Wyze is popular for launching smart home devices at insanely affordable prices. Their collection of smart home devices includes door locks, bulbs, plugs, bands, etc. So Wyze’s launch of an affordable smart thermostat didn’t come as a surprise. The company is slowly trying to build a solid catalog of smart home devices, which are aimed directly at the budget sector.
With the launch of the Wyze thermostat, the company has once again produced an affordable product in the market. Even today, the price of an average thermostat with smart features costs above $100, ten years after the smart home revolution started by the Nest thermostat.
But the Wyze thermostat only costs $70, which means you are paying less than the price of the Nest thermostat. But don’t judge its features at a cheap price. Even at an affordable budget, the Wyze thermostat can compete against others that are way too expensive. In this article, we will be doing a complete review of the Wyze thermostat step-by-step. We’ll see if what the company claims to be an affordable thermostat
The Wyze app, used to control its smart home devices, also integrates with other Wyze smart products. So if you’ve invested a lot in the other Wyze smart home devices, you’ll find a lot of good stuff here.
Wyze Thermostat: Key Specs
Just like other smart thermostats, you can raise or lower the temperature of your house by simply adjusting it from your smartphone. Not to mention, it also supports Google Assistant and Alexa to control your thermostat without even getting up. Here are some key specs for the Wyze thermostat:
- Color: Black and White
- Dimensions: 120mm x 65mm x 33mm
- Display: IPS
- Sensors: Temperature & Humidity, PIR motion
- Communication: Bluetooth, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi
- Phone Compatibility: Android v5+, iOS v9+
On their official site, Wyze states that their thermostat is compatible with low-voltage systems. But to ensure its compatibility, you can go to the thermostat checker to confirm before buying.
Design
By the looks of the Wyze thermostat, you won’t find it too impressive. It has a simple and oval design and presents a matte white and black finish. As stated, it measures 120mm in length, 65mm in width, and 33mm in height. The backside of the thermostat gives it a shiny look that is reportedly scratch-resistant.
Moving to the front side, it sports a 2-inch IPS display with a 180º viewing angle. You also get a dial to control the temperature that you can adjust according to your preferences. Wyze did a good job here by letting the display change color depending on the mode. For example, if the heat mode is on, the display changes its color to orange, and if the cooling mode is on, it changes to blue.
By pressing the dial button, you can open the gates to lots of other options (we’ll come to that later). That said, the Wyze thermostat presents a simple look and blends pretty well into its background. So if you aren’t someone who likes a thermostat to stand out, it can be good for you.
Build Quality
There’s not too much to talk about build quality as we can’t be too picky here.
The glossy finish of the Wyze thermostat gives a sense of expensiveness, but the materials used are a little bit cheap. The little dial on the front of the thermostat feels of low quality when used. When you press the dial, it might feel harder to do so than it should be. But again, it’s a $70 product and you don’t have to control the device manually every time. Fortunately, its support for both Google Assistant and Alexa lets you use it with your voice.
Features
Wyze thermostat is definitely a well-packaged smart controller with easy-to-use features and functions. Aside from supporting the Wyze app, Alexa, and Google Assistant, Wyze doesn’t offer any other smart home control options with this thermostat. It is equipped with 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, which allows you to connect to smartphones through the Wyze app. Well, we got this cheap Wyze thermostat that costs us a few bucks more than the regular ones but has full Wyze smart home functionality.
On the front side of the thermostat, you’ll find a little dial you can use to control the temperature. Press that little dial to enter the settings and you will find the default screen, Current Temp. Here, you can set your preferred temperature while the smart thermostat will show you an estimated time it will take to achieve the set temperature.
Turn the dial to choose between the other settings. The State option allows you to enable Home, Away, or Sleep modes. With HVAC Mode, you can choose between Heat, Cool, and Off modes. In Settings, you can view your device information like Wi-Fi, run system tests, lock the thermostat controls, and reset all the settings.
Another cool feature of the Wyze thermostat is its geofencing mode, where it detects if your phone has left the house or not. By doing so, it shifts to Away mode if your phone has left the house, but when you return, it comes back to your home temperature.
Wyze thermostat claims the 3-in-1 remote sensor will help balance the temperature in your home by eliminating hot and cold spots. Though it doesn’t yet support remote room sensing, Wyze plans to release optional wireless sensors that could track temperature, humidity, and motion sometime in 2022.
Installation
Installing a thermostat can be a tedious task if you haven’t done it before. Thankfully, that’s not the case with the Wyze thermostat. Today’s smart thermostats do provide a setup guide to help you install them by yourself, but the Wyze thermostat takes one step ahead of them.
Your first job is to install the Wyze mobile app which is available for both Android and iOS. Its in-app tutorial will guide you through every installation step, from turning off the breaker to determining compatibility, taking pictures of existing wiring, and properly connecting a Wyze thermostat. It even lets you choose between saving energy and comfort. The former definitely helps in saving energy, but with few compromises. If you choose the latter, it will keep the temperature accurate and start working toward the set temperature before the scheduled time.
User-Interface
The thermostat integrates with the same Wyze mobile app (available for Android and iOS) as any other Wyze device and is displayed in a dedicated panel on the app’s home screen. As the name suggests, the aptly named Wyze thermostat is designed to let you control the cooling and heating of your home from the comfort of your smartphone.
By locking the thermostat, you can also adjust the temperature via the app if you want more control over who can change the temperature in public. You can turn on a fully automatic mode to keep the temperature within a certain range. The thermostat can control your fan solely and let air circulate throughout your entire house without using any excess energy. Also, it can signal your compressor to switch off before the cooling cycle ends. It keeps the fan on to circulate the remaining cool air throughout your house.
There are a few more settings you can access through the app than the interface on the thermostat, but we didn’t find it too complicated. These controls on the Wyze app are far more practical than the actual dial controls on the thermostat.
Pros
● Insanely inexpensive
● Easy setup with an in-app guide
● Includes C-wire adapter in the package
● Supports Google Assistant and Alexa
Cons
● Materials feel cheap
● Unimpressive design
● Doesn’t support Siri
Should you buy the Wyze Thermostat or not?
The Wyze thermostat isn’t the prettiest device you’ll put in your home, and its dial controller isn’t the most sophisticated control option in its class. However, it’s simple; simply turn the knob to adjust the target temperature shown on the Wyze thermostat’s small display; press the knob to access its menu, turn to select menu options, and press the knob to select them.
Most importantly, it almost includes all the features an expensive thermostat has. It achieves all of its goals very well, and with so many different features and add-ons on board, it’s a fantastic investment for anyone looking to get into the smart home ecosystem.
The company that previously impressed us with a line of incredibly affordable home security cameras, noise-canceling headphones, a smart light bulb, and a smart deadbolt has done it again with the Wyze thermostat.
So if we have to wrap things up, we would say, the Wyze thermostat can be the best bet for you considering the price of other thermostats with similar features. Plus, its advanced features like geofencing mode are something we don’t see every day in a low-priced smart thermostat.
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