T9 isn’t the sexiest identify for a brand new product, however most owners will likely be conversant in the Honeywell model (now Honeywell Home, after its mother or father firm spun off its residential division as Resideo Technologies in late 2018). More importantly, the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat is an enormous step up from something the corporate has provided on this area thus far.
The T9 additionally exhibits how a lot this firm has realized from its a lot smaller opponents, notably Ecobee and Nest Labs. Honeywell Home’s new thermostat doesn’t have Alexa onboard, just like the Ecobeefour, or a behavior-learning algorithm just like the Nest, nevertheless it does have all the remainder of the options and efficiency we’ve come to anticipate from a contemporary linked thermostat. It’s additionally the primary Honeywell shopper product to assist distant sensors, in order that it’s conscious of the temperatures in additional places inside your private home than simply the hallway or different out-of-the-way location the place it occurs to be put in.
Ecobee was the primary to supply such a function, at the moment within the Ecobee4 (our top pick on this class), and Nest Labs added sensor support for its third-gen Nest Learning Thermostats in mid 2018. Honeywell’s sensors, nonetheless, are the most effective we’ve examined.
The Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat doesn’t name a lot consideration to itself, which is both a professional or a con, relying in your standpoint.
Inoffensive industrial design
The T9’s rectangular form doesn’t do a lot to maneuver the needle by way of design; then again, it’s under no circumstances edgy. It resembles the Honeywell Lyric T5 (our present favorite budget-priced thermostat), however is extra aesthetically pleasing, with a white bezel surrounding a vivid white 3.5-inch touchscreen. Colored textual content shows the present indoor temperature (orange whereas heating, blue whereas cooling) and grey textual content exhibits the present time the temperature exterior. Icons report on climate circumstances.
The thermostat’s dwelling display screen shows the present indoor and outside temperatures together with icons to point the present climate circumstances. Tap its display screen and also you’ll get be offered with extra detailed details about the heat-to and cool-to temperature targets you’ve set, together with an indoor humidity studying (however you’ll must step as much as professionally put in Honeywell Home T10 Pro in case your HVAC system contains an built-in humidifier). You can entry each possibility and have, together with scheduling, from the thermostat’s personal person interface, so that you’re by no means reliant on its accompanying cellular app.
Users upgrading from a earlier Honeywell T-series thermostat gained’t must do way more than snap the T9 into the prevailing wall mount as a result of the wiring contacts are the identical. For these transferring from anything, set up continues to be straightforward sufficient: Mark the screw holes for the brand new mounting plate, join the wires, safe it, and stick the thermostat onto the plate. Resideo additionally features a energy adapter for installs the place a C (widespread) wire shouldn’t be current.
Jason D’Aprile / IDGResideo has standardized the Honeywell Home T-series wiring plate, so switching from one mannequin within the lineup to another is actually a snap.
The T9 then guides you thru its setup course of instantly and you may hook up with the app proper then or later. One level of confusion, nonetheless, is perhaps selecting the right app out of your app retailer. Previous Honeywell good thermostats used the Total Connect Comfort app, which has since been outmoded by the easier-to-remember Honeywell Home app (with Resideo Technologies listed because the writer).
Jason D’Aprile / IDGThe scheduling display screen on each the app and the thermostat itself is clear, concise, and straightforward to learn.
You’ll program the Honeywell Home T9 in a standard method, establishing a weekly schedule with as many (or as few) temperature adjustments as you want. It’s very straightforward, for instance, to determine one temperature goal for a 10:00 p.m. bedtime, and a second one for 8:00 a.m. if you anticipate beginning your day, plus third and fourth targets for if you go away and arrive dwelling from work.
You can program the identical schedule for a number of days, or create a customized schedule for daily of the week. The T9 additionally helps geofencing, in order that your HVAC system will likely be robotically set to totally different temperature targets if you go away dwelling and are available again once more.
It’s all about these sensors
But occupancy sensor assist is well the Honeywell Home T9’s most necessary function. You should buy the thermostat with none sensors for $169 and add them later for $40 each on Amazon, however most individuals gained’t need to—particularly for the reason that $200 thermostat-and-sensor bundle offers you a $10 low cost over the worth of shopping for the 2 elements individually.
These small sq. gadgets are outfitted with movement, temperature, and humidity sensors together with refined indicator LEDs. You can deploy as much as 20 of them, which needs to be sufficient to cowl each room within the common dwelling. They’re powered by two AAA batteries, which Resideo says ought to final for one yr.
Jason D’Aprile / IDGThe Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat’s non-compulsory sensors are barely bigger than those from Ecobee and Nest, however they ship a lot better vary.
The thermostat will then endeavor to have your HVAC system cool or heat your private home till the occupied rooms attain the programmed goal temperature. You may also set totally different temperature targets for every room that’s served by a sensor and choose which rooms ought to have precedence. In this situation, the thermostat will common these numbers and set that because the goal temperature for all the dwelling.
These Honeywell Home sensors, which use proprietary radios working in unlicensed 900MHz radio spectrum, ship the most effective vary I’ve seen on this class of product. They had no drawback staying linked in rooms in my dwelling the place each Ecobee’s and Nest’s sensors merely didn’t work. The firm says they provide vary of as much as 200 toes from the thermostat, and in my expertise, they had been a lot better at penetrating partitions and different obstacles than what the competitors has to supply.
Jason D’Aprile / IDGYou can choose which rooms the thermostat ought to have your HVAC system attempt the toughest to situation (offered, in fact, you’ve deployed a sensor to every of these rooms.
Curiously, the thermostat itself does not have a movement sensor. If it’s put in in a room the place you need temperature management based mostly on occupancy, you’d truly must deploy a sensor there, too. I additionally encountered an oddity with the Honeywell Home app: It doesn’t report sensor standing adjustments—equivalent to a location change—whilst you’re actively monitoring the sensor itself. The app didn’t report a change from unoccupied to occupied, for instance, once I entered the room whereas trying on the app. I needed to exit out to the app’s most important display screen after which navigate again to that sensor’s window to see its present state. This was the case for any knowledge readings that modified whereas I used to be monitoring a given sensor.
Smart dwelling integrations
If you’re in search of a thermostat you can combine together with your good dwelling system, the Honeywell Home T9 helps Samsung SmartIssues and IFTTT, and it’s suitable with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana. Once linked, you may test the temperature of any room with a sensor (though unusually, not the humidity stage) and even command the assistant to regulate the temperature of any given room. Apple HomeEquipment assist is within the works (the sooner T5+ and T6 Pro already assist HomeEquipment, so this shouldn’t be an enormous hurdle). You’ll discover a full third-party support list here.
The Honeywell Home T9 isn’t the prettiest or most high-tech good thermostat in the marketplace. We nonetheless want the equally Ecobeefour for its built-in good speaker, and the third-generation Nest Learning Thermostat stays essentially the most lovely gadget on this class (and it’s the only option for these deep within the Nest ecosystem). But the best way the T9 works together with its room sensors places it up excessive on our record of beneficial good dwelling gadgets for anybody transferring up from a standard thermostat.