I’m a big Nest fan had it on my old house the problem that I have with them it’s the cost, and even with gas company great rebate didn’t justify the cost especially with my new home having a total of 5 thermostats (t-stat). I was excited when I found that Amazon partner with Honeywell to get this t-stat created as Honeywell has been creating t-stat for years which make me feel better when making the purchase. ---COST--- Now let go over the details for cost it’s good and I got two of them which at the end of the day will be free due to the electric company rebate for a smart t-stat. I didn’t get a C- adapter and I will explain later (INSTALL session) why I purchase a 24-volt transformer for my first-floor unit. ---INSTALL--- Love the package it reminds me of the NEST when it first starts came with everything that you needed the only additional tools, I need was a harmer, and drill but this is normal for these installations. Now the biggest question that everyone has is the C (common) wire. This is where you need to do your research regardless of what company you go with when upgrading to a smart thermostat, due your homework on what you need. For me I have a spill unit (boiler & A/C) first for my second-floor unit it was super easy I had an extra wire and I use it for Common the t-stat startup and finish within 30 min. Now for my first floor I utilize a 24-volt transformer because I didn’t have spare cables and I didn’t want to run a new cable which drove me to make the purchase again do your homework before and see what option best works for your use case. I connected the transformer to the C wire and the other end to Rc and that works like a champ. This is critical if you have a split unit since Honeywell power their t-stat via Rc only when you have two RED Wire (R (heater) and Rc(cooling)) and the blue tab (internal jumper is down position. If you only have one RED Wire you are fine just keep the blue tab up and your t-stat will turn on without any problems. I did reach out to Honeywell and explain to them they need to explain this on their site and white papers that when you have split units’ power for the t-stat will come from Rc and not from R this is critical because my house previous owner installed a switch to keep the A/C unit down through the winter to avoid accident turning on the unit which is great idea. Please keep in mind this is NOT an Amazon problem that is Honeywell they did acknowledge their mistake and agree to update their site and documentation. Running my transformer cable and installing the unit took me about 60 minutes because I wanted to look perfect with the transformer cable going through the wall this make the installation look cleaner. ----SETUP---- Once all wire were connected the setup of the t-stat was simply and when I say simple it was super didn’t have input the WiFi password or anything else since it automatic joined my account that was amazing and simply just like setting a fire table that was a great experience. Amazon did an amazing job doing this some users this my not be as good, but I look automation the less click I must do the less chances of mistake A+ ---LOOK--- The t-stat looks great after the final install the wall panel (included but optional for install) made it easier for me since I didn’t have to paint (if you had a different color paint I would recommend adjusting before completing the install but that is just me) ---Interface (GUI)---- For me the GUI is great for some it my but I’m one of those people that like to have one application on my phone or tablet rather than 2 and this is where Amazon did another amazing job. Please keep in mind that Google who purchase NEST is doing the same thing I see the NEST application going away in the future all new NEST is configure from Google Home and they also did a great job The GUI it’s simple and allows you to setup multiple schedules and copy them to different days or week. Huge plus on my book because for the NEST I had to do manually per day I can setup one day and copy to another. You can setup away and home schedule or utilize your current Amazon device to tell the t-stat that you are home or away. Another item that I love from the Amazon you can setup MAX cooling or heating this allows for mistake not to happen and getting your house too hot or cool really go option to have and you can set filter replacements without your assistance (optional) for me this is great no more remembering air filter as they will show up at my footsteps. Energy saving incentives can also be done via the application. The dashboard its great too it tells you how much energy you utilize each day and where you can save. Now the only downside for that I experience is only scheduling session on Android because it forces close my Alexa application all the time, I don’t have this problem with anything else on the application just the scheduling session. This option works perfect on my wife new iPhone and iPad pro and new Android phone. My old Android is the one with this problem, but I experience this kind of thing on and off since it’s an older device. -------Final judgment ---- The device is good option for a smart t-stat and would recommend for anyone some of the problems that were reported it was on day one which is expected with any new launch overall I see this t-stat giving Google (NEST) and others a run for their money as now you have a great option for smart t-stat and you don’t require to break your budget to acquire one. In addition, love the one application for everything as previously mentioned all big companies are doing this model to stop the install of some many other applications. In a scale from 0 -10 this t-stat gets a 9 please note that the NEST 3rd gen got a 9 from me. Hope this helps everyone make the correct decision and I will update this review in a few weeks to report back.

So far, so good! Replaced a bare-bones thermostat that came with our new house. The old thermostat required me to manually switch from heat to cool and was a PITA to program. Also, the LCD screen was hard to read. This new Amazon thermostat is sleek, the faceplate is easy to read, and installation and programming was a snap. We like that you can set the fan to circulate, which we couldn't do with the old thermostat. The Alexa app walks you through the installation, and setup was accomplished in very easy to understand steps. A third-grader could do it. Easy-peezy. I first turned off the power to the furnace. After I detached and removed the old thermostat, I pulled the wire harness out of the wall, including the unused blue "C-wire". At my furnace, I found the other end of the unused blue "C-wire". I stripped and attached this end to the "C" screw terminal in my furnace. BTW, there was already a white wire attached to the "C" screw terminal in the furnace, but my research suggested that was normal, it was just a 24V supply terminal that could support multiple lines. So I attached the blue wire to the same "C" screw terminal as the white wire was attached to. I then replaced the furnace panel. I returned upstairs to the thermostat and stripped and attached the other end of the blue wire to the thermostat receptacle, along with the other orange, green, red, etc. wires that were already there. Plugged in the thermostat, turned the power back on, and viola! the thermostat booted up. After accessing the programming functions in Alexa, we were good to go. We've been very happy with this thermostat. BTW, don't listen to the negative reviews. These are either coming from trolls or from people who don't know how to use a screwdriver. Like I said, a third-grader could do it, if not a 5-year-old.

UPDATE: It works great after constant tweaking and the support team proactively reach out. Have an HVAC and Electrian professional on hand. It looks nice, works with Alexa, controls seem simple... But I've had issues every month with it. I've seeny HVAC service team 2x each month since installing in JULY. Constantly uses Auxillary Heat to warm even though it's not yet 59 degrees outside and less than a 3-degree desired change. My system is one of the best and should last for another ten years but this thermostat is the worst. I'm unsure that Amazon will take it back, but I am going to need to replace it.... The heat blows cool air at times and then struggles to warm the house. My old thermostat was much better than this and consistent. And I never had cool air blowing on me at night when I needed heat. Just disappointed. I will also the interface is simple but not easy enough. I had a Nest in an apartment before and it worked great. Think I may go get a Nest for home even though I am mostly Alexa... I'm very annoyed I wasted my money and this is a subpar device.

Latest Edit #3 (upgrade to 3 stars): just FYI… Amazon customer service will contact you if you leave a bad review. lol I didn’t have time to spend with them on the phone, but I kept fiddling with these thermostats until I finally have a reasonable setting. The interface in the Alexa App is somewhat confusing. Imagine that! There are two different “auto” modes. One is a scheduled mode for temp ranges pre-set in 3 categories of home, away, and sleep. That’s your only choices. You must preset the preferred temp ranges and make a control schedule and set it to auto. This differs from the auto control choice which uses hunches to automatically change thermostat to the preferred temp ranges set for home, away, and sleep. If you choose the hunches option, it will not work correctly unless everyone in the house connects their smart phone to the thermostat so Alexa can “track you in the background” (bad idea) to determine through hunches whether anyone is at home or everyone is sleeping. That just does not work for me. Thankfully, I don’t feel like I completely wasted my money, but these thermostats only get 3 stars because: 1) the Alexa app (always trouble to find/control anything) is particularly cumbersome for these devices and confusing to navigate. 2) the inability to set a true time schedule at a specific temperature which can hold automatically. 3) no option to create a custom temp range other than the 3 offered. PROS: the thermostats are streamlined and look nice and are reasonably easy to install if you have basic electrical knowledge. If you don’t, you’ll probably need assistance from a professional. The auto switch between heat and AC to keep the temp range is nice. You can control it well from your phone with the Alexa app. Having their own app which is easier to navigate might be helpful. Controlling the thermostats by voice through the dot or echo (as with all things) is hit and miss. Edit #2 - After fiddling with these things a bit more, I came back and reduced this review from 2 starts to 1 star. Awful! Can’t get rid of the darn “hunches” setting even after turning it off. Argh! The auto range to set temps whether in the Auto setting or with a schedule does not allow for heat and cool temp to be set close enough together. You’re constantly either on too high of a setting for cool or too low of a setting for heat. You never have a truly comfortable setting. 1st review: You are stuck using temperature ranges for Home, Away, or Sleep functions without the ability to SET a specific temp at a certain time. The old thermostats I had where I had to manually go through and set a schedule at least kept my house reasonably comfortable. With these so-called smart thermostats we are either too hot or too cold because the temperature ranges will not allow us to set it where it’s comfortable. In the end, this thermostat is not really that smart and makes me feel dumb for buying not one, but two, of these things. I will probably just end up reinstalling my old ones again. Ugh! What a waste of money because I can’t send them back since I’ve been trying to learn to use them, and my return window has closed.

As someone that has Alexa devices everywhere. I was happy to buy this thermostat so I could control the temperature from my phone. It works great. Middle of the night and you are too cold or hot you just grab the phone and change the temp. Setup was pretty easy but I have installed a few thermostats before. Initially the AC was blowing got and heat blowing cold. I found out there is a heat pump setting that you can toggle off this happens to you. I toggled it and all was good. Took a bit of time to figure that out. A feature that I discovered that is so awesome is a fan setting called circulate.. if it is an extra humid day, but sorta cool so you don't want to be cold running AC you pick circulate. Whether the AC kicks on or not, it still periodically rubs the fan to reduce the humidity. A+ to the engineer that thought this up. Must have lived in the humid part of the south. 😉

I bought 2 of these thermostats. First, the QR code does not work. DTE, who is supposedly in partnership with Amazon on this thermostat, would not install it. I've had a profession HVAC contractor out for 3 hours and he couldn't figure it out. I couldn't just connect it with Alexa. I had to get the Honeywell App. But which one ? There are over 10 Honeywell Apps. I finally figured out that the App is called RESIDIO, and not Honeywell. The company gave me a new login name. However, Microsoft doesn't recognize that assigned login name, so I cannot log in. I got into the Residio App, and it gives me a choice of 5 different thermostats to install. No clue which one I'm supposed to choose. It is so complicated that even DTE in partnership with Amazon, refused to install it. And a private contractor couldn't get it to work either. Don't waste your money like I did, buying it twice, as I was told I needed the C wire adaptor which is not sold by itself, so I had to buy another Thermostat with the C-wire adaptor. However, it doesn't work !!

I’ve been holding off on buying this thermostat for quite some time based on reviews and even considered other pricier brands for the same reason but I finally decided to give it a try because I’m sick of having to go over to the thermostat and manually adjust it (first world problem right?) I am so pleased with my decision that immediately after installing it, I bought a second on for upstairs. Installation was easy and took about 15-20 minutes to install and set up in the app. The unit mounts with 3 screws and anchors, a small screwdriver tool and an optional wall plate. A word of advice - use a better screwdriver because the included tool isn’t great. You’ll also need a drill with a 3/8” bit to assist with the wall anchors. Some of the reviews I read mentioned that people had trouble with the app recognizing two thermostats, that was not the case at all with me. It was extremely easy to differentiate in the app and just as easy to control each one. Another review that made me worry about buying this thermostat was that you couldn’t simply tell your Alexa device to adjust the temperature, and that you had to open the app to make adjustments. This problem must have been resolved or a solitary issue because ours works just fine with voice commands. This thermostat does not offer a sensor option to monitor a particular room or area, so if you’re looking for that, you may need to look at other options. As far as smart settings, you have two options. Alexa can learn your routines and track your phone’s location to adjust the temperatures accordingly when you’re home or away. This works best when everyone in the household connects to the app and consents to tracking. It will even adjust the temperature to your desired settings when you’re within a certain range of your home. If this option isn’t for you, it will allow you to set schedules and desired temperature ranges throughout each day of the week. But you’re still able to log into the app and make adjustments when needed. My last tidbit of information is regarding the second unit that I bought, it was a “renewed unit” and priced at $40. It’s absolutely perfect and I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the new one, it came with all new mounting hardware and was just as easy to install as the first one that I bought.

On the positive side, this is a good basic smart thermostat that integrates with Alexa (as would be expected). If you have a simple system and do not need fancy features, this is an excellent entry-level replacement thermostat. The Alexa app provides clear guidance for the entire installation, so it requires only basic skills to install. Just be sure to confirm that it will work with your system. On the negative side, the thermostat and its in-app options (such as scheduling) are quite basic; but this is offset by the price. There is also a chance you will run into an issue with the fan (this is mentioned by other customers). My first install seemed to go smoothly and I followed the directions step by step. But when I tested the AC, I found that although it would stop cooling at the set temperature, the fan would just keep running as long as the thermostat was on. Turning it off did turn the fan off, but that was obviously not a good solution. I checked the likely causes for the issue (such as having the fan set to "on" in the app) but found nothing wrong. Being an old hand at fixing PCs, I did the obvious and factory reset the thermostat to start over. The install did not go as smoothly this time (it failed to set up using the bar code) and would not progress beyond the stage at which I entered the info about what wires were connected to what. But I was able to fix that. The first time I installed it, I put the W wire in the W connector on the Amazon thermostat. This is how it connected on the old thermostat (photo included). But on the second install, this was rejected by the app. It told me to connect the W to the W2 (normally for "Aux heat") and not W. I did this, and completed the setup "manually." When I tested it, the fan worked correctly. Since the G wire controls the fan (drawing power from the R wire) it seems odd that changing the W wire from the W connector to the W2 connector did not make a lot of sense, but it seems to have worked (or maybe it was just the complete reset). So, if you have the running fan issue, check that your wiring matches what the app says and try the factory reset. Here is how to do the factory reset: "A factory reset erases all data on the thermostat, including HVAC configuration and device settings. On the Smart Thermostat, press the Up Temperature, Down Temperature, and Mode buttons together for 10 seconds, until rEs appears on the display. Press and hold the Mode button for 5 seconds, until the device resets."

tldr; a great start for Amazon getting into the thermostat business but needs improvement all the way around. BACKGROUND ~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm coming from an original Nest Thermostat which I've been using for over 6 years -- yes, it still works. So, why did I decided to switch? Well, I like new tech and I decided about 8 months that I really hate having multiple eco-systems of smart products. So, I selected Amazon a while back. I've been replacing my cams from Wyze and Ring to Ring. We've got about 10 Echo devices. You can say we are almost fully vested. COST ~~~~ This was a great deal. For about $50, you get a fully functioning smart thermostat. I didn't have a proper C-wire (supplies constant power to thermostat) so I had to get the Honeywell C-Wire kit. This is the kit that costs about $20 more which is auto selected if you choose the "no c-wire" model at the product page. INSTALLATION ~~~~~~~~~~~ The easiest part of the installation was opening the box. Overall, it took one hour to install including the c-wire adapter. 30 minutes of that was trying to put back on the furnace covers (@#$@!). Again, you don't have to worry about the c-wire adapter and opening the furnace if you already have a c-wire ran. You can check for the c-wire by popping open your current thermostat and seeing if there's a connection to "c-wire" or looking for an extra unused wire if you currently have a "dumb" thermostat. Amazon says there are stickers to label your wires but there was not! I checked, double-checked, and triple-checked. I'm so glad that my 6 year Nest came with some because I had already taken the time to label the wires. This was a bummer. It may make hooking up the wires to the new thermostat a real pain in the butt for some. Oh, and the honeywell kit also said it had labels. Guess what? Nope. :( Only if you don't have a c-wire run....They have you install the c-wire adapter first so you can have constant power running to the thermostat. That part was pretty easy but you have to be comfortable taking apart the furnace doors and rewiring to an adapter. ALWAYS TAKE PICTURES OF WIRES BEFORE DOING ANY SORT OF OF THIS TYPE OF WORK. You always want a reference. Let me complain about the alexa app a bit. Amazon tried. They really tried but damn. I can see this a deal breaker for many. So, check this out, you use your Alexa app to setup the thermostat. You crack open this app FIRST before doing anything else so it can guide you through the entire process. Before you do anything you want to also make sure you have the latest app version installed as well. Go to your app store and make sure to download the latest version. That being said, the Alexa app itself guides the user through the process. No videos. It's just text and picture. While it is laid out nicely, it can get confusing for some people. There needs to be more clarification on some of the steps. Perhaps a video? One of the most annoying parts of the app is that while you put your phone down to do some steps, you come back and the app quits the process. You are at the main screen! No joke. You have to literally go through all the steps again to get back to where you left off. I had to do this about 7 times. It was super annoying. Amazon, you must do something to correct this. It is super annoying. As far as the rest of the installation, it was pretty straightforward. If you wired a thermostat before, you'll get through this. Again, super annoying with the app reverting to the begining due to timing out. I noticed that the wires in the closure were a super tight fit. At one point I closed the latch and the small closure bulched out. I had to re-open and re-position cables. That took a bit to re-adjust. The optional decorative plate (presumably to hide wall holes or imperfections), I could not get flat. It seemed thin and flimsy. When looking from an angle, you can tell a bit. :( The thermostat itself snapped real easily to the connection plate. No issues there. Pretty solid. SETUP ~~~~~ The thermostat fired up once I turned the power back on to the hvac. The alexa app took about 2 minutes to talk to the thermostat to connect and configure it. This part was automatic. PHYSICAL FUNCTIONALITY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you look at the thermostat itself it can be confusing even though it's simple. The arrows dissapear. The arrows I think need to be there so that anyone can understand where to press the buttons to turn up or down temp. DIGITAL/GUI FUNCTIONALITY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The thermostat function seems buried in the alexa app. I know you can set favorites, but there should be a way to have it up as soon as you open alexa app. I know the entire purpose is to use alexa via voice but still. How about some dedicated widgets for the thermostat? Something we can throw on the phone home screen so we can easily adjust temperature? Another note. My wife also has the alexa app with her own account. She is part of the household. She cannot see the thermostat to adjust in the app. :( I'll have to investigate this more. CONCLUSION ~~~~~~~~~~~ Great start. Would I buy it again? Sure. Why? Because it's nice and simple. There really isn't anything that can't be solved with a software update on this one. Be sure to check with your local utility company as you can essentially get a rebate for it making it 'free.'

For reference, I’m a 20F that’s pretty good with home maintenance. I’m also a nail tech, so I installed this with long nails. I definitely suggest running a stud finder (Hart makes a good one with live-wire detection) over the area your thermostat is sitting before drilling. I ran into a horizontal beam while trying to drill for the wall anchors and ultimately wasn’t able to use them. If I’d checked with the stud finder vertically before drilling I would’ve known that I didn’t need the anchors- so don’t be like me. Overall, this thermostat was very easy to install. My home is newly constructed, so I luckily had a compatible wire setup where I only needed to remove the wires, label them, and insert them into the base station. It was very easy to insert them once I had a decent hold on them, but with my nails it was pretty difficult. That’s my own fault, but I figured I’d mention that for any other women looking to replace their thermostat on their own. Just please triple check your wiring before purchase to ensure it’s compatible! Some people may also need a C-wire, but I didn’t so unfortunately I can’t review that aspect. Tips: Don’t forget to turn off your power! If you can’t find the A/C switch, just turn off your main power. It’s much safer than trying to mess with live wires. It takes about an hour to complete and you’ll be working very closely with wires the entire time. If you find that your original thermostat is already installed without wall anchors, you most likely don’t need to drill. Just mark on the wall where the screws need to go and screw them directly into the wall. Wall anchors are only needed when there’s no stud behind the drywall. Best of luck!