Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control Review
Are you in the market for a Thermostat for your home? Check out the Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control. It’s a great DIY project for home improvement that is relatively easy to do and a slick way to upgrade your home. The RTH9590WF is a feature rich unit with color touchscreen display, 7 day programmable and even allows you to remotely administer or monitor your home’s Thermostat.
Installation & Set up
Before you begin purchase or installation, you should check to see if you have what is called a “C Wire” or Common Wire. Most newer builds will have this C Wire. It should be approximately 24 volts and would be found under your current thermostat cover. The reason you need this is because the Smart Thermostat requires power beyond simply placing 2 AA batteries in. If you do not have this C Wire it will be necessary to have one connected to utilize the Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat correctly from your control board.
If you do have a C Wire installation is pretty easy and will take you all of 20-30 minutes to set up. It will help you to have some prior knowledge of your basic HVAC system in your home along with your WiFi router’s info and password. The RTH9590WF will not function on a baseboard heating system or line voltage system
Once you’ve connected the wiring, setting up is really easy. Simply download the free App on your smartphone or use the LCD screen on the Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat to connect to your WiFi network and register your product with Honeywell to begin controlling your new WiFi Smart Thermostat via your smartphone or tablet.
Features and Experience
Voice Control gives you some preset commands to make the temperature warmer or cooler incrementally or by a set number of degrees. Once the device is registered online with Honeywell (which you need to do to administer via app anyway) the cloud based servers will begin to recognize your voice and add commands based on its interactions with you over time.
“Change temperature to XX degrees.” – Changes temperature to desired degrees.
“Make it warmer / cooler” – Changes the temperature setting 1 degree F.
“Make it warmer / cooler” – Changes the temperature setting 1 degree F.
“Make it much warmer / cooler” – Changes the temperature setting 4 degrees F.
“Make it (1-10) degrees warmer / cooler” – Changes between 1 and 10 degrees F.
“I’m feeling hot / cold” – Changes the temperature setting 1 degree.
“Help” – Provides a list of available commands.
It will recognize the preset voice commands even from a quite a distance; you can adjust the sensitivity level for that. The voice recognition worked pretty well in our testing. You don’t have to stand there directly in front of it but I like to know what the current setting is first. Typically I will walk near, glance at the indoor temp and what the thermostat is set to and as I walk away to return to whatever it was I was doing, I can speak out the adjustment I’d like. Very convenient for when your cooking for instance or doing some work where both your hands are tied up. The voice commands are English only.
There is also a built-in Humidistat to keep you informed and Advanced Fan Control to improve air circulation and help regulate temperature. Your Administration app on your mobile device can give you the local weather outside for your home so you can make an educated adjustment to your system remotely.
Thermostats are traditionally pretty drab pieces of hardware with unexciting UI’s. The unit itself is black, breaking away from the traditional white or beige style Thermostats. It features a customizable LCD color display to suit your mood or favorite team and looks pretty great on the wall I have to say.
Still, I think the most compelling feature for me at this time is the ability to administer the Thermostat over WiFi remotely from your phone or pc. This convenience is quickly realized once you’ve used the unit for a short period of time. The voice control works quite well but you will not be able to access your 7 day scheduling presets or enable them via voice command.
Additionally you are able to password lock the Touchscreen from wandering fingers, have extreme temperature alert and change filter notifications displayed across your devices and on the LCD screen, as well as advanced fan control. So if you leave the house, suddenly remember or get an alert that you didn’t lower the heat or raise the AC a little you can hop on any WiFi network and adjust your setting.
Conclusion
The Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control is a slick looking device. It’s a little pricey for some but the feature rich RTH9590WF unit is 7 day programmable and convenient to use both hands-on, hands-free or remotely from anywhere on your iOS or Android device using WiFi. I recommend it to anyone looking for a fairly easy upgrade, that not only looks cool, gives your home some great modern day conveniences.
Honeywell RTH9590WF WiFi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control is available for $250
honeywell.com
