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Honeywell's latest Wi-Fi thermostat, model number RTH9580WF, features a bright touchscreen display filled with information about your home's environment and your HVAC system's status. But after having a stainless-steel-and-glass Nest thermostat on my wall, this one was a visual letdown.
It's not as though Honeywell doesn't give you anything to look at. The Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat has a large, bright, colorful LCD with a background that you can program to match the color of the wall that it's mounted to. That's not hyperbole—you get three controls for tweaking the background color: A slider with 360 values for color, a second with a 100-point scale for shades, and a third slider for brightness. These same controls are also available for the font colors. If you get tired of trying to match your wall, simply choose from the 14 preset color schemes. But none of them will fool your eye into believing the thermostat itself is fabricated from anything other than plastic.
ROBERT CARDINYou'll find plenty of information displayed on Honeywell's new touchscreen thermostat.
The Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat displays the current temperature and humidity (inside and out); the day, date, and time; your HVAC system's current operating mode (heating or cooling); the target temperature; and buttons for adjusting the target temperature. By displaying all this data in one busy screen, this thermostat is effectively the anti-Nest.
As with the second-generation Nest, however, you can rely on algorithms to program the Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat based on your daily comings and goings, or you can do it yourself, either by using the very responsive touchscreen or by logging in to Honeywell's Web portal after registering the thermostat online. Honeywell also offers Android and iOS apps for controlling and programming the thermostat.
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