act according to your wish automatically, neither you program it nor you remember to modify the settings.

   

2. Sleeky Design– Very much like the apple products , nest also focus highly on their designs. To be frank, they’ve came up with a super sexy design. Unlike the conventional designs of the other thermostats, Nest, with a round and shiny look, appears like a super cool gadget for your house. It will be a decoration for your house.
3. Easy Installation – The nest claims that you can install the thermostat within 30 minutes. Well, it depends on how much expert you are in the installation and for sure you can definitely install it in 30 minutes. It doesn’t need the C wire , you can leave it free(according to Nest). The detailed pdf/video installation guide can be found in the nest website. Also you can hire certified processionals from their website for installation.
4. No need of batteries – You can save some bucks, replacing the batteries every year.
5. Ease of use – The usage is pretty easy and convenient. You will find Nest very easy and user friendly to program and change settings
6. Airwave algorithm– Nest only have the airwave algorithm which gives you more savings. As far as an AC is concerned, the majority of the energy is consumed by fan and compressor. Of which, compressor eats most of the energy. Even if the compressor is turned off, the compressor coils will stay cool for 5-9 more minutes. Nest’s airwave algorithm uses this logic save more energy for you. It turns off the compressor 5-6 minutes before the ac achieves your targeted temperature. In short, you save the energy running the compressor for 5 minutes
7. Unlimited time Periods – You can have unlimited time periods for nest thermostats while it is just 4 for honeywell and ecobee.
8. Awesome monthly report and the leaf badge– The monthly reports of nest are simply incredible, it will also give you a leaf badge if your savings were above the benchmark. This leaf badge is very interesting, it will show you how much leaves you earned comparing to previous months as well as all the nest thermostat users around the world. You can compare your savings amount comparing to the other Nesters. 
9. Google’s acquisition of Nest -It was a big news recently that Google acquired Nest. With this acquisition, it is sure that more exciting features would be implemented to Nest. This should also increase the resale value of Nest thermostats.

Biggest Disadvantage

• The biggest disadvantage of Nest is its temperature swing of +/- 3 degrees . Well , the company does say a temperature swing of 1 degree, but it is generally said that Nest does have a swing of 3 degrees.

Video Demo

Rank 2. Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat

Advantages of Honeywell Wi-fi smart thermostat

1. Very low temperature swings– Honeywell is well known for its low temperature swings. Nest learning thermostat is said to have a temperature swing of +/- 3 degrees while it is just +/- 1 degree for Honeywell smart wifi thermostat.
2. Better Price – Even though not much , a honeywell WiFi smart thermostat is a few dollar less than that of Nest.
3. Continuous display– Well , this cannot be said as an advantage, but some times it could be an advantage, depending on personal preferences.  It will show the status( current temperature and other options) continuously. It dims when it is idle. The Nest will only display the status when we are near by or it sense our presence (this is intended to save energy). Anyways the point is ,With honeywell, we can see the status being anywhere in the room in a  quick glance
4. Match your home wall color– You can change the thermostat color to match your home background. This will make your wall look super cool.
5. Alerts – The Honeywell will send you alerts on unexpected or non- ordinary situations. Say an extreme temperature change or filter change will  be alerted.  The best part is ,you can receive these alerts to your connected devices (to you phone or as email alerts). The Nest thermostat lack this feature.

Biggest Disadvantage

• Hard Installation – Compared to Nest the honeywell wifi thermostat’s installation is hard.

Video Demo

Rank 3. Ecobee EB-SMARTSi-01 Smart Thermostat

Ecobee launched the first smart wifi thermostat in the world in 2009. Even though the Nest overtook the market in wifi thermostats later, Ecobee stands as the builders of the first wifi smart thermostat.

Advantages of Ecobee Wi-fi smart thermostat

1. Super Detailed Reports– Reports are the best feature of an Ecobee wifi smart thermostats. Their reports gives you lot more  of interesting data compared to Nest and Honeywell. The reports will be on comparison with the previous months, like this months cooling/heating was 75 hours which was 20 hours less than last month. The report comes up interesting piece of data like , your savings/consumption compared to the state average, weather changed compared to previous months etc.
2. Alerts– Very much like Honeywell, Ecobee sends you email alerts in time of high temperature changes or other abnormalities
3. Support for blackberry– Ecobee does have application for blackberry while Honeywell and Nest do have only for ios/android.

Biggest Disadvantage

1. Poor design – Ecobee  stands no where near to  the advanced designs and looks of Nest/Honeywell smart thermostats. The touch screen is old resistive type that your touch experience will be a nightmare.

Video Demo

Comparison table for Nest,Honeywell and Ecobee smart wifi thermostats

Lets check this table for easy comparison of all these three thermostats