Hunter 44860 7-Day Programmable Touch screen Thermostat
by Hunter
|
List Price: Our Price: $89.99 You Save: $32.51 (27%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $49.99 (click here) Category: Tools See more product details |
|---|
Tools and Hardware Reviews of Hunter 44860 7-Day Programmable Touch screen Thermostat
Customer Review: Great Product
Summary: 5 Stars
We have 2 conventional AC units in our house (one for upstairs and one for downstairs) and both had the old mercury thermostats. Initially, I bought the Hunter unit because of all the features it had at a great price. The auto-switch from heat to cold with corresponding amber and blue backlit displays was a fancy touch. The energy-star 4-program/day chart helped to understand what temperature ranges would be maintained and at what times of the day. The touchscreen is always a convienent feature and the 30-second display screen lock is great for when you need to clean the display screen. The unit icons and text displays tell you exacty what the unit is doing at the current moment. There is a learning curve with operating the unit, but it only takes a little bit of practice before you become proficient. The hold features are excellent. It's great that you can set how many minutes you want the "temporary" hold feature to last - it returns to normal programming after the minutes you set expire (ex. you want heat for 12 or 15 minutes only). There's also a "Vacation" hold feature.
For the 2nd AC unit I tried buying a Honeywell RTH7400 from Home Depot because I was given a $50 Home Depot gift card. Unfortunately, they did not sell the Hunter unit at Home Depot. It cost just as much as the Hunter unit (sold at Lowes), but had less features. I knew that it was not touchscreen. It did not have the auto switch from heat to cool feature. It did not have the configurable "Temporary" or "Vacation" hold feature. There was no Energy-star chart to show the 4 programs/day settings.
As a result I'm going to return the Honeywell unit and get a second Hunter digital thermostat.
Customer Review: Great Touch Screen Thermostat
Summary: 5 Stars
Installed for a heat pump system, O/B wire from White-Rogers digital thermostat went to O as another reviewer indicated (Thanks). Install was easy, setting up the program was only tricky at first because I did not read the Directions that appear at the top of the touch screen at each new screen! When I read and followed them the programming was straight forward. Well thought out, and the back lit touch screen is really nice.Customer Review: Great product. Definately ready for prime time!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I bought this product, I was kind of hesitant because of the not so good reviews but I decided to go ahead and give it a try.
After trying it, I am more inclined to think that most of the negative reviews are because the reviewers did not know how to operate the device.
For example, some complained about the temprature override requiring you to set an ending time. In fact the unit allows you to set either a temprary hold until a certain time, or a permanant hold which will take effect indefinately or a vacation hold. Yes, it will require an extra click but it is a useful feature which is better than forgetting your system on and leaving.
You also do have control over the fan. Some other reviewer complained that the fan would go on and off during the night. When you program the time periods, you do have control over the fan mode. You can set it to on, auto (which turns on only when the compressor is running) and refresh which is the same as auto but also turns the fan on if the system is idle for more than an hour to keep the air fresh.
Some complained about the fan turning on without the compressor.. Sounds to me like the recircuilation mode. This mode runs only if the system is idle for an hour and it lets the fan run for 10 , 15 or 20 minutes to bring fresh air. This was quite helpful when I set my temprature to 85 and the air used to be not so fresh by the time I got home because the ac never had to work. With this feature the air is fresh again by the time I got home. I believe this saves more energy than if i kept the temprature at 80 just to maintain freshness.
On the negative side, installation did not go as smooth for me. The manual mentions some labels that you are supposed to find on the old unit which were labeled differently on my old white-rodgers. There was an o/b unit on the old and there was an "o" as well as a "b" on the new. With trial and error, i connected it to "o" and it worked. The manual mentions removing the jumper in case of a 5 wire connection. That jumper is important if you want the system to automatically switch over to using the furnace if the heat pump cannot keep up with the temprature. If you don't connect the jumper, the heat pump will work and you have to set it to emergency heat to use the furnace if you need to.
One of the reviewers mentioned, you need to connect the wire to W1 and not W2 if you have a one stage system. You should not need to do that if you have your system type set correctly. I had a heat pump and it works fine when connected to W2. Also make sure your furnace type is set correctly (Electric or Gas).
After you install the system, make sure you test both heating and cooling functions to avoid unpleasant surprises next season. ALSO, if you have a heat pump, make sure it is the heat pump that is running normally and NOT the furnace! If somehow you get the furnace to run all the time, you will get a HUGE electric bill. The compressor on the heat pump takes a lot of current to start. So if you see your lights flicker when the heat starts, that is a sign that the heat pump is starting and not the electric furnace. Also, the air from a heat pump is not super warm, it should be about body temprature compared to the toasty air from an electric furnace. Also if the heat pump is working, the air coming out of the fan of the outside unit will be cooler than the surrounding air. These guidelines applies to any thermostat and not just this one.
Things that I noticed about heat pumps that i found confusing are: 1. If you start the heat pump then stop it, then start it again shortly, it might take a little bit of time to start to protect the unit. This can be particularly confusing when testing a thermostat and can lead you to believe that your connections are wrong even though if you wait for 5 minutess or so, everything will work as it should. 2. Heat pumps can freeze and they tend to reverse their cycles to defrost. You can tell if it is defrosting if you feel warm air (steam) coming out of it.
The other thing that I did not like is the auto recovery. It means that when you set the A/C to 75 at 6pm, the system will start running earlier to make sure it reaches 75 degrees by 6pm. The manual did not mention how early. Calling the customer service, they mentioned it will start running 30 minutes before the time period which made sense to me. The only way to get around that if you don't like the feature is to adjust your times. There is not a disable option.
The interface is not intuitive but it is not hard to learn. It takes about 5 minutes to get the hang of it after that it is just as easy to use as the old thermostat.
BTW, I do like the red/blue backlights.
Customer Review: Not ready for Prime time
Summary: 1 Stars
On paper, this thermostat had everything I wanted. It had a recirculation mode which would run the fan from time to time; it would keep track of usage, and was a 7 day programmable. Unfortunately after living with this model for several months, I just can't get over the issues that plague this device.
First, the recirculation mode. You can have this unit in this mode all the time, or program the schedule to run perform the task. The recirculation mode only works when it is on all the time. If I forget to turn it off, I hear it run on and off all night long. Strike one.
Next, the temperature override. I like the fact that they let you set how long to override the temperature. This is great if you are going to be away for a few days and don't want to heat/cool your home while you are gone. I find that I do change the preset from time to time. My old thermostats would let you adjust the temperature and then hold that temperature until the next period (one let you put in a vacation hold). Once you enter the screen to adjust the temperature, you then adjust it, and then have to set a how long to hold the new temperature. Its way too much work to make it a little warmer or cooler.
Last, most thermostats that I have found let you adjust the temperature variations before the unit turns on. This one does also, however the lowest setting is 1 degree. The programmable thermostats that I have used in the past will keep the temperature within .5 degrees.
I'm sure that this unit will work fine for many people. The issues that I have outlined are no big deal if you don't use them. For me, I'll be looking for a new thermostat soon.
Customer Review: Confusing setup with auto change over
Summary: 2 Stars
I was replacing a 10 year old thermostat with a switch for heat and cool, thinking the automatic heat/cool switching of this thermostat would be a neat feature. Why do I complicate my life so much?
This unit has a red backlight when heating and a blue backlight when cooling. But when you want to do a temporary override, I cannot figure how to tell it to heat or cool. Say the house is at 68F and you want to temporarily heat to 72F for a couple of hours. You can set the override point to 72F, but if the backlight is blue, it thinks it needs to cool the house to 72F. Since the house is at 68F, it does nothing. There is no obvious way to switch it into heat mode.
One annoying function; you can spend a long time programming the unit, but if you hit the Energy Star button it resets all your programming to the governement's recommended settings - i.e. heat to 60F and cool to 85F.
I am having a pushback from the learning curve here, but this thermostat does appear unnecessarily complicated. Amusingly, there is a page in the manual which says "Many people prefer to operate their thermostats manually,..". I wonder why.
Addendum: After 6 months of use I came home to a cold house. The thermostat was totally locked up and unresponsive. So I removed and reinstalled the batteries. The thermostat now showed "System Shutdown" and would not turn on the furnace. I put my 10 year old Honeywell back up and everything worked fine again. On top of that, all my programs were gone and I was back to the default settings. That was enough for me - the Hunter went straight into the garbage and I got myself a new Honeywell 5-2-2. Nice and simple.