Smart Thermostat with Alexa

So happy with this smart thermostat. I just bought a house in NC and I have never done any electrical work but this was easy to install thanks to the very clear step by step instructions provided by the app. I will say it took us a bit more than 15 minutes, but it's so worth it. Because we both work during the day, setting up a smart schedule makes so much sense to us. We had this for 3 months and it literally already paid for itself. The app is extremely easy to use. I made a lot of research work and I don't believe anything fancier (like Nest) would really save me more money than this. I can't wait to replace my other thermostat downstairs which has zero features (just a number for temperature reading).I will point out to few helpful things:- Installation was easy enough but fitting the cables in the slots requires patience. Don't get frustrated and don't wait until your house gets really hot to do this. You will be sweating over the box trying to fit these tiny wires in.- My thermostat is upstair and my router (it's a modern router I bought of , not the junk the internet company rents you) is downstairs pretty far away. Connectivity works great and the thermostat is always connected. But note I had a C-wire so the batteries are just back-up power for me and I assume this helps.- Finally, I had trouble connecting the thermostat from the app, when i realized that you have to be connected to the 2.4GHz wifi network in order for it to work. My router is a modern “dual band” router so it uses both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi (we have two different wifi networks). I usually only use the 5GHz network because it is faster, but I just had to connect my phone to the 2.4 GHz network (called "guest" in my house) in order to pair the app with the thermostat. Scary 10 minutes where I thought that after all my efforts the thermostat was not compatible or too far away from the router.

So far so good. Does everything I need. Installed very easily. Holes lined up, hooked up the wires and no c wire needed. Can't speak to battery life yet, but even if they have to be replaced monthly I will still be happy. It was easy to hook to my network and the temperature adjustments allowed me to get it set to match our old thermostat perfectly. No adjustment period of thinking 70 feels colder or warmer than it used to. It also has adjustable temperature swing for cool and heat, 3 choices for each. You can also set a goal for humidity in the Summer and it will force your AC to stay on a little longer even if the temp is satisfied to clear out extra humidity. Also a great feature.My favorite feature is the apps ability to turn the fan in auto, but select a percent of every hour the fan will be forced to run. This is great for me since my fresh air ERV is hooked up to cycle with my furnace fan. You can select from 10% to 90% of an hour to control or limit how often the fan cycles thus balancing energy use with the amount of fresh air. This feature is great!Hope it lasts a long time, and I will be glad I finally found one that had wifi without a c wire or external adapter.

My HVAC Details: Natural Gas Furnace/Forced Hot Air + Centeral A/C with NO C-WireI have a rental so I wasn't about to run a new wire from my furnace to the thermostat. I really wanted to replace the $20 Honeywell thermostat which I had proven was very inaccurate at reading the temperature. I decided to get a WiFi enabled thermostat for a couple reasons.1) After getting a Google Home, I've been making a movement toward home automation and voice activated controls.2) My gas company offered a $100 rebate toward a WiFi enabled thermostat so I paid almost nothing for it.Super easy installation.1) Throw breakers for Furnace/AC2) Unscrew wire terminals and pull wires from old thermostat plate3) Remove plate (pay attention to which wire colors go to which designations) and mount new plate4) Re-insert wires into same color designations as old thermostat.5) Plug new Thermostat onto new plate.6) Download Sensi app.7) Turn breakers back on8) Open app and follow the short instructions.Done! The thermostat looks slick (crisp display, pics don't do it justice) and the app looks nice too. I haven't interfaced it to my Google Home using the Wink app yet.So far, I'm very satisfied.

This is how it all begins. The end of man. Alexa took over my house. It’s started on Black Friday 2019. offered a deal that couldn’t be beat. Once I had SkyNet I mean Alexa hooked up and running it began. I got lazy, really lazy and I loved it. I was hooked. I ordered six more echos. I ordered smart light bulbs and Smart light switches, smart thermostat and smart plugs and Ring cams. It won’t end. Now Alexa is everywhere. Listening. Judging me. Watching. Probably waiting for the right time to strike a blow in America’s heartland. It’s a slow process. But Alexa is patient. I’m so lazy now I don’t get up to turn the light off or change my thermostat. I can even see who’s at the door from my couch. I’m gaining weight slowly. And in a few decades I’ll die, probably of heart disease. The calories I burned moving around and now being stored. My LDL is out of whack. All because I bought an Alexa enabled device On Black Friday 2019. I can hear my arteries clogging as we speak. In the end I was weak. I let the machines win.

First off I had a 4-wire thermostat that was on my system with 3 postion switch... heat off cool.. No emergency heat...it's a air conditioner with an electric heater (not heat pump heater) all in one Goodman unit .....there was a yellow wire. a green wire ..... white wire and a red wire....and a jumper wire between RC and Rh that's all... I had no C wire and this absolutely 100% works on my system with no C wire the batteries keep the screen lit .......the wifi everything hooks up fine.....So 5 stars for the thermostat pretty easy to setup.. Need to start a account with sensiFree no big deal.. App works great..Now for me the downside is it doesn't work well with Alexa it doesn't do the basic commands you can go to heat and you can go up and down on the temperature. Couldn't get it to actually turn the AC on or turn the unit off.....The Sensi app works fine up down temperature everything works great heat ac automatic... just doesn't work all that that smooth with Alexa. Over all .... So if just a good easy wifi thermostat I would highly recommend this.......Updated update update update 1/28/18wife figured it out... works great 10 starsYou have to say exactlyAlexa set thermostat setting to coolAlexa set thermostat setting to heatAlexa set thermostat setting to offAlexa set to what ever degree you want