Thx! I have not seen this model. There are too many choices for a layman like me to choose from. This is for a Miami condo where only cooling will be used. The apartment is undergoing gut renovations right now and is unoccupied. The electrical bill for last month was $90 just from AC. I need to get new thermostat / humidistat and it will pay for itself in under a year.

If you are only cooling, then the choice is only a thermostat. You want a thermostat that will cool to dehumidify. This means the thermostat will run the AC until the humidity level is reached. It may over cool the by 1-2 degrees. You should be able to set the amount of over cool on the Vision Pro.

Right now the place has a really old humidistat & thermostat that was replaced in last 5-10 years. When the humidity goes up the fan gets turned on to circulate the air.

I looked more into the model you mention and it is not available in much places. It goes for $349 at 3rd party Amazon seller & I read that you need to get additional accessory (Equipment Interface Module) which goes for $93. With taxes it will be over $500.

I also foundHoneywell YTH9421C1002 Visionpro IAQ Touch Screen 7-Day Programmable Thermostat, Version 2 which comes with Equipment Interface Module for $250 but according to Honeywell's website the product is obsolete.

Just as a comparison a highly rated and current Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat TH9320WF5003 is $175 and Honeywell H8908B Whole House Humidistat is $25

The one I recommend is a professional thermostat model. Take a look at the Honeywell web site. There should be some other inexpensive choices in their DIY thermostats. You can also call Honeywell for advice.

Are talking about turning on the fan in the air handler? That will do nothing to lower the humidity, and could actually raise it. Lowering the humidity requires either running the AC at low speed for periods of time, or a stand alone dehumidifier.

I would recommend this WiFi controller/thermostat. Goes for $199 on Amazon and has both temperature and humidity control options.

@ David

Thank you for your recommendation, have you used this yourself? I've looked into it and it is not for me for the following reasons:

1) It is a new company from Estonia that has no resellers in the US. Without official resellers the company can easily deny support / warranty by saying that I bought from unauthorized sources.

2) There is nothing on Amazon (3rd party sellers) or even their own site & manual that specifically says that it controls humidity. A lot of thermostat can detect indoor / outdoor but not necessarily have option to control it

3) There are no manual controls on the thermostat itself, only via WIFI. What happens if there is an network outage inside or outside of my home network?

4) The commands go thru AirPatrol cloud. What happens if there is an outage of their cloud? Do I trust unknown company located thousands of miles away to give 100% uptime?

5) Assuming you are using this device I don't feel comfortable being 2nd person in US to be the guinea pig

This is my 2nd home, I live in NYC (1000+ miles away). As a Microsoft Certified System Administrator I can troubleshoot & resolve most IT problems with ease when I am onsite. If I am not I would have to involve another IT guy to troubleshoot locally & rely on email support from company in a timezone thats 6 hours ahead of EST. At best it would be next day's reply and in my many years of experience with vendors it is not always resolved from first contact.

Other Smart Thermostats on the market that offer WIFI have manual controls on the device and have direct execution of commands (smartphone - your internal WIFI (without going to the Internet) - thermostat). Without manual controls I am at the mercy of my router, my internet provider, every hop from my provider to the internet provider hosting the cloud & the cloud itself to use this device.

Ecobee3 has an auxiliary port, for a humidifier or a different use. It also has a smart feature that regulates humidity to make sure your windows stay frost free in the winter. I have yet to hook up my humidifier because I must run the wire to the thermostat, but I plan on doing so before winter. I highly recommend this thermostat, I love the smart features it offers.

@ Dark

Yes, I'm using and quite satisfied with it. Your arguments are all on point, thought about some of those myself before purchasing the controller. Still decided to go for it because it seemed to suite well with my system (Mitsubishi mini split) and had a friend (lives in Sweden, had used this controller a while) recommend it to me and assured that it's reliable.

You're right about humidity control too, this device only shows humidity level. I figured you can control the humidity somehow by cooling/heating the room accordingly. Not sure about though as I'm quite a novice regarding hvac. Just saw your post and as it's rather an unknown device then I thought that it might be something you haven't seen yet and that maybe the airpatrol would suite for you too.

@MW - I've looked at Ecobee3 but read it has some inconsistencies with reporting correct temperature. The temperature of the unit itself is hotter than ambient temperature of the room by several degrees. Remote sensors that are optional accessories do an average of sensors & main units temperature readings. In my case the hottest portion of the apartment is near where the main unit is. So if living room / dinning room are at 80F (main unit can be hotter and detect it as 85F) and bedrooms are at 70F the average will be 75F. Hottest area (LR / DR) will be cooled by just 5F and temperature in the bedrooms will eventually go up since there is less cold air being pumped to all zones.

@ DM - I am glad its working out for you and your friend. Its from Estonia which is near Sweden and I am sure their use their is more prevalent.

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My never ending quest for modernizing my home lead me to a new product which I think provides a better solution to central air management in my single stage cooling system. Instead of pumping cold air to several rooms based on average of temperatures in them the ability to use smart vents is better. Their product allows you to replace your existing air vents (not full duct work) and shut down some rooms. For example I can block the vent from releasing cold air into unoccupied rooms (ie. secondary bedrooms, bathrooms, closets) when they are not in use. The rooms that are in use will continue to get cold air and now instead of cooling down 1600 sqf only 1000 sqf will be cooled down. I think this will result in a lot more energy savings in the long run.

Here is a link (going thru my link has $40 off coupon) - http://bit.ly/1RvnVQG

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I've been communicating with Venstar support and checking out their website. They have an interesting feature called "free cooling". When its colder outside the system gets some air from the outside and redistributes it within your home without using AC, just fan. I am not at the stage where HVAC is being done and few weeks away before my contractor brings his HVAC guys but it looks interesting. I will see if I can implement something like this, since it requires changes only HVAC guys can do.

https://youtu.be/ZyyhgVLYqyA

This is a pretty good article about why those "smart vents" are a bad idea: http://www.energysmartohio.com/blog/ecovent--treating-symptoms-instead-of-the-disease

Free cooling is nothing new and it's standard for commercial HVAC in cold and mild climates, but in Miami, how much of the year will it even be practical? It needs to be cool outside for it to work! Also, a simpler solution for homes is just to open the windows.

What kind of humidity control are you looking to do? Does your system have a variable speed blower and you want the thermostat to slow it down when humidity rises above setpoint? Do you have a dehumidifier you're trying to control? Or do you just want to start the A/C when humidity rises above setpoint?

@hvtech42

Thanks for the info on smart vents. Both companies appear to be marketing the same kind of product and both sell vents for $90 each. Both companies say that they have sensors that monitor static pressure and will open up vents if it builds up. Cold air has less moisture as compared to hot air that you have from furnace. Cold air will still be pumped to the ducts that are closed and they will not be closed all the time. In a few weeks I'll talk to HVAC company and show them products that I've found.

In Miami during the snowbird season (late November - April) the low can be below 65F. My parents often open their balcony door & front door (with metal screen security door) and the cold air breeze goes thru the apartment. Having 2 things open creates air drift which you dont get with just open window. Venstar implementation that I saw differs because it sucks colder air from outside and sends it over ducts to different rooms.

From my understanding there is no dehumidifier, just fan that circulates the air.

Here is the layout of the apartment (finished, not mine). The hottest areas are kitchen / DR & LR. All bedrooms are not on the corner of the building and will have ceiling fans to help with the circulation of air. I am lucky to know owners of other apartments and try to learn from their mistakes whenever possible.

@ Dark

The 2nd gen units have been released and I can personally vouch that mine runs at the correct temperature. The sensors as you mentioned can fix any issues due to the area the tstat is located. If you choose to, you can have the tstat take a reading from whichever sensor you select (you can pick and choose which sensors to use including the main unit)

Ex. at night I have the it programmed to only take temperature readings in the bedrooms.

The thermostat in my hallway will not be part of the temperature reading.

@MW,

Thanks for sharing your direct user experience.

@hvtech42,

I've been doing more reading on smart vents and found interesting of it by CNET

http://www.cnet.com/products/keen-home-smart-vent/

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/02/keen-home-smart-vent-shark-tank-products-season-6-february-20-episode/

http://www.business2community.com/entertainment/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-puts-750k-keen-homes-smart-vents-01165071#IX5q8HzJtdGpOgXh.97

I also found another vendor that has been in business for a few years offering similar product

http://www.theactivent.com/video.html

I know the article you provided had concerns about

1) air pressure building up - makers of smart vents claim that they have sensors that automatically open up if there is a dangerous increase in pressure. I also saw that the app allows you to close the vent for a duration of time (ie. close 12am-3am, open 3am-4am, close 4am-7am, etc). If you use a schedule not only are you automatically relieving any build up pressure you are also allow cold air to get to the room that is not occupied and keeping it cooled with reduced amount of cold air always open duct would provide.

2) mold build up - cold air has less moisture than hot air. In case of cooling only there is a lot less moisture than with heating. If the duct in occupied rooms is not always closed therefore there is even less chance of moisture being trapped.

3) damage to HVAC system - this also seems to be related to heating since they only mention furnace. In cooling only scenario the AC keeps pumping cold air on regular basis. It travels to room 1, 2, 3 (shortest distance, vents open), travels to room 4, 5 (further away and with vents closed), travels to room 6, 7 (furthest distance). Since vents in room 4, 5 are closed the cold air that meant for them has to go somewhere else. The closest open vents would be room 6, 7 and not 1,2,3. Wouldn't the fact that AC is pumping air mean that unused air from room 4, 5 should flow naturally to closest points of exit at room 6,7 instead of traveling against forced air that AC is pumping. My logic is that its easier for unused air to flow naturally to closest point of exit as well as being helped by AC that forces new cold air to go into direction of room 6, 7.

I am curious to know your opinion on what I said above.

I also think the fact that the company was on Shark Tank, was able to raise $$$ and establish partnerships with SmartThings (owned by Samsung), Lowes IRIS, working on Nest certification and product will be distributed by Lowes (pre-sold 35,000 units) shows that large companies believe in this product. If it was just a gimmick and would cause problems I doubt Samsung & Lowes would officially support them and they would not get $$$ from

Quotes:

The team has invested $50k themselves,
raised $1.2 million through the Techstars Accelerator Program, at the
beginning of the year, and closed a seed round of $1.5 million in May.
They have pre-sold 35,000 units to Lowe’s.

Final Deal: Robert Herjavec invested $750k in [company]for a 13% stake.

I saw that Shark Tank episode, and it's actually part of what put me off of the product. It was a couple of guys looking to make some money, who had no experience whatsoever in the HVAC industry. I have a lot of respect for Robert Herjavec, but again, he has no HVAC experience. I would not base my purchase of an HVAC related product on his investing decision.

I have seen a great deal of issues in the field with the Nest thermostat. I tried tried one in my own home, but removed it after a few months. Again, it was not created by people who know HVAC. That showed in the product, and when you called them for support. It seemed to do a fine job of controlling basic systems that just had a gas furnace and A/C (though I noticed a lot of reliability issues, and it allowed excessive temperature swings in my opinion), but when I put it on more complicated systems, like multistage, heat pump, and dual fuel systems, it just choked and could not control them in an efficient and comfortable manner. Many people reported significantly increased electric bills. The fact that these smart vent people are partnering with them speaks volumes to me. Again - CNET is a great place to go for reviews on consumer electronics, but they know nothing about HVAC. Same deal with Lowe's and Samsung. Their ability to get funding from these places doesn't really answer any of my concerns about the product.

I agree that the article I linked was mainly written with heating systems in mind, but a lot of it applies to cooling systems too. You don't just risk system damage by restricting airflow on a furnace. There is plenty of risk with an A/C only system as well. Low airflow can lead to coil freezeups, blower failure, and compressor failure. I don't understand what you mean about "relieving pressure" when using schedules. As long as vents are being closed off, static pressure in the ductwork increases.

I'm glad these companies are at least acknowledging the pressure issue. But their websites have next to no specific information about what they are doing to get around the problem. I would want to know what type of sensor they are actually using to measure the pressure. Are they just measuring it at individual vents or are they taking into account readings from all the vents together? Also, what are they doing with the pressure readings they are getting from these sensors? At what point do they determine static pressure is excessive? That can be different for different systems. How do they specifically know what kind of pressure buildup for your particular duct system? That kind of thing requires a qualified technician to measure, and these systems are not designed to be put in by qualified technicians.

Let's assume these systems can actually get accurate static pressure readings for the system, and somehow know when airflow is being restricted too much for a particular system (based on what I've read about these, I feel that both of these assumptions are a stretch). When pressure does get too high, what will the system be able to do about that? A traditional zoning system installed by a contractor could ramp down the variable speed blower, lowering pressure while still allowing zones to be closed off. A more basic zoning system installed on a non variable speed HVAC system could open a bypass damper installed by the contractor, allowing some the excess supply air to go straight to the return duct, again lowering static pressure while allowing zones to close. But these smart vents? The only thing they'll be able to do if they sense high pressure is to not close, which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? That air has to go somewhere!

The title of the article I linked is "Ecovent - Treating Symptoms Instead of the Disease". Based on what I know about these products I feel that is an accurate description of them. Even if they worked perfectly, without any potential for issues down the road, the problems they claim to be trying to solve should not be present at all in a properly sized, designed, and installed HVAC system. If temperatures are extremely uneven from room to room, that isn't just a fact of life that you have to deal with; it means that your duct system is poor. I have no zoning system whatsoever in my house, and my temperatures are almost perfectly even from room to room, even with just one thermostat. So, if you're having issues with comfort or energy consumption - get a good contractor to evaluate your entire system. You will be better off in the long run eliminating the root cause of these problems.

All of this is just my personal opinion I've formed based on the information I've been able to find about these products online. If you decide you'd like to go ahead with one of these systems, post back with a review and let us know how it works for you.

It seems improbably that one could rip out home ducts to address all problems. If your home is old and your ducts are already in walls, it seems like your options are limited. On top of this, if you have rooms that aren't getting enough heat flow, there may be different rooms not getting enough AC. I believe that a home would be better off having been properly ducted in the first place but even if it is, don't you have differences (South facing rooms, upstairs rooms etc) that you need some kind of dynamic control ? Ecovent measures static pressure so can prevent shutting down so much flow that it hurts the system. It sounds superior to zoning. Having lived in a home with lousy zoning, I'd gladly use a system that I could at least direct to have a minimum airflow vs what I had.

That said, if you're already over-pressurized Ecovent won't be a good solution and it would be nice if they provided some guidance on which homes they can help and which they can't.

If the home is two story you probably won't be able to rip out all ducts. If the home is one story and the ducts run to ceiling then you can, provided there is adequate access to them.

But ducting is only one part to very complicated puzzle when it comes to zoning. There are myriad of ways to do zoning. Many of which are flawed from the start. Design and knowledge are often cast aside as non important things.

The next part of this puzzle is what equipment are you trying to zone?

5 ton single speed? This doesn't mean you can't do it, but it's not optimal.

WHY, you might ask? A 5 ton single speed AC system needs roughly 2000 CFM of air flow. You can drop this air flow for a time, but the longer it runs at reduced air flow it will cut into performance (economics) of the system.

If you are cooling a zone with the above system: The zone calls for 400 CFM of air... what will you do with the other 1600 CFM of air. You aren't going to send it to the zone that is calling... it will not fit the duct.

This is why zoning should only be left to a pro and while it's possible to zone the above example and have it perform well, it would not perform no where near that of a system that has more than one speed.

Zoning systems are Ferrari's of the HVAC world. If you plop in single speed equipment... it would be like placing a "Ford Pinto" engine in a Ferrari. -- it will run but that's about it.

With that said... if the zoning system isn't well designed and well controlled, it would be preposterous to refer to it as a Ferrari.

Design, Design, Design... that is also what makes a Ferrari a Ferrari as it were.