Description: A mode that configures the thermostat for typical garage or accessory building usage that is outside of the normal designed usage pattern of a home thermostat.
Needs: The ability to set the temperature to a lower than normal temperature (below the 50F limit) to maintain an above freezing level while not unnecessarily heating the garage to an occupancy level temperature. The ability streamline the setup where the Y1 wire is disregarded as most installations in this use case do not include a compressor or other normal HVAC component. (Streamline installation)
Experience:
During setup, the detection routine found that the Y1 cable was not connected. The original installation of the garage gas furnace was completed with the Y1 wire connected at the thermostat, but not at the furnace (it is not used) Thus, the guided setup requires going back and de-selecting the Y1 wire in the setup. This detail may not be apparent to users and may lead to a negative initial experience.
We keep the garage at between 42F and 48F in the winter. We find that the furnace runs infrequently in that range given the insulation of the garage and the heat blead over from the house. The thermostat appears to have a lower limit of 50F. While an Off setting with an emergency back stop setting of 42F could work, it is a less than ideal setting as I would more reasonably set the emergency setting to 34F.
Finally, an integration point that detects garage open positions indications from a WiFi garage door system such as the Chamberlain MyQ would be helpful in not automatically running the heat while the door is open (as an optional setting)
[Mod Edit]:Title modified to be more inclusive and to enhance search clarity.
Fair question. We generally keep it at 42 when we are not home or during the week. We keep it at 48 if we are going to go somewhere or over the weekend when we would be in and out of the garage. We have found that there is a “natural” temperature that the garage stays at with the furnace running very infrequently, regardless of the outside temp, so the max we keep it set at when we are not working in it is 48.
We are fortunate that the previous owners of the house built the garage with insulated and sheetrock walls. We even have insulated garage doors. That’s a part of why it doesn’t need the furnace to run as much and only needs an occasional boost to keep the temps in range.
I have agreed with your proposal - at this point I am the only vote - but another side question just out of curiosity. Is there anything in there (water line etc.) that you actually need to keep above freezing?
Good question. The garage does not have anything that can cause major damage if it freezes. It does have a few appliances in it (A beer fridge and an upright freezer) that should be kept above freezing, but that won’t fail if they occasionally dip below freezing, they just don’t work as efficiently.
If I had a water line, I would set the minimum temp a bit higher so that if we had a power failure, there would be some stored heat in the space. I would also likely setup a shutoff valve that would close the supply from within the house with a battery backup that would cutoff the water.
Set your safety temp to 42. turn off heating when you don’t want it to be 50 in there. turn on heating when you want it to be warmer.
But you’re right, the arbitrary lower temperature limit seems a bit weird and unnecessary. it wouldn’t even need a garage mode, just get rid of the 50F lower limit and allow all thermostats to go down to 40F.
100% yes. Right now I have to continually turn it to “OFF” because 50 is as low as it will go. Even setting the Safety Temp to 40, it still comes back on when it hits 40 and goes back up to 50
I would be very interested in this as well. I just installed a %90 furnace in the garage and would like to keep the garage around 38-40° when I’m not out there.
Here’s another vote for lowing minimum low temperature setting to 40 degrees.
Shouldn’t cost Wyze anything, really.
Would make a lot of customers happier, as these comments are just beginning, since the Wyze tstat has just hit the market in the last couple months, more people would probably buy if they knew minimum temperature setting was around 40 degrees.
That’s just a bandaid fix.
Since the temp reading on Wyze tstat only goes down to 50 degrees u will never really know the actual temp unless u place a separate thermometer in the building to see actual temp. Another bandaid fix to the first bandaid fix.
So what u r saying is .
Example
You bought a car at a dealership,
On the way home u turn on the radio but it don’t work, u say to yourself that’s ok , I’ll put a portable radio on the front seat to use rather than having the issue actually fixed
I totally agree, it’s a work around that’s not ideal. If that was the only issue, I’d keep it installed but these advertised features are completely missing:
Differential Temp Customize the temperature difference before the system kicks in. The smaller/larger the difference, the sooner/longer before the system calls to heat or cool the space back to your set temperature.
Minimum Run Time Extend the life of your HVAC system. Use the Minimum Run Time feature to set the minimum amount of time the system should run for after you’ve turned it on, even if it’s been manually turned off.
The Wyze thermostat currently has my garage on 5 minutes off 5 minutes keeping it between 45 and 46 degrees. Way to short of cycles. I’ve let it run a few hours to see if it needed to learn something to set function correctly, but no luck. Going to have to put the old thermostat back.
No. If you read what I wrote I’m saying it sometimes takes Wyze a long time to address feature requests like this. There are literally 2 year old highly voted wishlist items. If the workaround is no good it’s best to avoid / return the product. In your analogy you’d be holding on to the car interminably waiting for a fix from the manufacturer, watching your warranty expire, and listening to nothing. Not brilliant.
I need these features as well. I didn’t realize that 50 was as low as it goes. Also, no way to set schedule to “off” at night, as my building can get as cold as it wants to at night, nothing in there will break.