Hi! I am running Umbrel on a Raspberry Pi 4 and I have “Home Assistant” installed in it, I oly have some smart lights connected to it. I would like to integrate a Thermostat with HA. But I am a bit overwhelmed with the different types of connections (Z-wave, Zigbee, Wifi, …)
Do you guys have any kind of recommendation, what connection is better? I would like to keep it local (or connecting remotely via Tailscale) but I would like to avoid any cloud or third-party server solution.
What thermostat hardware can I buy?
https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-Home-TH6320ZW2007-Programmable-Touchscreen/dp/B0BHTQF8NL
That is the one you want. Honeywell t6 pro Z-Wave version, specifically that link which is the newer Smart start version.
Z-Wave is 100% local, not Wi-Fi, and secure.
I use these in my house and couldn’t be happier.
I like this one but I’m not sure why a $5 microcontroller, 4-5 relays and a screen costs so much. And it’s not even a great screen. I kinda like it to be more of a full color LCD screen. Just my opinion.
Welcome to the world of electronic gadgets. You’re right there’s nowhere near $100 worth of hardware in this thing. I’d also love a color touchscreen. But I’d rather a color touchscreen that I could integrate in HA than one running some proprietary cloud connected ThermostatOS.
You could do that yourself- put an old tablet on the wall, run power to it, then get something like a zooz zen16 multi-relay or an ESPHome relay board to drive the hvac. Then the thermostat becomes a totally software defined virtual thing in Home Assistant that pulls data from a temp sensor in the room and controls the HVAC as appropriate.
The house I bought had one of these installed already. Works great with the homeassistant ZWA-2 antenna.
Another vote for this option. I’ve had mine for three years and it’s been rock solid. I’m not using the built in schedule, I’m controlling everything through HA
And another vote for it. It’s been great. The only thing I miss is it doesn’t have multi-speed support but most setups don’t have multi-speed motors anyway.