The best smart thermostats you can buy
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A smart thermostat can save you money and allow for easy temperature control straight from your smartphone whether you're at home or miles away. The Nest Learning Thermostat is the best smart thermostat you can buy, thanks to its super easy setup, energy savings, and excellent learning capabilities.
The humble thermostat has come a long way over the past few years. While the thermostat, in general, remained largely unchanged for years, that all shifted when Nest launched the original Nest learning thermostat. Now, there are plenty of smart thermostats out there, and many of them are great options.
There are a ton of reasons to buy a smart thermostat. For starters, they learn your routine, which basically means that you won’t have to worry about adjusting them and scheduling temperature changes quite as much. Smart thermostats will also save you money because they can adapt to your schedule and switch off when they’re not needed. These high-tech thermostats basically ensure that you don’t waste money by accidentally leaving your heater or air conditioning on all day.
So what should you consider when buying a smart learning thermostat? You’ll want to think about compatibility, because not all smart thermostats will work with your home's heating and cooling system, and there’s no point in buying one that won’t work. Some, for example, require a “C,” or Common wire, while others can draw enough power without it.
Next up, you’ll want to think about the rest of your home, especially if you’re building a smart home. You’ll want a thermostat that works well with other smart home devices. For example, Nest works pretty well with Google Home, and will also integrate with things like the Philips Hue range of lights. Other smart thermostats work best with Apple's HomeKit or Samsung's Smart Things, and so on. You’ll want to think about the phone you use, too, because these thermostats connect with an app on your smartphone for remote controls and programming.
We've researched and tested the best smart thermostats you can buy to come up with our picks. Read on to see which of these smart thermostats is best for your needs. You can also check out our favorite regular thermostats here.
Although the Nest Learning Thermostat is our top pick, for various reasons laid out in the slides below, you should also consider the Honeywell Lyric Round, the Ecobee 4, the Nest Thermostat E, and the GoControl.
The best smart thermostat overall
Why you'll love it: The Nest Learning Thermostat is extremely easy to use, super powerful, energy efficient, and beautifully designed.
The Nest Learning Thermostat may be among the first smart thermostats to launch, but it’s now on its third-generation and it's still the best. Not only is Nest beautifully designed, it’s also extremely easy to install and use, plus, it works a charm.
Let’s start with the beautiful, simple design. The thermostat features a sleek metallic ring around the screen, which is used to control the super user-friendly interface. All you have to do is rotate that ring to navigate through different options or select a temperature, then press on it to make that selection. In our tests, it was the easiest thermostat to use by far.
It works with most 24V heating and cooling systems and can function with three-stage heating, two-stage cooling, and three-speed fans. The thermostat has 10 temperature sensors inside and another sensor for humidity.
One of the best things about Nest is its compatibility with a huge range of other products, including other Nest products like its carbon monoxide detectors, security cameras, and so on. It’ll also work with a big range of third-party devices. It's extremely fun to control your thermostat with your voice if you have a Google Home smart speaker or Amazon's Echo.
Nest has some cool sensors built into its thermostat. For example, it’ll switch the display on if it detects motion nearby, and it can display the current temperature or the time, depending on what you choose. It’s a small touch, but still a very nice one.
The app is also pretty easy to use. You’ll be able to pair the thermostat with it relatively quickly, and then you can control the temperature and set schedules straight from your phone.
Of course, while we love Nest's thermostat, it’s not perfect. We would have loved it if Nest offered support for external temperature sensors, and it is a little pricey. Still, rumors suggest external sensor-support is on its way, and it’s important to keep in mind just how much it will save you in the long run when thinking about the price.
Nest has gotten largely great reviews. TechHive gave it 4/5, while PCMag went one better by giving it a hefty 4.5/5.
Pros: Easy to use, voice support, compatible with many smart home systems, big energy savings, nice design, automatic heating and cooling, remote control with the app
Cons: Kind of expensive, no external sensor support
Buy the Nest Learning Thermostat on Amazon for $248.85 and up
The best smart thermostat for Apple's HomeKit
Why you'll love it: The Honeywell Lyric Round thermostat is well-designed and easy to use, but the best thing about it is that it works well with Apple’s HomeKit.
HomeKit, Apple’s smart home control system, lacks a notable partner – Nest. Because of that, you’ll have to turn elsewhere to find a good HomeKit-enabled thermostat, and we think the Honeywell Lyric Round is the best one.
The Lyric Round has a similar shape to the Nest and can be controlled using the ring outside the device, though it also has a few capacitive buttons on its face. The device is pretty well-designed, too. While it doesn’t offer the same beautiful display as Nest, it’s nice to look at in its own way and it will blend in with your home easily.
Another great thing about the Honeywell Lyric Round is that it’s relatively quick at learning. For the first few days, it will learn your routines, but after that, it’s easy to forget that it’s even there, according to our tests.
While the Lyric Round works with most heating, cooling, and heat pump systems, it does not work with electric baseboard heat (120-240V). It can use 24 VAC power from a "C" wire, but it's not required.
Like everything, the Honeywell Lyric Round isn’t perfect. For starters, its geofencing feature, which is aimed at automatically adjusting when it detects that you’re in the area, rarely worked as it was supposed to, and the setup process was a little cumbersome and required multiple attempts. Still, once you set it up, the thermostat was more than capable, and it worked excellently with Apple’s HomeKit.
CNET gave it three stars back in 2016, and TechHive went one better with a 3.5-star rating.
Pros: Well-designed, nice app, learns relatively quickly
Cons: Difficult setup, some features unreliable
Buy the Honeywell Lyric Round on Amazon for $198 (originally $249.00)
The best smart thermostat with Alexa voice control
Why you'll love it: The Ecobee 4 is well-designed, easy-to-use, and powered by Amazon’s Alexa, making it the first thermostat with a digital assistant built right in.
Nest has a lot to offer, but some people swear by Ecobee instead. The Ecobee thermostat is currently on its fourth generation, and it’s a beautifully-designed, fully-functional device. In fact, it even has Amazon's Alexa voice assistant built right into it.
The Ecobee 4 has a responsive touchscreen with both a thermometer and a proximity sensor. You can control the temperature with your voice, thanks to Alexa. It also supports the likes of HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings, and scores of smart home products. Not only that, but its design is stunning, so it’ll fit right at home among other premium appliances.
One downside to the Ecobee 4 is that it requires a C-wire to operate, but if you don’t have one, you may still be able to use the thermostat with the included “Power Extender Kit.” Ecobee works with conventional heating and cooling systems (2H/2C) as well as with heat pumps (4H/2C) including two-stage auxiliary heat, gas, oil, electric, and dual fuel systems.
The thermostat is pretty expensive, especially if you don’t really care about the Alexa feature, but for those that do, it will be well worth it. It’s also compatible with HomeKit, which is an important feature for many Apple users.
The Ecobee 4 has been highly-reviewed by a ton of outlets. CNET scored it 4.5/5 and called it the “thermostat to beat,” while Tom’s Guide gave it an equal 9/10.
Pros: Beautiful design, Amazon Alexa built-in, HomeKit-compatible, easy to use
Cons: Requires C-wire, expensive
Buy the Ecobee 4 on Amazon for $249
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