Now that the Fall is here and in full effect, we are tapering off the need for the air conditioning and turning on the heat. This got my mind working on all the new products that are available in the realm of home automation and the thermostat. I have several friends that have a Nest thermostat and we have reviewed that here on this site a while back. I like the Nest, but it does not connect to the Nexia Home Automation system that I currently use. Nexia runs on the Z-Wave protocol. Also, I really love have a one glance dashboard on my mobile device that shows me the status of the entire house.
To keep with this train of thought, I picked up the new Trane Comfort Control thermostat. The one I received is pictured in this review, model XL624. So far, I have been very pleased with the results. The XL624, in its most basic form, is a great touchscreen programmable thermostat. It has all the basic features that you would expect in a programmable system and the touchscreen menus are easy to navigate.
The programmed scheduler allows you to set the times for 4 daily heating and cooling schedules (wake, day, evening and night-time) and temperature settings for each day of the week individually – it also has a feature that allows you to copy one day’s schedule to another day of the week, simplifying the setup. The AC has not kicked on since my installation, but the heat has worked like a charm.
Next you have the ability to connect the thermostat to the Nexia Bridge and the Home Automation System. The setup is simple, just like the rest of the Z-Wave products. Then all of the thermostats information is relayed to the internet and all connect mobile devices. This allows for total control and monitoring from anywhere. I the app, you can control all of the same features that are available directly from the thermostat itself. You can even adjust schedules and temperature.
If you are looking to upgrade to a home automation system, you owe it to yourself to check out the Nexia System and the wide selection of new Trane thermostats. You can find more information here at: Trane.com
Disclosure: After expressing an interest in a Z-Wave compatible thermostat, I was sent the XL624 for review purposes.
Controlling Thermostat through mobile would be a great benefit and solve a lot of pain areas for people who ain’t so fit and cannot walk especially oldies. Seniors have issues with temperature and this will be of great help for them.
Controlling Thermostat have a lot benefit for health, good looks, easy using, economical electric. Thank!
good production
The user manual provided with the unit is very hard to read without magnification. It’s wise to download from the web, but they leave it to you to track it down. The layout of the user manual is very poor and it takes effort to come to grips with the hidden flow chart needed to do things such as edit the schedule or set the clock. You have to go too deep for things that should be in the first menu layer.And like most stuff designed by computernics these days the terminology is changed for no intelligent reason, so that “Program” becomes “Schedule”. Fortunately “Hold” is unchanged. I will never understand why functions that can be controlled with a simple slider switch have to be buried deep in a layer of menus in a way that does not accurately reflect what changes a user is most likely to make. So I grade this device’s “User Friendly” qualities at a C at best.
As to how well it does the job, we’ll see. The unit uses a capacitor instead of batteries to deal with power outages, and it gives you 24 hours. After that you’ll have to deal with all the menus again.