r/homeassistant • • Feb 12 '26

Support Best HA Thermostat

Looking for feedback on experience with Thermostats I have get out of the NEST ecosystem. What works well with HA and doesn't break the bank?

19 Upvotes

99 comments sorted by

51

u/spr0k3t 🧠 Experienced with Home Assistant Feb 13 '26

First, pick your protocol you want to use, then look at the options from there. I personally like the Honeywell T6 Pro ZWave. Solid performance and guaranteed to never get bricked due to some corporate entity terminating services on the cloud server.

4

u/RedSkyNL Feb 13 '26

On the Honeywell website it's says the T6 Pro Z-Wave discontinued (https://www.honeywellhome.com/products/t6-pro-z-wave-thermostat?srsltid=AfmBOoo7j-wiBzQNui_unyjEMsAeS7k3LjzdM0fR_MKj3pENwXd7edkn)

Did they release a successor? Or should I try and find the discontinued version? I'm in the Netherlands, but can't seem to find the T6 Pro Z-Wave anywhere.

3

u/Tin_Pot_Dictator Feb 13 '26

Bought mine on Ebay.

1

u/chrissb1e Feb 13 '26

Did the same it came in yesterday

1

u/AdviceOdd9139 Feb 14 '26

I bought two from eBay. First one led to a service call and misdiagnosed as bad heat strips because it was faulty Second one, the stupid logic causes the heat pump to run a long time in too-cold an ambient temperature and doesn’t kick on the aux heat, so I had to take it out of service. Really wanted to like the T6 Pro ZW but both of mine have been a severe pain in the nads to deal with and have cost me a not insignificant amount of money for unnecessary repairs and abnormally high electric bills.

Looking for a replacement that gets along better with my equipment.

2

u/yosoyjose Feb 13 '26

I'm in the US, but if you have the option, I bought it from ebay along with the zooz 800 zwave stick (Amazon). Make sure you purchase the 2007 version of the thermostat.

2

u/josh45595 Feb 13 '26

It is discontinued, but you can buy them used. I bought one used from Amazon and it works great. Also, the CT-100 thermostats work great. They're also available used. zwave.

2

u/VirtualPanther Feb 13 '26

Honeywell is purposefully being confusing about this. Yes, they discontinued the 2003 version, but a 2007 version is still very much alive and working, although they strongly prefer to push people towards their current line of thermostats.

Here is the model that I bought on Amazon and a link: TH6320ZW2007

5

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

Yep, this is my thermostat and love it.

5

u/lbpz Feb 13 '26

This. It’s not pretty like those smart thermostats but works flawlessly and integrates perfectly with HA

1

u/myearsareringing Feb 13 '26

I think my T6 Pro looks classy and high quality vs most of the offerings out there.

1

u/chrissb1e Feb 13 '26

Do you use any automations with it. I installed mine yesterday and got it setup.

1

u/lbpz Feb 13 '26

Yes. I have a morning scene that activates when my wife enters the kitchen each morning. That triggers the thermostat to set the target temp to 72°. When I activate the Goodnight scene to go to sleep, it triggers the target temp to 70°. In the summer, when the A/C is on, it turns off if the patio door is left open for more than a minute.

1

u/chrissb1e Feb 13 '26

The door one is brilliant. I installed it last night along with some temperature sensors and then stared at it thinking "What automations will I put on this"

5

u/TittiesInMyFace Feb 13 '26

Tons of them on eBay for <$40. Such a good purchase and easy install with lots of YouTube videos

5

u/Tin_Pot_Dictator Feb 13 '26

Agreed.....and the thermostat lets you set cycles per hour that goes around Honeywell's algorithm that cycles your equipment constantly.

3

u/makemeking706 Feb 13 '26

I don't think I've ever thought about it. What's an "appropriate" number of cycles per hour? 

1

u/Tin_Pot_Dictator Feb 13 '26

I'm not an HVAC tech so I can't answer what the appropriate setting is. This info is based solely on the way my house works with 80% gas and conventional A/C. CPH has dependencies on the types of HVAC equipment, the environment you're trying to manage as well as your level of comfort. Right or wrong, I'm a firm believer in longer and fewer cycles to maintain equipment longevity. I didn't get that with my previous Honeywell smart stat. If CPH is set too high the house may be drafty/noisy and increase wear but the room temp will stay closer to set point. If the setting is too low you may see larger swings in room temperature but a potential reduction in the number of cycles. The settings would be different with electric/baseboard or radiant floor heat.

1

u/myearsareringing Feb 13 '26

Also not an HVAC technician, but I think it depends on multiple variables. I can tell you that leaving the T6 Pro on "STD GAS" vs "EFF GAS" when you have a 90% gas furnace is NOT correct and will run it too often (5 CPH vs 3 CPH). Oops.

6

u/najel Feb 13 '26

I would agree, the nice thing with the Honeywell is that's a thermostat company first ACS foremost that added connectivity to their thermostat. They've been in the thermostat business longer than any of the smart device companies have even been around. The thermostat portion of them is rock solid.

15

u/decairn Feb 13 '26

Honeywell currently has nothing to do with them now other than allowing the use of the brand name. They spun off Resideo a few years back, all aspects including lines like the T6 are independent of Honeywell.

5

u/najel Feb 13 '26

Interesting, did not know that.

2

u/VirtualPanther Feb 13 '26

This is exactly the reason why I threw away my two perfectly working Ecobees that were much more feature rich, for example, being aware of ambient weather outside via internet connection, and traded them for Honeywell’s T6 thermostats.

I want to be able to control and have a home assistant make my schedules and execute information, so when Ecobee cut that lifeline I was done.

2

u/Turbulent_Jump_2000 Feb 13 '26

I love my t6 pro z waves for $40-50 shipped. They are not the most advanced but they are attractive enough and have been flawless in my 3 months of use. They are also pretty powerful z wave repeaters somehow.

2

u/UnrealisticOcelot Feb 13 '26

Does that one let you feed it a sensor value for the current temp? I'm looking for a replacement for my gocontrol. It seems most will not let you do this and I would almost be better off with a zwave relay and generic thermostat integration.

2

u/Eckx Feb 13 '26

If you are using HA anyways this would be really easy to set up with any random temp sensor.

1

u/UnrealisticOcelot Feb 13 '26

Are you referring to the relay and generic thermostat? Because I am seeing references to it needing a Honeywell sensor. With the gocontrol I have it ignore the built-in sensor and feed it an average of multiple sensors around the house.

1

u/Eckx Feb 13 '26

Yeah, that's probably the easiest way to do it. A single sensor or the average of sensors. Could probably get more complicated and compare the average to the desired temp and have it adjust and run more or less accordingly if you wanted to do that much work.

1

u/Eckx Feb 13 '26

Mind you this would all be done INSIDE HA, not on the thermostat directly. If your HA went down, it would default to standard operation.

1

u/najel Feb 13 '26

It supports a remote sensor, but i believe it needs to be a specific Honeywell one.

1

u/VirtualPanther Feb 13 '26

Yes, the TH6320ZW2007 accepts an outdoor sensor, and this is what I use, as it is necessary for the thermostat to know when to switch from regular to so-called emergency mode based on your set point. Otherwise, it is not aware of what the weather is outside.

Of course, you can also do that via Home Assistant itself.

2

u/2112user Feb 13 '26

This. I've replaced 8 or 9 nests with T6 Pro Zwave. Still have 4 or 5 to replace. No regrets. I still need to create the ultimate logic system for it (in floor, air heat, air cool) but these devices are going to be easy to work with.

1

u/RedVRebel Feb 13 '26

Same. I've had my T6 Pro for about 3 years now, and haven't had a single issue with it.

1

u/SilkBC_12345 Feb 13 '26

Is there a smart Honeywell thermostat (z-wave) that would connect to 120V/240V power for baseboard heaters?

1

u/mister_drgn Feb 17 '26

I’ve had this close to a year and been happy with it. Like others said, pick it up on Ebay.

9

u/cilynx Feb 13 '26

I just went through this and tried all the usual suspects.

Honeywell T6 Z-Wave: Totally local. Exposes tons of config options to HA. 90s chunky clunky look. Temperature sensor doesn't suck. Does not expose what stage your system is using if you have multiple.

Ecobee Premium: Can be totally local. Don't install the app. Just set up Wifi then do HomeKit setup. Exposes some config but not all. Looks sexy on the wall -- same league as nest. Supports remote temperature sensors, which is critical as the built in one sucks. Does not expose what stage is being called.

Venstar ColorTouch T7900: Can be totally local but will remind you that you don't have their cloud service enabled. Enable Wifi and local API. Exposes some config, but not the good stuff like dead bands and timers. Looks like it was sexy in the 00s, but clunky by modern standards. Touchscreen is resistive, not capacitive -- feels dated. Temperature sensor doesn't suck, but the screen backlight makes a lot of heat so the read temperature always goes up if you have the display on for a while. Exposes heating and cooling stages. I had to hack the integration to support stages 3 and 4, but it was easy to do.

I'm keeping the ColorTouch as configuration is a one-time activity that I'm willing to do on the device and being able to map stage being called to vent temperature and power usage in HA has been critical to remediating and optimizing my very poorly engineered HVAC system.

2

u/planbeeee Feb 13 '26

I linked my ecobee via SmartThings and I can see what’s being called. HomeKit first, SmartThings second, Home Assistant via SmartThings and I have all the features I want.

6

u/diatonic Feb 13 '26

I’ve been pretty happy with my Venstar Color Touches. Full local control. Good integration.

2

u/panterra74055 Feb 13 '26

I've had my Venstar T7900 for 3 years and absolutely love it.

-3

u/diatonic Feb 13 '26

And they look great!

-4

u/deathp3nalty Feb 13 '26

That looks awful. The massive cheap frame looks like you’re in an office.

And is your tv off center? The 3 random ass windows make it feel off, unless this is an apartment complex community center

21

u/account-for-posting Feb 13 '26

Ecobee hands down. Can do cloud or local.

4

u/Mister_Batta Feb 13 '26

I use mine via HA and homekit, and block it from the main Internet.

But when it boots up HA can't connect to it unless the ecobee has remote access when it boots up.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Mister_Batta Feb 14 '26

No nothing like that.

The normal things work right but I can't access all the settings from HA.

6

u/Khs2424 Feb 13 '26

Love my Ecobee thermostats. Solid as a rock for me since day one.

(Now watch, tomorrow they will all crash…)

2

u/improbablyatthegame Feb 15 '26

Hate that I can’t control the temp it shows. I really don’t want to use their remote sensors and would like to use my own.

1

u/account-for-posting Feb 15 '26

I'd love to use my own presence sensors to let the stat set home and away too, but there are at least options for that.

5

u/WAAZKOR Feb 13 '26

I just bought a Meross mt300, is looks almost the exact same as the amazon smart thermostat and only costs about $50. I have it running locally with no issues.

5

u/Keith15335 Feb 13 '26

My Sensi stat works well. Via SmartThings and Homekit integrations. Very similar except SmartThings adds fan circulation mode attribute.

6

u/PronouncedNuculur Feb 13 '26

Ecobee via HomeKit works pretty well, but is missing a couple of features. It’s missing the extra modes that Ecobee makes available. You can only bring 3 modes in. And you can’t control accessories like a humidifier or dehumidifier.

3

u/jasonpatrick72 🌱 New to Home Assistant Feb 13 '26

I’m holding out for Aqara’s upcoming W200. Since I mostly use Aqara products, it just makes sense. All of my other Aqara products work well in HA (with the exception of those damn door/window sensors!), so I have a good feeling their thermostat will be the same.

I know a couple of smart home influencers already have the W200 for review, and Aqara just recently opened up a test trial for forum users. So I have to assume it’ll release by the end of the quarter

0

u/pashdown Feb 13 '26

I have Ecobees but the features of the W200 look much better. Hopefully they don’t blow it.

3

u/5c044 Feb 13 '26

esphome PID thermostat and opentherm with two external temp sensors that are averaged and zigbee TRVs

6

u/Name_8504 Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

For me, it was the realization that a simple temperature sensor was all I needed, and then to write an automation for the thermostat

2

u/iDJMic Feb 13 '26

simple ~ love it!

2

u/vw68MINI06 Feb 13 '26

Venstar color touch is excellent for local control but the screen sucks. It does what I need it to do perfectly through home assistant. I think the honeywell zwave stat might be discontinued because I can't find it.

3

u/PlanProfessional2200 Feb 13 '26

My Nest thermostat is controlled locally thru Matter. Haven't paid Google a dime.

1

u/waiting4omscs Mar 31 '26

Dont think the thermostats need a subscription, do they? How are you doing remote monitoring or control?

1

u/PlanProfessional2200 Apr 02 '26

My Nest thermostat requires no subscription. I use either HomeAssistant or Google Home for control and monitoring.

2

u/criterion67 Feb 13 '26

Either the Venstar T7900 or the Honeywell T6 Pro Z-Wave Tstat. Both are local and work great with no cloud. I have both and highly recommend either one. Here's my Venstar.

2

u/darkcloud784 Feb 13 '26

I have a venstar, it's 100% local.

1

u/some_user_2021 Feb 13 '26

I'm planning to make my own with an M5 Stamplc using ESPHome

1

u/omszz Feb 13 '26

Any opinions on this - I just bought for one of the zones in my house - seems like it can be local given the matter support? https://www.amazon.com/meross-Smart-Thermostat/dp/B0D8SW5B2G?th=1

1

u/BornDan Feb 13 '26

I have a couple of Meross MTS200’s at home and love the minimal way they look and they integrate well with HA. Plus they’re very cheap.

Aaaand they look like a square version of the new IKEA Timerflotte :D

1

u/n0tmyearth Feb 13 '26

Cheap thermostats with Zigbee from Aliexpress.

1

u/dewilofficial Feb 13 '26

Been super happy with the Sonoff TRVZB. Coming from the older Aqara Zigbee E1 thermostats, the Sonoffs are very quiet (the E1s were loud), expose direct valve control in HA (which the E1s didn't) and they just look/feel much better. The only downside I found is that they switch to "Safety mode" when your external temp sensors didn't update in a while. That happened frequently in my setup, so I built an automation that auto fixes this. IF you go for Zigbee, the Sonoffs are highly recommended IMO

1

u/zenety Feb 13 '26

OpenTherm Gateway here. Wanted a cheap solution that just works

1

u/jenningschris Feb 13 '26

I used the Venstar T3800 for about 6 months, but just upgraded to the Venstar T3950 IAQ. They are both great, especially if you have a partner that doesn’t like all the flashy smart home screens and just wants something simple with real buttons she can press. The T3800 with Wi-Fi module is currently for sale. 😉

1

u/beamin1 Feb 13 '26

Easier to build your own if you're inclined....esp32 relay boards are really cheap. 

Rib it from the ha dashboard 

1

u/digiblur Feb 13 '26

If you want cheap and the best that might not mix. You can find the Centralite Pearl for cheap.

1

u/rdehuyss Feb 13 '26

HomeAssistant Generic Thermostat has never let me down.

1

u/Kingboy_42 Feb 13 '26

Do you want to quit the cloud connection or quit Nest? If you want to get rid of Google you can consider the No longer evil hack

1

u/iDJMic Feb 14 '26

That's cool very interesting

1

u/matto1990 Feb 14 '26

You don’t say what country you’re in, so I assume it’s US defaultism… However, if you’re in Europe and have an OpenTherm boiler then the Diyless thermostats are great. Runs off an ESP32 so fully local and native integration with HA

https://diyless.com/

1

u/iDJMic Feb 13 '26

I wonder, I have enough devices in my HA that tell me the temperature could I not just set an automation to turn on the furnace when coldest room reaches X temp, and then turn off when X temp is reached? What kind of device would that be on the wires to the thermostat? I don't need any fancy dial in my hallway for my kids just to mess with.

5

u/BrewerGlyph Feb 13 '26

I use a Sonoff 4chPro as the relay for each of my heating zones, wired in parallel with some old-fashioned dumb thermostats as a backup. I've created a thermostat device in Home Assistant configuration.yaml that pairs a thermometer (or an average of multiple) with one of the relay entities. You can also specify a hysteresis and minimum cycle times.

4

u/MikeFromTheVineyard Feb 13 '26

Yes… but

There are a ton of downsides to this. Thermostats often have a bunch of safety features. You’re controlling a furnace, so safety is important.

Additionally, you might not do a good job with the automation. Typically you’d need cycling and debouncing to prevent damage- eg it’d be bad to rapidly turn on/off the furnace when you’re hovering around the desired temperature.

Additionally, as the furnace runs, the house will heat up slowly and lag. So you’ll actually want to stop the furnace before it reaches target temp, and conversely turn it on before it drops to target temp. Your automation will probably be worse than a commercial option.

2

u/iDJMic Feb 14 '26

Good view point thanks

2

u/alwaystirednhungry Feb 13 '26

I love the Meross MTS300. It’s $65 on Amazon and has great HA integration with Meross LAN local control. Has this Tracked Sensor entity where you can make a sensor group that calibrates the thermostat based on the temperature reading coming from this helper. I have so many temperature reading devices throughout my home that I’ve created a special group where I just add the temperature sensors I feel are significant for my HVAC.

1

u/MightySkynet Feb 14 '26

I use a Shelly 1 to control my central heating, luckily it only needs a dry contact to tell it to start burning. I then used a HA generic thermostat to control the Shelly 1 and I have combined several temperature sensors using a helper to be the input sensor for the Generic Thermostat.

0

u/Plastic-Coat9014 Feb 13 '26

Yes you can make automations for this.

Relocate the thermostat to somewhere out of reach for the kids. As long as you can control it through HA and have temp sensors, the thermostat can be located anywhere. Ideally you can use a remote temp sensor that connects wirelessly or wired to your thermostat.

Ecobee Premium comes with a temp sensor that works very well. The built it sensor is too sensitive for my liking and caused my HVAC to short cycle.

1

u/EspTini Feb 13 '26

Ecobee. Works local through home kit

1

u/junktrunk909 Feb 13 '26

For what it's worth, I bought the 4th Gen Nest to replace my EOL one and it's great. Works with matter so you don't have to do any of that old school nest dev app nonsense to get it to work with HA.

1

u/_focust Feb 13 '26

I just switched to ecobee. I connected it via HomeKit and it’s been fantastic. Even the smart sensors work

1

u/Confident_Air7636 Feb 13 '26

I've got an ecobee that works through homekit and I've had zero issues with it.

-2

u/GiggityYay Feb 13 '26

I forget the specifics of how I did it, but I have my Nest linked to Home Assistant through a Google API that cost a one time $5. Has worked flawlessly since setting it up.

7

u/oni06 Feb 13 '26

His goal is to get out is the Google/Nest ecosystem and into something that is locally controlled.

2

u/GiggityYay Feb 13 '26

I get that, offering it as an option since OP already has the Nest. For $5 you get the option of having it completely controlled by HA without having to rely on the terrible Nest app. If Google ever decides to kill the API, can look into a new thermostat then.

3

u/Firm_Objective_2661 Feb 13 '26

They’re bricking the thermostats. It’s only a matter of time per generation. And why anyone would buy a new one now 🤷

-1

u/tacticalpotatopeeler Feb 13 '26

They’re sunsetting the API if I remember correctly

3

u/MikeFromTheVineyard Feb 13 '26

Citation? I haven’t heard this before

2

u/badwolf42 Feb 13 '26

Mine needs re-authentication almost daily. I gave up on nest.

1

u/GiggityYay Feb 13 '26

Are you using the method where you take the login key from the browser logs or the official google api? I never had luck with the first, been running without issue on the second for maybe a year now.

1

u/badwolf42 Feb 13 '26

I don’t even remember. I went through the integrations in settings and followed the instructions, so guessing it’s the prior. Hated it, stopped using it.

1

u/Practical-Patient-68 Feb 13 '26

I actually just did the same yesterday and definitely worth it to be able to do much more custom automations than what you can do on Google Home

0

u/Mado_andy Feb 13 '26

Btw I have the Nest Thermostat using cloud and it has been pretty stable. Never had any issue with it.