CyberStat CY1201WF Programmable Thermostat

For the price, I don't think it can be beat. Simple and effective. I've had mine for a couple weeks now. The Web App works great for me. I can even access it in 1X low coverage areas from my smartphone with wouldn't be likely with some fancy app. The web based programming is intuitive. It was easiest to program on a PC, but I did try it from my ipad and iphone. My ipad was easily able to program the unit from the web. My fingers were just too fat to do it easily from my phone. The graphic programming interface looks like an appointment calendar for a 7 day week. Programming is simple: choose a day and drag left or right for time of day and up or down for temperature. My phone works perfectly for manual manipulation of the thermostat, but the programming is just too crammed in on the tiny screen.If this thermostat had IFTTT support it would be a Nest Killer. Seriously, if Belkin (WEMO) had any sense, they would snap up this product and/or its manufacturer and add a truly great product to its current product line. Some web research shows one person has written his own android app to work with or on top of the web app. There is some more advanced programming that can be done such as sensitivity and setting how many degrees off the target before the unit kicks the HVAC unit on as well as calibrating the temperature to be exact. One of my units was off by about 1 degree according to the thermometer I used to calibrate all 3 units I purchased. This programming is done on the web app by hitting the edit button next to the unit.I am not an expert after a couple weeks, but there are a couple of weird things it seems to do around the time that the program is changing. As the program is changing, the LED numbers will sometimes go to 00. Occasionally, it seems to go completely "offline." All of the lights go out, touching a button doesn't seem to effect it, but if I connect to the Web App, it finds my thermostat and confirms everything is as expected. After a short period of time the lights come back on. I think this is just part of the way it works. Actual functionality seems correct during this time period.I have another house about 12 hours away with two HVAC units and I worry about freezing pipes and mold. I've bought 2 more of these to and installed them and I'll never wonder about if its too hot or too cold there again! One of the units took about an hour before it was reporting inside temp on the web app. It was working fine at the unit itself and was able to be programmed from the web app. It has been working flawlessly after about an hour when it started reporting. Don't panic if it doesn't report temperature immediately to the web app, give it time to report.Thank you Motison for an excellent product at an excellent price point.EDIT: My parents were so impressed when they came to visit the lake house that they said they were going to order one when they got home... Little do they know I've used prime shipping and one will be there when they get home tomorrow!

This is my second CyberStat, one for each zone. The original goal was to simplify and automate the constant "heat" to "cool" and back to "heat" switching around spring and autumn, which this unit does. The basic programming on the web-app for CyberStat does that with the "Auto" setting.I had to upgrade my 4 wire HVAC cable. It is not for the average DIY'er. This step is less about this particular unit, as you know, but the fact that you are hanging a modern piece of electronics on your wall, and it needs power - the standard 24v. The good news, you don't have to run new wires. Some witty engineer came up with an alternative: Venstar Add-a-wire. I followed this guide for both of my furnaces: http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/58121/adding-venstar-add-a-wire-to-hvac The instructions are very simple, however, if you add the different configurations and permutations of HVAC systems in existence, this is where the complexity will creep up. The unit costs roughly $30. The benefit is, once installed, any modern thermostat requiring outside power can be used.Setting up CY1201WF was not without a hitch. It "bricked" itself during a firmware upgrade. An email to cust. service revealed a reset step: while pressing "UP" arrow + connect to power. That fixed the issue right away, lights came on, followed by countdown sequence as mentioned in the manual. The info to reset the unit is not mentioned anywhere that I could find. Now it is here for posterity.The wifi setup is pretty clever. Similar sequence is used in other "IOT" devices and it works like this. When you first connect the thermostat to power, it acts as a wireless access point. You change your phone/computer/tablet to get on thermostat's internal wifi network. Then you configure the unit and tell it about your house wifi. The wizard is there to guide you without you having to know, remember or read the manual. (But you first need to get on the thermostat's wifi). Once configured, that internal wifi SSID goes away. You will have to do some sort of hard reset to start over if you made any mistakes.There is one thing I don't like about the UI on the website. The scheduling interface is just clunky and needs a redesign. I have not seen a good example as an alternative to recommend, but if I was to design it, I would make a single view with continuous, scrollable timeline of Monday - Sunday. It is not very natural to jump between days and set a temperature before midnight and after midnight. One overrides the other in current UI. Makes sense logically but not very intuitive.