Customer Reviews

Honeywell YRTH8500D1008 7-Day Programmable Thermostat

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you do a search on Amazon for the 8500, you'll see several models listed, some of which advertise an option to run the fan periodically, regardless if the heat or A/C is running or not. If you go to the Honeywell website, the product demo for the 8500 shows this option (Fan=CIRCulate) as well. But the 8500 model does not support this, only the models intended for professional installation (VisionPro?) do - even though the thermostats and screens look 100% identical.

This was my main interest in getting the thermostat, so I'm biased - it does look nice and seems to be well-designed. But having a two story house, I found we have a big difference in temp between upstairs and downstairs, so running the fan periodically makes a big difference in how comfortable the house is. I found a thermostat from Lux that does this, is 7 days programmable, and is about 40% of the price. It doesn't have the nice touch screen interface though.

I installed this advanced Honeywell thermometer in my apartment about three weeks ago. The written instructions were clear and easy to follow. Honeywell also includes an instructional video on how to install this thermostat, but since my powerbook doesn't accept mini-CDs I couldn't watch it.

After removing my old thermometer, installation was a simple chore of attaching the new thermometer to the wall and attaching wires. This thermometer has two great features I'll mention:

(1) A seven day programmable week, with four different timezones for each day. Do you leave the house at a different time on Monday and Wednesday for that early morning yoga class? Well, you can drop the temperature down to 55 degrees a full hour early and feel good about saving energy.

(2) A large, easy to read backlit LCD display. Tapping the panel once activates a warm green glow when you just want to check on the settings without turning on the lights and waking the dog.

One feature that this thermostat lacks (and I'm not sure that I've seen any residential thermostat feature) is a way to lock the temperature settings, so that your pesky guests don't decide that 85 degrees is a much better temperature than 68.

Overall, a happy upgrade for your old, mercury based thermostat.

The top of the line for this type of thermosat. We have owned 5 and they have all worked perfectly. The numbers are easy to read (without reading glasses) and the programming is intuitive. Easy to install and well made.

We installed this about a month ago. It was very easy to install and set up. The touch controls are intuitive, so you don't have to drag out the book every time you want to reset it. It holds the heat at a very constant temperature, so the room temp doesn't go hot and cold like our old thermostat. I like that, if you overide the current setting which is very easy to do, it automatically goes back at the next schedule change. You don't have to remember to put it back on its schedule. I'd recommend it to someone else now while ours is new.

I haven't completely gone through the manual yet, but the item installed the first try quite easily, despite my setup being one of the more unusual ones, with both the heating and cooling being listed in the exceptions part of the wiring diagrams. It works well and has an intuitive enough interface that I have just set it up and left it going. Already saving me time and money over my old thermostat. Nice unit.

The thermostat installed in less than five minutes. Just remember to use the little color code stickers (my yellow wire was actually blue). I had already programmed the thermostat while sitting down - it does not need to be on the wall to program, and the actual deed took about 1 minute. Snapped in place, turned the power back on, waited for the low voltage timer on my air unit to kick in and all done. Cool air flowing in less than 10 minutes.

Installation was difficult because the holes that you are supposed to put wires into are small and do not face out toward you (their axes are parallel to the wall). Also, it does not track useage which my old thermostat did.

Positives: 1) Controls to a small temperature range which is much better than my previous (I was always cold or hot); 2) Intuitive interface.

I moved into a house that had one of these already installed. It worked fine for 2 years then the right half of the touchscreen stopped working. A bit pricey for such a short life.

I installed it today for a heatpump unit, replacing a Hunter programmable that would turn on the aux. strips for no reason almost every time. The install and programming was very easy, took me a little less than one hour and that was being overly cautious. Now the heat pump runs without pulling in the strips and it is 25'F outside. It is keeping the temp within 1'F. I am one of those people who like the best - latest and greatest of everything, and I like this thermostat.

I purchased this thermostat when I had a new gas furnace/central air unit installed in my house this past December. Very easy thermostat to install and program. The instructions were clear and well written. I found the CD that came with the product particularly helpful.

Oddly enough, the only feature this thermostat lacks that most others have is a system/energy usage monitor. In other thermostats a timer in the unit records the amount of time the system runs for the current day, previous day, and keeps a cumulative total until you reset it. I found this very useful when trying to see how temperature settings or weather conditions would impact the amount of time my A/C or heat runs. In my opinion this is a very important feature and a surprising omission by Honeywell. Had I known it was missing I would've opted to buy a different unit.

Otherwise, you can't go wrong with this thermostat.