This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Honeywell International Inc.. All opinions are 100% mine.
I was recently given the opportunity to review the Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control. I'll be honest, I don't know what got in to me when I accepted because I cringe at yet ANOTHER electronic gadget that is supposed to make your life easier, all the while it takes a huge chunk of time to figure out how to work the thing (at least in most of my experiences). But I accepted and have been delightfully surprised with how much I have like it.
Our old thermostat was an old, yellowing box where you move a thermostat line back and forth on a grid based on how hot or cold you want the temperature in your house to be. The trouble with it was that you never really knew what the exact temperature was, just a range and what felt right.
The Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control allows you to set the temperature from the wall unit, computer or smart phone! No kidding! Why would you need to change the temperature from your phone you ask? Say you leave town and realize you forgot to turn the heat down or off…pull up the app, type in your new temp, done. How cool is that?! Or, for instance…when we lived in Arizona we used to turn our air conditioner off when we went on vacation. When we returned home the house was hotter than heck and the a/c would run for hours trying to cool the house down. Would have been great to log on to the app and turn the a/c on a few hours before we were expected to arrive home so the house was cool when we walked through the door. With this cool Honeywell gadget you can do that!
The other feature that is pretty cool is that you can change the temp with the sound of your voice. Now we haven't set that feature because I know my boys would have a hay-day with it but it's still a pretty cool feature. If you're super lazy and don't want to pick yourself up off the sofa to adjust the temp just yell at the thing and you're golden. Make life as simple as possible…the American way. 🙂
You can program the unit to set different temperatures at different times of the day and set different temps for different days. Say you usually sleep from 10pm – 6am. You can set the unit to be five degrees cooler than what you have it during the day.
The install was not that easy to be honest. The Mr. spent about 30 minutes just reading the manual and decided he didn't want to risk messing the whole thing up and risk leaving us without heat. So we asked our contractor to do it while he was here working on something else at the time and it took him a good chunk of time. He called 1-800 number to verify he had all the wires right and he spent 15 minutes on hold just to be told he needed to call a different 1-800 number. The second time he spent 18 minutes on hold and finally got the help he needed. I will tell you that waiting on hold is pretty high up on my peeve list. Having to pay someone an hourly wage while they twiddle their thumbs while they wait on hold makes me see red. Yes, I was about to throw the dang thing out the window. In defense of the thing, I will say we live in an older home and our wiring may be more tricky than a newer home might be.
On the other hand, now that it is installed, I'm pretty darn jazzed about it and it made the difficult install worth it. I don't get turned on by gadgets but this thing is pretty sweet and one that I would highly recommend. It's super easy to use and has made life more easy which gets my stamp of approval.
The Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control is available for purchase at the Home Depot, Amazone.com and Bestbuy.com. Also, The Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control was named Best New Product of 2013
Hey there! I’m Michelle; I’m an Passionate DIY’er and in constant pursuit of how to bring beauty to my house full of men (3 boys + 1 hubby). Stick around and see what I’ve got up my hard-working sleaves!
haha, i never thought they would be, but they are ! they are! after spotting the honeywell at home depot last week & reading about the nest.. amazed. i never realized thermostats could be so .. pretty?