Question

Does it pay to have Two Smart Thermostats in a two story house? I'll have multi zone heating and A/C. 1st floor and basement are on separate zone from 2nd floor. 1500sq ft house. The HVAC guy is thinking of just one Smart on 1st floor and a programmable on 2nd floor in master bedroom. He doesn't install smart thermostats but will put others in.  

Answer 1

I would put ecobee in both

Answer 2

I would 2 smart

Answer 3

I would install Ecobee on each floor with room sensors throughout the home

Answer 4

Don't use best dave, I have heard great things about ecobee

Comments

@umbel91 best are fine - most just lack the ground cable and get a surge that fries their board. Proper ground wire so it doesn't push back to the board itself and you are good to go.  

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Stupid autocorrect. Lol

Answer 5

Nest, not best. Lol

Answer 6

The more points of reference, the better the themostats work. Absolutely. Make them all smart or none.  

Answer 7

Stay away from Nest. They are okay but if you want to integrate it with anything else in the future it's going to be harder. Ecobee is what I would go with

Comments

@rasp6 I replaced Nest with Ecobee including room sensors. My electric bill is down 25%.  

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I would have got Ecobee but I got a brand new Nest for $50 because of rebates and the Ecobee wasn't an option at the time.  

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@rasp6 do you use an android phone?  

Answer 8

The more the better. I have 8 thermostats in my house  

Answer 9

Definitely go with two. If you install only one smart thermostat, you will just end up limiting yourself in the long run when it comes to capabilities and customizing your settings throughout the home. Some smart mini sensors (as mentioned above) will also be a huge plus. And I 100% agree with everyone, if Ecobee is an option, go with that over the Nest  

Answer 10

I would always recommend one thermostat per heating zone, otherwise what’s the point in having separate heating zones? (You can balance your heating system without the need for separately controlled zones. Okay having a separate heating zone does mean you could isolate and turn one of the zones off if the space is not in use, but you still need a controller to do that, so why not make it a thermostat. ) My new home will have 9 heating zones, with 9 thermostats so they can be individually controlled. The home is on 4 levels and some of the house is not used all the time.  

Answer 11

Thanks everyone. I figured Two Smart thermostats would be best but I wanted to make sure. I'll have to get 6 wire ran into the master instead of just the 4 wire.  

Answer 12

I have 5 Ecobee Smart I bought yesterday. Doing a self install. Although I need to run new thermostat wire for each as we only have a two-wire system (no C wire) in place. Fingers crossed.  

Answer 13

Always better. It opens up your options. When you’re leaving the house turn of all thermostats automatically. You can even like the thermostats to a motion sensor using SmartApps. That way it only turns on when there is someone around. If you never go up all weekend etc, it never turns on. For me every level has a zwave thermostat. A simple basic zwave thermostat is under 50 bucks.