wireless.

To use Nest, you have to run new wires.

There's always a reason wireless T-stat was installed to begin with. Usually because running new wire would be extremely difficult, not to mention costly.

If you have to run wire down multiple floors as an example. Not only will you have the cost to run wire, but also sheet rock repairs, painting etc.

Curious to see if you think the "nest" is still worth it after finding this out?

Probably not! We had a nest thermostat in two previous homes and being able to control any room from your phone (there are five thermostats in our house) was such a nice luxury. Plus my husband has now lost one of the remotes (which we think was thrown out) so we figured this would be a good time to make the switch. But I don't want to have to undertake such a big project!!!

What is the model number of the thermostat you are trying to replace? Are there any other thermostats in the house?

Have you taken the base of your existing thermostat off the wall to check if wires are connected to the back of it?

I have checked behind it, there are no wires. I could look into getting a replacement. There is a model number on one of the remotes. I'm just not sure how we'd hook a replacement remote up to the AC system, that may be a research project for me.

I believe you have a Honeywell thermostat with a RedLINK interface. If you want to buy another remote this RedLINK-Portable remote should work. Call the supplier to confirm.

A WiFi thermostat powered by a battery is not practical. The battery would have to be replaced frequently. You could power the WiFi thermostat from a nearby outlet or move it to a place where it would be easier to run wiring to the furnace.

You unscrewed the base from the wall and there are no wires behind it? Is there another thermostat in the house somewhere? There has to be physical connection between the air handler and the thermostat. Either that or you go through a lot of batteries.

I don't recognize Honeywell models by sight but mike_home is correct, Honeywell has a RedLINK line that uses a proprietary (not Wifi) radio link and is completely wireless. I'd assume that's what it is.

I'm not sure why the preceding comment assumes there to be an air handler - it could be a system with a furnace and AC coil or even a boiler for radiant heat and no AC.

I have two Honeywell RedLINK thermostats for two separate systems at two ends of a larger than average house and they are indeed completely wireless. The "equipment" (whether an air handler for a heat pump or a furnace and AC coil as I have). is wired to a unit nearby mounted on a nearby wall in the mechanical room that Honeywell calls an EIM - Equipment Interface Module. The equipment thinks it's wired to thermostat but it's not - the EIM is the radio frequency transmitter/receiver that communicates with the wireless thermostats. The system works very well and reliably. Look up Honeywell EIM on the internet to get a idea what it looks like - if you see something like that wall mounted near where your equipment is (assuming easy access to the general area and not in an attic or crawlspace), then you have a RedLINK thermostat.

Battery life isn't bad.

If you want to control the thermostat remotely, either from a PC or app on a mobile device - you need to buy another small piece of Honeywell equipment called a RedLINK Internet Gateway. It too works well and reliably.

Interesting and good to know. Thanks @Elmer J Fudd and @Austin Air Companie for teaching me something today.

Here is the Redlink to Internet gateway. You could add remote access for $65 rather than buying a Nest and having to install the required wiring. The reviews on the ease of the installation were mixed. The application allows temperature monitoring and setting only. It does not have all the capability of the Nest. You have to decide if it is sufficient for what you need to do.

Elmer,

How long do the batteries last in your thermostat?

I think the RedLINK product line is at least 10 years old, +/- a bit. I believe iit was the first mainstream thermostat product line that needed no wired connection to the equipment. Perhaps there are others now but I don't know. Honeywell has released several new thermostat product lines since RedLINK first hit the market but for now, it continues to produce and improve its RedLINK portfolio.

An interesting side fact is that the Honeywell residential product business is no longer owned and operated by Honeywell. A few years ago, the business and all of its products and technology were transferred into a new company named Resideo. Resideo is a separate and independent company and has a license to continue use the Honeywell brand name for its products. When you buy "Honeywell" home products, whether a thermostat or any of the other stuff in the product family, what you're buying are products now produced and sold by Resideo.

Honeywell is a gold standard, a company of long standing with a solid reputation well respected in the industry. While many of the other newer thermostat product companies had bumpy starts and did little at first to develop favorable reputations in the HVAC business, many of them have since done a complete job of playing catchup. And many offer more features and more flexibility than some Honeywell products do. But I believe Honeywell (now through Resideo) remains a brand viewed as being reliable and well built.

In addition to my home with RedLINK devices, I switched to a standard Honeywell WiFI thermostat in a second house when I had the existing furnace and AC replaced. It too works flawlessly.

I'm not sure how long the batteries last because I don't change them until the display starts to flash red. It doesn't seem to happen that often.

I find myself in the pleasant but infrequent position of agreeing with Austin. If he says they require annual battery change, my experience doesn't (as I recall) contradict that. RedLINK operates on a lower frequency than WiFi and logic suggests lower frequency may mean lower power consumption. I don't know for sure, any EEs around?

As far as installing the internet gateway, my recollection is that it was easy. You plug it into a power supply like any other electrical device, plug the ethernet cord into the router (or an ethernet drop in a different room). You go through the "installers" menu on the thermostat to "add a device", start that, and then go to the gateway and press a button. It connects itself after that. I have two thermostats so I had to do it twice. Two stats, one gateway.

There's a 4 digit password to get into installer portion of the menu but the number is on the back of the thermostat, with a silly description like model number or date of manufacture or some other baloney.

I did it myself because the gateway didn't come in time for the HVAC crew to install it. They said I should call them when it came and they could give me simple instructions over the phone, the most significant of which was how the password is hidden in plain sight.. I think I'm going onto 4 or 5 years now and it all works fine. When there's an occasional power failure or internet service disruption, it all reconnects on its own when service is restored as if nothing had happened. I get an alert from the website telling me that connection with the thermostat(s) was lost, that's a good communication to tell me that the power in the location I'm not at has gone out.

Control using the My Comfort Connect site is basic - it's all the things you can do if you were standing at the thermostat. Temp up down, heat-cool-off modes, fan on-circ-auto. The RedLINK stats I have don't show indoor humidity. Remote connection shows indoor temp for the RedLINKS and outdoor humidity, and a Honeywell Wifi stat at another house shows indoor and outdoor temp and humidity.

It's much easier and faster to change programming times and temps using remote access than if standing at the thermostat.

I haven't been able to find what wireless protocol RedLINK uses. My guess it uses Bluetooth which operates in the 2.4 GHz band. Lower frequency will consume less power but transmitting through walls becomes more difficult. It could be one of the many 802.11 (WiFi) protocols. Is so it is likely one that has a lower data rate and consumes less power.

This thermostat uses three AA batteries. That is a large capacity and the main reason why you can go a year without changing batteries. Compare this to the Nest which has a very small battery which is intended to last through a power outage.

mike, I found several Honeywell sources, none linkable, that say Redlink operates in the 900 Mhz range. Both the older/lower tier Wifi and Bluetooth use 2400 Mhz (= 2.4 Ghz). I think I read something else awhile ago that said Honeywell had chosen the range to try to minimize interference and that the RedLINK RF circuits jump frequencies within the range to insure clear signals.

I have two Vision Pro 8000s. They take 4 AA batteries. The 4 digit "password" needed to get into the "Installer" menu items is on the product label in the back, where the batteries are put in.

Here's a screen capture from a data sheet I found. This happens to be a model that needs a C wire power connection and no batteries but that doesn't affect the RedLINK frequency info. Click to enlarge.

Here's the "password", image from an install manual. In this case, it's 1324

This is turned into a lively and interesting debate!

So here's more info to answer some of the questions:

Of the five thermostats one of them has wires behind it but they are unconnected to anything, and have been taped off at the ends. The other four thermostats have zero wires anywhere and some aren't even attached to the wall at all, they are free floating remotes.

This house is 20 years old and very little has been updated, absolutely nothing. I would be surprised if these were new anytime recently.

I don't think they work off of Wi-Fi because our Wi-Fi is frequently down but the thermostat still works.

The remotes have batteries in them and we carry them around the house, hence why my husband was able to lose it. The batteries don't need changing frequently. I can't remember if we've even changed them in the past year since we moved in.

We turned the house absolutely upside down and managed to find the missing remote! (Thank goodness!!) But I'm still interested in finding a way to control it from my phone.... It's a luxury where you've lived with it it's hard to live without it. ;) Thanks to this thread I have some good leads I will hunt down instead of pursuing a nest thermostat.

I'd anyone is interested, here's the info on the remote.

Residio is or was a "renaming of" the homes control division. To seperate from Honeywell's aerospace division. Maybe a product of the well publicized GE & Honeywell merger that failed back in 2000 time frame.

Resideo is a brainchild of a gadget market. It's a big multi-billion dollar a year market. People like spending money on gadgets. (Personally I wish they would just concentrate on making thermostats, much else of what they make I consider mostly garbage.)

Why Resideo? Because they offer gadgets for the home. Not just HVAC but also security and others.

As far as I know Honeywell still owns this unit and in the 3 years since this occurred no one I know of uses the name Resideo.

Even Honeywell doesn't use it. The name on the box these T-stats come on is still "Honeywell".

I think if anything it was to seperate divisions in the event another merger might occur from the aerospace / aviation side of things. You know the heavy weights like UTC / GE and some new comers like Space X, Origin, Virgin Galactic etc.

-------------

That said from what I can see your thermostat looks like it might be compatible with Redlink.

What is the model # of the thermostat?

Resideo Technologies, Inc. is a $5B company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock symbol symbol is REZI. Here is the financial profile for anyone who is interested. The company was formed from a spin-off of Honeywell in October 2018. The company seems to be doing well. The price of the stock has tripled in the past 52 weeks.

Yes, of course mike. And this comment:

"As far as I know Honeywell still owns this unit"

This is incorrect. Had he read my comment above posted two days ago, I explained how Resideo was formed and separated from Honeywell several years ago.

Brand names are often sold and continued under new ownership. A good example is when IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo more than a dozen years ago. Lenovo was given the right to continue to produce and sell "IBM" branded products for a good number of years.

You can still buy lighting products (bulbs and the like) branded as "Philips". But the business is no longer owned by Philips - the divisions were spun off into a company now named "Signify" and completely disconnected from Philips.

Honeywell being a gold standard name in the HVAC controls business, it may be that Resideo has a perpetual right to use it for the product lines it holds, and likely a non-compete agreement that Honeywell will not re-enter these markets.

It was spun off. No where does it say a company bought out Honeywell Homes Business.

Example: when Google bought Nest is was originally separated from Google. Since that time when Google first bought it the naming, the division in Google in which it resides has changed many times.

If you got proof, post it. It would entail how many billions of dollars the Honeywell Homes business sold for etc.

Good luck Mr. Fudd.

You can play your own catch-up, my friend. You were uninformed. Read more about it or don't, I don't care. Whatever was in Resideo on Day One came from Honeywell. I otherwise don't understand your comment.

A spinoff means that a company forms a subsidiary, transfers assets into it, and then distributes the shares to existing parent company shareholders. That creates a separate, independent company owned by the parent company shareholders and no longer owned by the parent company. Shareholders are free to hold or sell their new shares as they wish. Resideo shares are publicly traded. That's the same as Philips did with its lighting business to form Signify, which I also mentioned before. Spinoffs provide investment returns to shareholders beyond dividends and allow companies to dispose of businesses they don't wish to continue to own.

What I said above, that you missed, was correct:

"the Honeywell residential product business is no longer owned and operated by Honeywell. A few years ago, the business and all of its products and technology were transferred into a new company named Resideo. Resideo is a separate and independent company and has a license to continue use the Honeywell brand name for its products."

So under your methodology Honeywell the conglomerate is not owned by Honeywell. It's owned by investors?

Nor any other company that is listed on stock exchanges of the world... all these companies are owned by investors and these companies like Google, M$FT, Apple, GE etc.

Stock ownership who, what, when, where that owns a company retain the most stock.

So you "THINK" Honeywell would create a "new" company and not retain enough stock to retain ownership? Resideo was Honeywell's creation, this company did not exist prior to 2018.

How many millions of shares you think makes up Resideo? How many of those shares does Honeywell possess? I can assure you based on the facts of what you write and your unwillingness to set the record straight with credible information. You just like to hear yourself talk.

If Resideo has a license to use Honeywell brand products post the license. Find a box of a honeywell thermostat in which it says made by *Resideo under license.*

An example of a "Licensed Product"...

Google Owns Nest. Bought from Nest Labs. This is a link to the history of "HOW" a major company structures what it owns. In some cases they are spun into separate companies. Googles case is the opposite.

There is no license that says "Google Nest" formerly "Google Home" is licensed to make Nest. Yet this is currently how Nest is structured under the conglomerate Google also known as Alphabet, Inc.

I know this is probably over your head Mr. Fudd ----- NEST Thermostat, from Nest Labs, to Nest, To Google Home, To now Google Nest or G Nest if you prefer.

"How many millions of shares you think makes up Resideo? How many of those shares does Honeywell possess?"

According to Resideo's publicly disclosed filings with the federal SEC, the answer is zero. As is typical in such situations, all shares were distributed to shareholders (as I've said a few times before). Here's an excerpt from the filing, these are institutional investors/mutual fund managers. Typical for larger companies.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The following shareholders reported to the SEC that they beneficially owned more than 5% of Resideo common stock as of December 31, 2020.

Name and Address of Beneficial Owner

Title of Class

Amount and Nature of Beneficial Ownership
Percent of Class (1)

BlackRock, Inc.

55 East 52nd Street,

New York, NY 10055

Common Stock

22,110,497(2)

15.26%

The Vanguard Group

100 Vanguard Boulevard

Malvern, PA 19355

Common Stock

14,407,911(3)

9.94%

Praesidium Investment Management Company, LLC

1411 Broadway – 29th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Common Stock

7,781,233(4)

5.37%

LOL.

This doesn't "prove ownership"

The total stock you posted amounts to:

15.26 + 9.94 +5.37 = 30.57%

There's 69.43% of shares missing? who has them.

Nor do you provide a link to show a licensing deal between Honeywell & Resideo? Why?

This subject is way over your head, Mr. Fudd. If you really wanted to prove something you would provide a link so the information you claim can be verified. We like to call this a "fact check".

Further facets of this prove just how "complicated" this subject is... A portion of an example "Why it's over your head"...

I believe (my opinion) there is much more to this than what is listed here....

These points are "WHAT I CAN PROVE" only.

After a serious amount of digging... there is a licensing arangement between Resideo and Honeywell.

However, this arrangement is merely allowing Resideo to "market & sell" various products like Thermostats, security home products and others that Honeywell makes. It is not a license for Resideo to make products using the Honeywell name.

Sorry, another swing and a miss. Your digging didn't get you to the right answer. Resideo owns all product rights and that allows it to design and manufacture the thermostats it sells, under long term permission to use the Honeywell brand name that was transferred-in Day One. Without that, the "business" would have required substantial advance transformation and that wasn't done. Here's what you could have found:

As a starting point, on the back of Resideo's Honeywell brand thermostats, it says "Assembled in Mexico"

From the 10K (Annual Report disclosures) with the SEC, it says:

"As of December 31, 2020, we employed approximately 14,700 employees in 32 countries. Approximately 3,100 employees were located in the United States, and the remaining 11,600 employees were located primarily in Mexico, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom."

Resideo took ownership of and now operates former Honeywell manufacturing plants in Mexico that produce the thermostat products.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Also from the 10K:

"Research and Development and Intellectual Property

We have software centers of excellence in Austin, Texas; Bengaluru, India; and Melville, New York, along with major product design centers in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America. In addition, our laboratories are certified to meet various industry standards, such as FCC and UL, enabling us to test and certify products internally. We also have a user experience design group that consists of researchers and product and user experience designers aligned with development sites with the primary studios in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

As of December 31, 2020, we employed over 850 engineers. Our deep domain expertise, proprietary technology and brands are protected by a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, nondisclosure agreements, and contractual provisions. We own approximately 2,300 worldwide active patents and pending patent applications to protect our research and development investments in new products and services."

Enough of this. You can accept or dispute facts as you wish but facts are facts. Opinions vary from person to person, facts do not.

But still can't post a link?

You want to be able to say what you say... sorry "the fact check world disagrees with you".

You are not a part of the "Rules for thee, not for me" entitlement political class...

I know why you won't post a link... your proof doesn't exist.

One last try. You want "source info"?

Go to the Resideo website, click on Investors, click on SEC filings, Under Filter File type select Annual, download the 10K filed 2/25/21 (it's 220 pages) and by doing a search in Acrobat reader, you will find that the sentences I've quoted above appear in the document with exactly the same words and with no changes.

When you want information about a company, there's no better source than a 10K. It's filed with the SEC

I don't expect you to know any of that, but your attitude of "If I don't know it, it ain't so" isn't helpful for you. There are things people know because they know. "Knowledge" doesn't come from internet searches, this was something I've known since the spinoff.

There are things people think they know that they have wrong and don't really know. Asking for "proof": is more of the "If I don't know, it ain't so" attitude. I don't tell untruths, anonymously or otherwise.

Yeah I found the motherlode, I can clearly see why you have to dig so much. LOL. I can now see why Jim Cramer said the guy running Honeywell is smart.

Good for Honeywell, not so much for Resideo from what I have read thus far. Much more complicated than I even imagined.

So who "really" owns Resideo? The stock owners that owned Honeywell stock at the time of the spin off... things get really dicey from there as there is "common stock" and "preferred stock"... not to mention other less forms that may be sold to institutional investors.

Here's a snippet 38 pages in out of 208 pages of that 10K Resideo filing....

Mr. Fudd guess again... you're out of your league on this one.

I didn't dig at all, I went there directly and knew where to look. Reading (and writing and contributing to producing) such materials and a few times as a team member negotiating such deals was part of what I did in my career.

None of this is complicated or confusing. A 40 year license (is that long enough for you to grasp?) during which Honeywell retains certain rights to ensure the use of its name complies with Day One commitments. Very standard. They'll transition to introducing new brand names as the period progresses and "Honeywell" as a thermostat brand will fade into memory. Lenovo stopped using "IBM" sooner than it needed to because the Think Pad, Idea Pad, and other model names were recognized enough to stand on their own.

Spinoffs that involve continued use of a former owner's trade name always involve a long term license and an ejection seat mechanism should the spun off company not comply with terms envisioned in the licensing, so that the name isn't sullied.

Publicly traded stock is bought and sold daily. You can be sure that many or most of the Honeywell individual stockholders at the time that received Resideo stock in the spinoff have sold their shares to new owners. The same would be true of the existing Honeywell shareholders, as with shareholders of all companies.

You consistently drop balls lobbed to you with an underhand throw, slow pitches. Enough.

None of this is complicated or confusing. A 40 year license (is that long enough for you to grasp?)

Because you gloss over, don't read fully or assume things that aren't there.

Complicated? I guess you missed this page of the 208 pages?

Resideo has over 1 billion debt load with variable interest rate financing. Not so bad in low rate environment like right now. What happens when rates start going up?

Complicated? no that's not complicated. Nor do "deals" fall apart under those kinds of scenarios.

The deal, the way forward doesn't suggest in any form that Resideo is going to be a grand manufacturer. The way forward is: DISTRIBUTOR. But no where in anything Mr. Fudd has said tells you that..

Does this mean Resideo doesn't manufacture anything. No, but just to the extent of which this "deal" was formed.

Not complicated? These are just tiny juicy morsels.

I have nearly 200 pages more... I'm Ray wanna play?

The Lenovo deal doesn't even come close to this... guess again.