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Replaced my 17 year old HVAC system that died this year with a heat pump for both heating and cooling last month and am excited to see the savings. Also replac
by theogravity 3y ago
Replaced my 17 year old HVAC system that died this year with a heat pump for both heating and cooling last month and am excited to see the savings.
Also replaced our just as old non-working shutters with dual cellular blinds for additional insulation.
One thing I do slightly regret is although Trane / American Standard (they're the same company) is highly rated (according to Consumer Reports) for reliability, if you use a variable speed heat pump and air handler, they use a custom communication protocol (digital instead of analog) that no modern third party thermostats use it, and you have to use Trane thermostats instead.
So far the Trane app works well for manipulating temperature, setting a schedule and holding it like 3rd party hardware and apps, but you're not going to get like HomeKit integration if that's a thing you care about.
- craz8 3y agoI have that exact setup for control, and there’s 1 thing I want to control, and that’s the start time of warming up in the morning depending on outside temp. It’s less efficient at lower temps so takes longer to provide enough heat, and my house loses heat faster at cooler temps, so needs more heat at those lower temps. I want to say “make it 72 at 8am” not “start at 6am to try to get to 72 at some future time” I’m also concerned about what happens when their online system stops working. Technically I can program some on the connected unit, but it’s not ideal Oh, it also can only use the temp from 1 remote thermostat at a time. My last 3rd party one allowed, for instance, the night temp to be the remote in the bedroom and the daytime to be set by the living room remote - Trane doesn’t support that in the schedules at all.
- cynical_spar 3y agoThere is a homeassistant integration that might work if you really want that. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nexia/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nexia/
- theogravity 3y agoI did look into that, but it means installing another app from what I've read (meaning I'd be just switching from the Trane to the Home Assistant one). If it allows me to control the thermostat from Apple Home, I'd be for it.
- thusjustin 3y agoOnce you get Home Assistant to control your thermostat, you can add the excellent HomeKit integration to HA. That exposes all or some of your devices in HA to Apple Home. You can then access them like other Apple Home devices, including via Siri if that’s interesting to you. It’s great.