Whether you want to control your home’s heating and cooling with your phone or your voice, the best connected thermostats offer flexibility and can help save you money on energy.
Back in 2011, the original Nest Learning Thermostat took the world by storm, offering Wi-Fi connectivity in a stylish puck-shaped device that could learn your daily routine and create heating and cooling schedules accordingly. While the Nest wasn’t the first connected thermostat to hit the market (Canadian-based Ecobee beat it by two years), it was nonetheless a game changer that helped spawn a new market. Both Ecobee and Nest are still at it, but now face stiff competition from HVAC industry mainstays such as Carrier, Honeywell, Trane, and others. If you’re looking to smarten up your home, your thermostat is a good place to start and can help you save a considerable chunk of money by reducing your heating and cooling costs. However, not all smart thermostats are created equal; some are designed for simple heating and cooling systems and offer basic scheduling and programming options, while others are designed for complex multi-stage systems and will control heating, cooling, dehumidifier, and ventilation systems. As is the case with most smart home devices, prices vary depending on features and capabilities. Read on to find out what to look for when shopping for your smart thermostat, and our favorite models we’ve tested. What to Look for in a Smart Thermostat Smart thermostats offer a variety of features that will not only help keep your home comfortable, but can reduce heating and cooling costs. The most basic models are relatively inexpensive, but are still equipped with Wi-Fi circuitry that allows you to connect the device to your home network and the internet. They can be controlled from a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet using a free mobile app, and some models also let you control things from a web browser. Basic controls allow you to raise and lower the temperature, create a seven-day heating and cooling schedule, override the schedule if you or a family member will be returning home early, and turn the system on and off. The Nest Learning Thermostat takes scheduling a step further; it can track your daily comings and goings, as well as heating trends over time, and create a heating and cooling schedule based on when you are usually home or away and what temperature you prefer during those times. As is usually the case, you’ll pay more for more features. A bright colorful touch display makes it easy to configure and program the thermostat and gives it a touch of style, and it can usually be read from across a room. Moderately priced thermostats like the Honeywell Lyric T5 display the current time and temperature until you tap the screen, at which point it will display temperature and menu settings, while more expensive devices such as the Nest Learning Thermostat contain motion sensors that will light up the display when you enter the room.
