I’d like to see Wyze develop a smart thermostat. Here’s why.
I bought a Nest Thermostat a couple years ago. I’ve already had to replace it twice. I bought it because I wanted it to be a part of my smart home. It worked with IFTTT and Alexa. Now, Google has bought them out and the first thing they did was take away IFTTT and Alexa links. So, we need something that will work with anything! If you’ll check the Google Nest facebook page, there are THOUSANDS of complaints already about them taking away this integration.
Make a smart thermostat that is cheap, but reliable, works well with all home automation platforms, and is user-friendly!
And I bought a ecobee3 about 8 months ago . Solid performance with great service for the odd dumb question I have thrown at them. Costco had them for 199 CDN back then and it included 2 room sensors. I can reset from anywhere in the world or by voice anywhere in the house. Wyze appears to be coming out with some smart plugs shortly. I think the Thermostat is a long reach for a company focused on so called “simple” products for an incredible price.
Ability to turn on a specific stage of a heat pump based upon a schedule limited only by a temperature window. e.g. only turn on stage 1 of heat no matter what the temp as long as it is less than 75 deg.
Ability to adjust the set point differences for triggering the different stages.
Ability to make Aux heat manual only.
Learn your system and turn the system on to reach a set temp based upon the indoor and outdoor temp. e.g. if you want it to be 68 deg at 7am, then it will turn on earlier on colder mornings and later on mild mornings, so that it will reach the desired temp at the desired time given local conditions and system ability without using Aux.
Use forecasted local conditions to preheat or cool based upon the most efficient heat pump usage.
work with multistage systems.
Work efficiently with heat pumps. Heat pumps change temperature more slowly than furnaces and change efficiency based upon the conditions around the outdoor unit.
With my current smart thermostat in the winter, when I have a set point of 68 and I drop the temp to 65 at 7:30 when I leave, often at 7:15 it will turn on expensive Aux heating in a last ditch effort to reach the set point of 68 before the schedule change at 7:30 when I leave. This is a waste.
ability to have a lot of schedule points during the day. 4 is not enough.
Privacy. Occupancy sensors, thermostat schedules, geo fencing with phones, gps trackers, etc. give a very detailed insight into the personal life of an individual. This type of data must not be available to members of Wyze or those who ask it of Wyze. Zero Knowledge design. Anonymized, non personally identifiable use data is something I would like to share.
TOU energy. ability for the user (not just power company) to set the cost of energy based upon time of day and have the thermostat plan the lowest cost heating.
user accessible API.
integration with renewable energy production systems, so that the HVAC system can work together using excess production.
Ability to have complex interactions, complex integrations and complex decisions (AND, OR, schedules, etc.). IFTTT is inadequate.
The wire itself is labeled for thermostats at home depot, depending on your ability all you need to do is attach it to the pre-existing wire, pull it through and make the same connections to the furnace as the old wire plus the extra power wire. It shouldn’t be more than an hours worth of work for an hvac guy to install either.
That’s seems like a big list to me. All I’d want from a smart thermostat is the ability to set it off of network in case the internet is ever out. That and seperate fan controls/scheduling.
I would love to see a Wyze Thermostat that would tie into the Wyze ecosystem and allow scheduling/monitoring. This would help the Wyzians save money on HVAC and also keep tabs on interior temps while on vacation. Wyze Rules would allow custom tailoring through schedules or Wyze Sense products.
I want a system that takes interior and exterior temperatures into reference in line with users perfured “real feel” tempurature
and automatically sets the thermostat controls of the furnace and/or A/C for you in real time.
I dont know about yall but 3 or 4 am hits in northeast colorado in the fall, it gets real cold, real quick. Then raise to up to 70-80 degrees by noon the next day
i want a smart furnace
If temperature is in your up and coming. this ones a winner
Just noticed that this is “In Development.” Cool! I’ve already got Nest E thermostats, but I’m definitely interested to see what you guys can come up with.
I will say that from a hardware standpoint, I really love the Nest’s ring. Ecobee has a touchscreen, which makes complex interactions easier, but I rarely need to do complex interactions with the thermostat itself. For something complex, I’ll open the app. If I’m touching the physical thermostat, I’m probably just adjusting it up or down, which is super easy with the ring on the Nest.
One minor annoyance I have with Nest is that I can’t ask Alexa what the current humidity level is. (Although the Google Home can successfully answer the same question. Makes sense, since Nest is a Google product. But still annoying.)
Although my place is small enough that I don’t use it, I think a good thermostat system should allow separate battery-powered temperature sensors that can be placed in other rooms, too. Ecobee and Nest both have this. Ecobee’s are superior because they double as motion detectors, so that you can set rules based on when someone is in the room. Nest’s temperature sensors can’t do that.
Since Wyze already has a motion detector device, it might not be as necessary to build that functionality into the temperature sensor itself, but if not, the rule system should be robust enough that someone could buy a temperature sensor AND a motion detector and create rules based on when someone is in a specific room, and based on the temperature in that room.
I’m not so sure that Wyze should get into the smart thermostat business at this time. If they do, it might overwhelm their already strained support system.
From what I’ve seen, even the best (and expensive) smart thermostats out there get complaints from users that they are not ready for the “just turn it on and forget about it” people.
I assume that as they’re acquiring more customers, they’re scaling up their customer support system proportionally. I don’t think that’s a good reason to stifle innovation/expansion. Most people seem to be pretty happy with their customer service anyway, from what I’ve seen.
Not to miss the point that everyone already has a thermostat and they usually only need one. Cameras on the other hand can be a bit addicting and fun to play with. So far as the local geek I have helped neighbors install about 20 cameras and one smart thermostat
Fair point. But if Wyze goes their usual route, I’m guessing their version will undercut the competition by quite a bit while having a nice aesthetic and retaining basically all the features the expensive guys have. That may encourage more people who still have dumb thermostats to upgrade.
I know a lot of people who are interested in the idea of a smart thermostat, but don’t want to shell out $150-250 for one. If there were a good one on the market in the $50-100 range, they might be more apt to do that.
Besides that, Wyze is building an ecosystem of smart home products. If their products interact nicely with each other, it may also encourage owners of their existing products to buy it.
I like my Nest E, but if Wyze made something that was compelling and worked hand-in-hand with the other products I have by them, I might consider buying it. Chances are I could sell the Nest E on eBay and earn more than the equivalent Wyze product would cost.
Can you make a version that is 12 volt compatible? Wyze’s easy set up and Lowe process point makes it a great security camera alternative for RV’ers. Currently there are NO smart thermostat options for RV systems! You could corner a huge market Wyze!
I was thinking about this the other day. I currently own a nest thermostat, and I am happy with it. just a few short comings. I was thinking about wanting a wyze product that works like the cheap room thermostats I use now to see temp and humidity. they are two sensor units so you can monitor temp/ humidity in two different places, say inside /outside, or living room/kitchen. whatever you might need. they are cheap at 10$ but aren’t connected to my phone, so I have to go to one location, currently downstairs and see the base to see their measurements and I also can’t add additional sensors. during the Wyze awards I believe it was mentioned that the thermostat would have the ability to see temps/ info for multiple rooms or something to that effect. I would really like to see something like the Wyze motion sensors size that I could place in multiple rooms inconspicuously, and be able to pull up in the app and see all of those simultaneously. my catch currently is that I don’t really want to replace my nest thermostat ( its not very old and it does the job) so I’m kind of hoping that the devices they use to monitor different rooms connect through the bridge, and that the thermostat wont be the main hub and a definite need for those. so that maybe I wouldn’t have to buy and install a new thermostat to have that monitoring ability. it seems like having that type of sensors connect through the bridge rather than a main thermostat would also open it up to people that don’t want the thermostat at all, but want to monitor rooms, say their kids rooms or maybe an area they are using a space heater in and would also be more cost effective. just a thought as currently there is no information out about the thermostat…but one can hope I guess.
I’ve already got Nest E thermostats, but I’m definitely interested to see what you guys can come up with.