Thermostat
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Our electric company had a deal on "smart" thermostats, so I ordered the ecobee 3 lite which works with Apple's Homekit architecture. I hate having an app for every little thing, and this one got pretty good reviews.
Reading about installing them, it's obvious that they need power to function, and having a "C" wire from the thermostat to the furnace provides the power. My current "dumb" thermostat is powered by batteries which I replace when needed. Pulling the thermostat off the wall, I see this:
See that brown wire that's not connected to anything?
Presumably that is also not connected to anything at the furnace.
EcoBee's thermostat will ship with a harness for the furnace in case there's not a C-wire at that end. If I want to just use the wiring I have, I should be able to use that brown wire at both ends, assuming there's a "C" terminal at the furnace, right?
Link to video -
Maybe.
And this very likely isn't helpful, but a year or two ago I tried installing a smart thermostat in my home (the current one had batteries). I had a similar wire that wasn't being used (but visible both in the wall and next to the HVAC, and seemed to be the C/power wire) but connecting the 2 didn't seem to work with the new smart thermostat.
Had to uninstall it and keep the battery-powered thermostat. I figured the C/power wire wasn't connected properly behind the wall somewhere and I didn't care enough to try and find out.
That being said...the only way to know is to try, and it sounds like the harness they provide might be helpful.
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Couple of hiccups during the install.
I tried to power it up and nothing happened. I rechecked all the wires, and all was good. I was all set to bail, and I started to put the cover back on the furnace, and saw that there's a rocker switch which gets thrown when you take the panel off. Presumably a safety feature.
I put the panels back on and the thermostat powered up just fine.
The harness that Ecobee sends if you don't have a "C" wire worked fine, as you can see.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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One interesting thing is that, in our condo, we have individual A/C compressors on the roof for each unit (22 in the building). If I set the thermostat to keep the temp at 68 at night, and it gets warmer because of whatever, the last thing I need is for the A/C to kick in in the middle of January.
I reached out to tech support this Sunday afternoon, and they were very helpful with an obscure setting that disables the A/C if the outside temperature is less than a minimum you set.
So far, pleased.
Of course, our condo, with neighbors on two sides, and heated spaces above and below, tends to stay warm during the winter, and we have a fireplace as well for heat/ambiance. Summer will be the time when it'll be cooling.
