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Is your energy bill outrageously high? Are you taking things to the extreme and not turning your air conditioning on when it’s 102°F outside so you can save a few pennies? WiFi thermostats allow you to be comfortable in your home and let you conserve energy while you’re away at work.
What Is the Average Residential Monthly Electric Bill?
In 2015, the average monthly home electric bill was $114.03. If you purchase a WiFi thermostat that saves about 20% of your energy, your monthly bill will drop to about $91.22/month. That’s a savings of around $274 a year.
So, it’s easy to do the math and see that using a smart thermostat pays for itself in just one year’s use. I know $274 doesn’t sound like a ton of money, but over the course of a few years, you’ve saved $1,000. That’s $1,000 you didn’t expect to have, and you can use it on something fun instead of your bills.
Why Use A Smart Thermostat?
Did you know 44% of your energy bill is from your heating and air conditioning?1 And most of that energy is wasted because your home is empty half the day. WiFi thermostats learn your schedule, so temperatures are adjusted throughout your home during the day to conserve energy when you aren’t home.
Also, many cities across the country offer rebates for installing a smart thermostat so that can help offset the initial upfront cost to purchase the equipment, not to mention all the additional money you’ll save in the long run. Check with your local energy or utility company to find out if you qualify.
Find out which one of these cool temperature controlling gadgets will work best for your home in our Best WiFi Thermostat Reviews.
Nest Learning Thermostat Review
Unlike other smart thermostats, the Nest 3rd generation asks you to turn the temperature up and down as you wish and it does the rest. Nest boasts about its ability to continuously learn about your heating and cooling habits. After a week or two of use, the Nest thermostat will remember your habits and begin to make temperature adjustments automatically. You can also make changes from the Nest app, so if you forget to make a change before you leave home, you can adjust it on the go.
The Nest Thermostat E is available for and has a cool new look with a frosted display to help it blend in to any background. However, it does not have a high-res color display or the ability to show you the time, temperature or weather from a distance.
They also have a lower priced Nest E which comes in white but with less features (no ability to show outside temperature and weather and not as compatible with all systems).
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Price and Tech Specs
- Price:
$204.98
- 2.8″ diameter
- 480×480 pixel display
- Ring dial available in stainless steel, copper, black or white
- 2-year warranty
Read our in-depth Nest Thermostat Review
Ecobee Review
The ecobee4 has a motion sensor to detect when you’re home and know when to keep a room at a certain temperature. You can program your schedule into the thermostat, so you conserve energy when you aren’t home.
The ecobee4 includes a remote sensor to be placed in another room to help keep the temperature even throughout the house. You can purchase additional remote sensors for $79 for a two-pack.
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Price and Tech Specs
- Price:
$225.50
- 3.5″ LCD color touchscreen
- 320×480 pixel display
- 3-year warranty
First Alert Onelink Review
The First Alert Onelink WiFi thermostat isn’t as pleasing to the eye as some of its competitors at first glance, but you can turn the display screen into a digital picture frame. It features a touchscreen to adjust the temperature and program your schedule.
You even have the ability to send text messages to the thermostat, although we’re not sure why you’d need or want to. Maybe you can tell us in the comments below.
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Price and Tech Specs
- Price:
$185.29
- Color, touchscreen
Honeywell Lyric T5 Review
The Honeywell Lyric T5 WiFi thermostat is pleasing to the eye, but unfortunately, many consumers have found lots of frustration with it. Users complain of geofencing issues (more on geofencing below) and major app issues.
The Lyric claims to have unique features like Fine Tune to adjust your home’s humidity level, but the execution isn’t living up to the marketing just yet. Perhaps Honeywell will update the device and software, but for now, we’d recommend another thermostat.
Pros | Cons |
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Price and Tech Specs
- Price:
$132.55
- 4″ x 4″ glass face
- Touchscreen
- 2-year warranty
Hive Smart Thermostat
The Hive Smart Thermostat works like the other smart heating and cooling systems, but is compatible with the Hive family of products including smart light bulbs, home alarm system and more. You can set up to six daily schedules, create actions (such as “when it’s dark outside, make the house 77 degrees), use quick heat or cool mode, use geolocation to automatically adjust when you are away and more. The only downside is this is only compatible with other Hive products and requires a smart hub to connect to the network.
Pros | Cons |
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Price and Tech Specs
- Price:
$217.75
- 10.2 x 3.2 x 5.5 inches
- Touchscreen
- Manufacturer’s warranty available
What Is Geofencing?
Geofencing is a feature that uses GPS from your smartphone to define geographical boundaries. When you’re heading home, and you reach your pre-set geofence (say, 10 miles away), your settings will adjust to what you want them to be once you arrive home. The same occurs when you exit the boundaries (the settings will go to a more energy-efficient mode).
Learn more about Lyric’s Geofencing feature to understand how to use it.
Other Ways To Automate Your Home
Why stop at just saving money with your energy bill? Using a smart home hub you can automate other aspects of your home and make sure you’re optimizing energy usage. Another simple way to reduce your energy bill is to use efficient lighting systems using smart light bulbs.
Why are you considering buying a WiFi thermostat?
Source: [1] U.S. Department of Energy
We bought an Ecobee3 for the new house and couldn’t be happier with it. The thermostat in this house was also installed in the dining room, but the dining room was more open so the temperature there is more reflective of the rest of the house. However, it still only gets the temperature downstairs to a comfortable level. We put the remote sensor in our master bedroom upstairs and it has made a huge difference. Now, we set the thermostat to use only the temperature in our bedroom when we are getting up in the morning or getting ready for bed at night. That way we are always comfortable at those times, instead of having to fiddle with the thermostat, like we had to with the nest. If we add more sensors, and you can have up to 32 of them, we can set it to use autodetect to base the temperature on the rooms that are or have recently been occupied. This is a real benefit that no other thermostat that I am aware of can do.
We don’t miss the auto adjustment of the schedule at all. We just set up several “comfort settings” for the Ecobee and put in a schedule that is consistent with our work and sleep schedule and there is no need to change it. Overall, we have found that the benefits of having remote sensors far outweighs any of the benefits of the Nest’s learning ability.