We got a new Carrier brand HVAC system and it came with a Honeywell Pro T6. The furnace portion has 2 heating options, stage 1 heat with an electric heat pump (turns on with the ‘heat’ setting) and stage 2 heat that is propane (turns on with the ‘emergency heat’ setting). Keep in mind I live in a cold climate and the Heat Pump isn’t sufficient to heat the home once it gets below about 30*, so it flips to propane. I hated that thermostat so I got a Wyze. While going through the setup process, the Wyze app did a system test - Heat Stage 1 (heat pump) I answered No to ‘do you feel warm air’ because the air coming out was frickin 43*. I guess this was the heat pump not working sufficiently . Then it tested Stage 2 Heat and the propane heat turned on and was working great so on this one I clicked Yes to ‘do you feel warm air’. I completed setup, set the thermostat to 70. It was 68 in the house so the heat turned on, but it was the cold air in Heat Stage 1. The air coming out was getting colder and colder. It never switched to Heat Stage 2. I can’t find any way to switch it on in the settings or manually. I confirmed that the wiring was correct. I even disconnected everything and started over. Cold air. The house was cold - the baby nursery was quite cold - so I had to remove the Wyze thermostat and put in the Honeywell back in so I could warm up the house while I figure this out. Obviously, the thermostat is capable of 2 stage heat because it was part of the setup process, but how do you get it to turn on?
My guess is the thermostat interpreted “no” as you saying “the heat is not working” rather than literally whether or not you considered the air to be sufficiently warm… so it assumed the air conditioner had been turned on, and the thermostat swapped the calls for heat and cool in its programming.
Easy check: turn on the a/c (even if you have to dial the temp really low) and check if the heat pump kicks on instead (which, yes, technically IS the air conditioner, but this is not supposed to be a trick question).
Quick fix:
Here’s another similar guide:
Right.
I don’t really recommend the wyze for heat pump systems in cold climates because it doesn’t have any outdoor temperature sensor, it will just run the heat pump in stage one for a while and when it doesn’t see the temperature increase after a while it will kick on stage 2. This is ok for climates that don’t really get cold and have heat strips as a backup heat source, but for heat pumps in cold climates, you really want a thermostat that knows how cold it is outside and at what temperature to stop trying to use the heat pump system.
I would say considering how internet-dependent their products are, it’s laughable that they don’t use local weather data for the outside temperature. It would be close enough for this purpose. But then again, there are so many obvious features missing in their software because they can’t stop buying new types of white label electronics long enough to really give the existing ones some software TLC.