Topic 'Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.' in forum 'Home Improvement' - dslreports.com

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:21:02 EDT

dennismurphy posted :

Can you translate those pictures? Those bars mean nothing without total furnace times and outside temperatures.
I am not saying that turning down the thermostat doesn't save energy (it does), but for at least an average insulation the savings with short duration setbacks are minuscule. The savings come when the house manages to cool down significantly for extended periods of time.
Again slightly O/T, but any half-decent humidistat can activate the blower when there is a call for humidification.

Correct on all counts. I do travel quite a bit for work, so if I can setback from 7:30-5 (while my wife isn't home), that's significant.

Even moreso, if I'm traveling (as I am this week), I can set the house to a low temp and turn it up when I land so it's warm when I get home.

For a house where we used to keep the thermostat at 68 all year, this is a game changer.

And you're right about a decent humidistat; unfortunately the previous owner of my house (I moved in a year ago) went cheap and put an in-duct manual humidistat that's essentially an on/off switch. I want more intelligence!

As for the app generating the report, that's just the Nest's web interface. I'm contemplating setting up MRTG or somesuch and connecting to the Nest API for some light reporting & analytics.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:18:34 EDT

StillLearn posted :

said by dennismurphy
Frankly, most t-stat interfaces are AWFUL. My previous Honeywell 5+2 programmable included. What I found is that - even though I had a program set, if we wanted to change the temp, we'd do so, press HOLD, and then forget to change it later.

In most 5+2 thermostats, if you don't press hold, but press up or down, then the temperature setting that you put in reverts to the program temperature at the next programmed time.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:15:16 EDT

pende_tim posted : What application are you using to generate that data?

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:13:47 EDT

cowboyro posted : Can you translate those pictures? Those bars mean nothing without total furnace times and outside temperatures.
I am not saying that turning down the thermostat doesn't save energy (it does), but for at least an average insulation the savings with short duration setbacks are minuscule. The savings come when the house manages to cool down significantly for extended periods of time.
Again slightly O/T, but any half-decent humidistat can activate the blower when there is a call for humidification.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:25:30 EDT

dennismurphy posted :

said by Jack_in_VA:

I read these statements here all the time but never get the details as to how much money a "bunch of energy" represents.

I'm waiting for my first bill, but what I can tell you is that, by using the away/remote-on features while we were out shopping, my furnace runtime this past weekend was half of what it has been during the week.

Again, I need more time to correctly analyze this (a heating bill, for starters), but so far, so good.

Oh - the other Big Deal that I forgot to mention; the Nest also has a humidistat integrated in it, so I can wire the whole-home humidifier to its control. That's a Big Deal because the way it's wired right now (from the previous owner who installed the furnace), the humidifier is only on when the furnace is running, and there's no way to run it along with the fan when heat isn't being called for. That means that the house humidity is lower than I would like at about 32-35%. I'd prefer 40-45%. My sinuses suck and are very sensitive to humidity levels. I have the requisite relay and transformer to correctly wire the humidifier - that's a project for the next available weekend ... Also going to run a Common wire to the Nest while I'm at it (the t-stat wiring now dates back to the '60s and has been spliced more times than Evel Knievel.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:20:57 EDT

Jack_in_VA posted :

said by cowboyro:

said by dennismurphy:

Enjoying the remote access - lets me save a bunch of energy when I'm not home.

[Slightly O/T] Don't ALL programmable thermostats do exactly the same?

I read these statements here all the time but never get the details as to how much money a "bunch of energy" represents.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:19:53 EDT

dennismurphy posted :

said by cowboyro:

said by dennismurphy:

Enjoying the remote access - lets me save a bunch of energy when I'm not home.

[Slightly O/T] Don't ALL programmable thermostats do exactly the same?

Not really. All /remotely programmable/ thermostats do the same.

For instance - when I'm away, I can set the house to, say, 60 degrees. But when I'm 45 minutes away from home, I can tell the heat to come on so the house is comfortable when I walk in the door.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to set the house to 60 when I leave - the Wife Adoption Factor wouldn't allow it.

That's value. So yeah, a programmable t-stat does some good. A remotely programmable one does better. And if I'm going to replace it with a wifi-enabled one anyway, I may as well get something that looks good, and my wife will understand easily.

Frankly, most t-stat interfaces are AWFUL. My previous Honeywell 5+2 programmable included. What I found is that - even though I had a program set, if we wanted to change the temp, we'd do so, press HOLD, and then forget to change it later. No longer an issue.

In the Grand Scheme of Things, I piss away a lot more than what the Nest cost on other silly crap. This one's useful and a conversation piece; I'd say I get more value from it than most of the useless junk I buy.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:16:16 EDT

cowboyro posted :

said by dennismurphy:

Enjoying the remote access - lets me save a bunch of energy when I'm not home.

[Slightly O/T] Don't ALL programmable thermostats do exactly the same?

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:47:33 EDT

fcisler posted :

said by dennismurphy:

I just installed a Nest last week. So far, I love it. The fit & finish - both physical and software - is excellent.

Enjoying the remote access - lets me save a bunch of energy when I'm not home.

Nest looks cool...but too pricey for me. I've had the 3M50 for a while. I have three zones. I could almost afford to buy three of the 3M50's for the cost of ONE nest....

I also looked over a couple at lowes/depot. Lowes (IIRC) had one from honeywell, but it had a monthly $$$. Not interested.

I also found a very cool feature of the 3M50. During Sandy I didn't crank up my boiler (wasn't cold enough). Got an email from Filtrete saying it hadn't been able to contact my thermostat. Pretty neat feature if you install it in a summer/winter house, I thought.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:30:00 EDT

dennismurphy posted : I just installed a Nest last week. So far, I love it. The fit & finish - both physical and software - is excellent.

Enjoying the remote access - lets me save a bunch of energy when I'm not home.

Re: CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:07:30 EDT

ArgMeMatey posted : Best wishes to you.

I have the CT80 and it seems to work OK, but the Radio Thermostat fails on fit & finish. Lots of "rough edges" in design and programming.

Besides cost the only advantage of the radio thermostats is that third-party applications can read their output and control the stat.

When I get around to it I'll be checking out the Honeywell TH8320WF1029, which is somewhat more expensive but looks appealing. I would love to see a third-party technical review of this unit.
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CT30 and 3M50 Remote Thermostats.

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:04:36 EDT

StillLearn posted : The 3M Filtrete 3M50 WiFi Thermostat and the Radio Thermostat CT30 »radiothermostat.com/control.html are identical. They are remotely accessible via a server provided by Radio Thermostat. They are cheaper ($100 at Home Depot) than many remote thermostats, yet they provide good controllable function.

There is a forum for their support at »forums.radiothermostat.com It has been down for over a week. It makes me glad that Broadband Reports / DSL Reports is so reliable. Before it went down, that Radio Thermostat forum had some useful information. The common topic there was how to power the thermostat via the "C" wire. But it was critical for me, in getting the initial setup done, in suggesting to set my laptop to 801.11b only, rather than b+g. I also set the thermostat to a static IP, which could help in some cases and won't hurt unless I change routers.

»Wifi radio thermostat 3m50 review thread was too old to reply to.