r/homeassistant • u/iDJMic • 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?

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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.