Has anyone linked this device to a Vera hub? I’m considering buying one and hoping that because it’s Z-wave I’ll have no trouble adding it to my Vera Plus. I’m not that interested in controlling it that much at first. What I really want is to monitor it. I want to know when it’s calling for heat (distinguishing between heat pump and backup) or cooling. I want to try to gauge efficiency between heat pump and oil backup at different outdoor temperature and be able to recognize if efficiency changes.
Hello tinman,
Though this model is not listed on Vera compatibility page compatibility page I saw it added on a Vera and it was working.
Have a good day,
I’ve purchased one of these and it works well for controlling my heat pump/oil heat HVAC. However it’s not really fully supported in Vera. I had to add it as a generic zwave device. It’s recognized as a Honeywell thermostat but I don’t think Vera properly supports the command class versions implemented by this thermostat. My main complaint is that the UI doesn’t support the selection of Emergency Heat. It also displays ‘heating’ when it’s actually in emergency heat state. Even the variable names in the device variables tab are confusing:
- ModeStatus - this seems to be the mode setting, which I think relates to the COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_MODE. In the Z-wave spec this is called the Thermostat Mode
- ModeState - this is actually the current operating state; COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_OPERATING_STATE - Thermostat Operating State
- Mode - This appears to be the fan operating mode setting.
The variable names confuse the difference between mode settings and operating state. I don’t thing there is a variable that shows the fan operating state. My goal in replacing my existing Honeywell programmable thermostat with a z-wave model was so that I can monitor when my heater is using the heat pump vs when it switches to oil backup and how long it is in each state. I can’t actually do that. This thermostat also has an external temperature sensor which it uses to determine when to switch to emergency heat. The current Vera interface reports the internal temperature but not the external temperature.
This is not a new model thermostat. It’s been available for a couple of years. Honeywell is listed as one of Vera’s Certified Device Partners and their web page guarantees that Vera will work with their devices. I guess it depends on your definition of ‘work’. I just bought a CentraLite appliance module and that doesn’t work either.
Does this thermostat prevent gas heating when the heat pump is in heating? My current Honeywell Z-wave thermostat, the Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007/U, is totally dumb that it allows both to run. It also does not have a local outside air sensor port. I am sure you could program it, but my expertise is not up there yet. So, when it gets very cold (-8C) I will have to turn off power at the breaker to the outdoor unit, even when emergency heat (gas heat in my case) has been selected at the panel, expecting the heat pump to be locked out.
The house is unoccupied during the week. So, prior to returning home, I remotely set it to normal temperatures. You guessed it, it activates gas heating while the heat pump is running full blast to generate heat. The hot air off the gas burner is hitting the refrigerant coil which is somewhat below the gas heated air, causing the refrigerant to be warmed up prior to returning the refrigerant to the compressor at the heat pump, as opposed to have released its heat into the air stream.
I hope also that the T6 will properly address defrost cycle, so that gas heating will take place then.
In short, I am anxious to replace my current thermostat with something that works, allowing me to just schedule the thermostat and increase the temperature settings. With a little bit of luck also, selecting emergency heat/heat, cooling/heating.
I’m making a guess here but it seems to me that your thermostat is either wired incorrectly or configured incorrectly. You might try to go to Honeywell’s help page ( https://customer.honeywell.com/en-US/help/Pages/default.aspx ) and at least describe how both the heat pump and emergency heat run at the same time. The Honeywell site is down for maintenance until Monday.
I agree that having an outdoor temperature sensor is important for controlling when to switch to emergency heat. That alone may be a good reason to change to the T6. Be aware that Vera does not fully support the T6 although what is there may be enough for you. The UI doesn’t indicate when emergency/backup heat is on and it has no way to select emergency heat. Those are important for me as I’d like to monitor outdoor temperature and indoor temperature and roughly gauge efficiency to best know when to switch between heat pump and backup heat.
BTW I purchased a T6 and had to return it because it displays indoor humidity and for the unit I got it showed 99% all the time. I found out that they had a run of units that all had this problem. I had to wait a couple of months until a received a replacement.
I’m satisfied with the T6. My home has a heat pump with oil backup and currently it switches to backup heat when the outdoor temp drops below 30F. I’m waiting (perhaps in vain) for Vera to fully support this thermostat. I made a request directly to Vera and was told they already had requests to support it and planned to do so.
Here is what the T6 looks like on the dashboard. There’s also a shot of what the device page looks like.
Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, my thermostat is counting on external programming to do the basic functions (defrost cycle, set up temperature at which heat pump switches over to gas emergency heat). The outdoor temperature is obtained from the area you have selected during setup. No connection for my outdoor air sensor. Honeywell confirmed its limitation. The T6, they told me will do those basic functions even when connected to Z-wave. I just wanted to confirm that it is actually working as mentioned by Honeywell.
In case someone is interested, I have installed and configured the T6 as a generic z-wave device. Very nice thermostat actually. It is working very well but only limited to basic functions (heat/cool/auto/off, temperature setting and humidity sensor). Maybe advance functions, such as schedules, etc. will be available at some point especially if the developers are working closely with Honeywell? 
I also found a little “bug” with iOS 14.2 (also with iOS 14.3). The temperature is not being displayed via the dashboard. You need to open the device itself or view the temperature under Devices.
Here’s the support team response.
This has been reported to the developers but there is no ETA for a fix, so for now you will need to actually go to the devices list to see the temperature displayed by the thermostat.