A smart thermostat can give you remote control of your heating and cooling, making sure your home is as cool or warm as you want it to be when Once You have arrived at your home, and temperature can be monitored by a great thermostat and your own preferences over time, adjusting your systems to keep you comfortable and save you money.
So we’ve tested seven smart thermostats over the past few months to find the best one for your home.
On the market, here are the best smart thermostats: Nest Smart Thermostat ($229, originally $249.99)
In the months that followed, we tested a variety of models. The Nest smart thermostat never failed to impress. When you interact with it, it has the most intuitive controls. You can also set it and forget it with smart features. The Nest smart thermostat is smarter than the average smart thermostat; as you make temperature adjustments day after day, it learns from them and uses them to tend.
In our testing, after a week of use in early summer, the Nest smart thermostat had figured out that we preferred a slightly cooler temperature at night and warmer during the day, and with its geolocation capabilities, it figured out that it could switch to Eco mode when we left the house, and then prepare it for when we returned. Not bad, right? And lies the genuine appeal of the Nest smart thermostat. It works to establish these patterns, adjust and ultimately reduce the cost of your HVAC and electricity bill.
Beyond intelligence, the Nest thermostat has three modes: cooling, heating and eco, which can be accessed automatically or manually. Eco mode sets a temperature that may be a little warmer or cooler than you prefer, but turning it on when you’re not home or when you don’t notice it can reduce the cost of running the entire system. It’s very convenient. And if you want to change the temperature, just turn the crank.
The physical design of the Nest Learning thermostat - the best user interface of any smart thermostat we’ve reviewed - makes this easy. The bezel is like a big knob. You can turn it to the right to raise the temperature or to the left to lower it. It glides and is incredibly well built. You can also physically press the bezel or face to select an item. The device is high end, as you would expect given its $249.99 price tag. It’s fun to use, and it’s very intuitive to get the results you want.
When you don’t want to get up and set the temperature or mode, you can open the Nest app on your Android or iOS device. The app has an intuitive interface that mirrors the physical Nest Learning thermostat. You can easily set the temperature, view performance history or create your own programs.
The Nest smart thermostat can also integrate with multiple temperature sensors in your home to better match heating and cooling to the entire space. Even in a single-zone setup (as in our test), the multiple sensors spread across three levels helped Nest see the temperature more accurately throughout the space, and thus make more appropriate adjustments.
Finally, let’s talk about installation: the Nest Learning thermostat works with a wide range of HVAC systems. We tested it in two locations, a one-bedroom apartment with one zone and a three-story home with one zone, both with central heating and cooling solutions that don’t have “C” or common wire. The C-wire is typically used to power a thermostat directly from the house current. If your home does not have a C-wire (some more modern systems do not use one), the Nest Thermostat can run on its built-in battery or from an optional power adapter if your HVAC system is power hungry.
Before we began the installation, we made sure we turned our HVAC system off at the breaker, removed the old thermostat, plugged in the Nest thermostat with the proper wiring configurations, and connected it via the Nest app (available for Android or iOS). The app verified our work, and we were ready to race.
During our extended testing, the Nest Learning thermostat kept us comfortable, and it’s always looking to improve. This intelligence, combined with an intuitive design, makes it the best smart thermostat on the market.
Best budget smart thermostat: Nest Thermostat ($129.99)
For those on a tighter budget, the $129.99 Nest Thermostat gives you the well-designed interface and remote app controls of its big brother, but forgoes the built-in intelligence.
You can still manually switch between modes (cool, heat, cool and heat, Eco or off), quickly activate a preset, set a schedule and control the fan (depending on your HVAC system setup, of course). However, the Nest thermostat will not learn your preferences over time, like the Nest Smart Thermostat. It can’t record your usage and work to reduce your energy bill by making minor adjustments throughout the day or week. You can remedy this to some extent on your own by setting up a program with presets for things like standby or Eco mode at desired times of the day.
You have plenty of remote control options, either from the Google Home app or through integrations with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, so you can set up voice control. So you can set up voice control. That way you can say “Hey Google, make the room cooler” or “Alexa, set the living room thermostat to 71 degrees.”
If you prefer physical interaction, instead of the circular moving bezel of the Learning Thermostat, the $129 Nest Thermostat has a capacitive touch sensor on the top right. Here, you can slide your finger up or down to adjust the temperature and touch it to trigger an action. To be honest, after a few days of use, we got the hang of it, but it’s not as natural as the dial on the $249.99 Nest Learning thermostat. In the end, it takes more interaction to do anything. Switching between cooling modes requires pressing the wheel once to bring up a menu, scrolling to the desired icon and pressing again to select it. Throughout the day, you can slide the slider up or down to raise or lower the temperature.
The Nest thermostat, oddly enough, does not use the Nest app. That’s part of a larger bundle from Google, but they did setup and control through the main Google Home app. It’s a fairly simple interface and you’ll feel right at home if you’re already using this ecosystem for your smart home. In the Home app, the Nest thermostat interface mirrors the physical unit with the set temperature in the center and the actual temperature (as well as humidity) directly below it.
Google offers the Nest thermostat in four finishes - Snow, Charcoal, Sand and Fog. The circular unit features a rectangular screen with a mirror finish, and while you may want to touch it, we wouldn’t recommend it. Installation is easy; like the Learning Thermostat, it can power the Nest Thermostat by a C-wire, two AA batteries or a power adapter.
Google has designed a nice device that isn’t as technically sophisticated and doesn’t have a brilliant user interface. Still, the $129.99 Nest thermostat is an affordable and intuitive device that lets you easily control the temperature in your home.
How we tested the smart thermostats
Before installing any of the seven thermostats, we made sure we were doing the installation safely. To do this, we turned off the circuit breaker to cut off power to our HVAC systems. Then we removed the standard non-smart thermostat and began installing the tested thermostat.
We followed the included instructions for each installation and, if the relevant app had a welcome procedure, we followed that as well. We noted how intuitive the instructions were and how the app helped us move through the process. After a successful installation, we tested the modes to make sure they worked properly. We lived with each thermostat for several days to become familiar with it and let it calibrate.
We tested the control on the same Wi-Fi network with each app and outside the home using the cell phone. If the thermostat had geo fencing capabilities, we tested that as well. Besides controlling via the companion app for each device, we also used the thermostats with all compatible smart home ecosystems.
Finally, we looked at how long and what the included warranties cover for each device.
Other smart thermostats we tested
Ecobee 3 Lite ($169)
The ecobee 3 Lite is the brand’s entry-level smart thermostat and strives to accomplish what it aims to do. The larger touchscreen was easy to use in our testing and mirrors the companion app for Android or iOS. It’s ultimately a matter of preference, but we missed having physical buttons to control heating or cooling.
Like the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Complete with Voice Control, this smart thermostat comes with a power adapter in the box, which is handy if your facility doesn’t have a C-wire for direct power to the unit. It’s fairly easy to install, but that adds a bit to the setup time. The Ecobee 3 Lite also supports a long list of smart home ecosystems: Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home and SmartThings, among others.
Ecobee smart thermostat with voice control ($248.64)
The more expensive Ecobee goes beyond a simple smart thermostat. With a speaker and microphone array on board, it’s truly a smart speaker on your wall and can be used as an Amazon Alexa smart speaker to play music and answer questions of all kinds.
It also offers an almost identical heating or cooling control experience as the Ecobee 3 Lite. You’ll control it throughout the Ecobee app for Android or iOS, as well as a fairly large touchscreen on the front of the device. We prefer the overall setup process and controls of the Nest thermostat.
Honeywell Home T5+ ($124, initially $150)
If you have other Ring devices, consider the Honeywell thermostat because it’s compatible with the Ring ecosystem. Otherwise, these are pretty standard thermostats. Like the Ecobees, they come with a power adapter. It looks a little more bulky with its black square design, but it’s still pretty easy to control. We’ll also note that it took a few tries to get the T5+ to connect to our Wi-Fi network.
Honeywell Home T9 ($143.57, originally $199.99)
The Honeywell Home T9 is quite expensive ($199.99), but its design doesn’t live up to that price. You’ll need to power it through a C-wire or the included adapter, and after that, installation is pretty straightforward. The T9 also supports geo fencing, which allows it to opt for an eco-friendly temperature when you’re away and turn it back on when you approach your home. This smart thermostat is also compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Home.
Wyze Thermostat ($78.98)
For $59.99, the Wyze Thermostat was the most affordable of the bunch, and while it worked fairly well in our testing, its design was ultimately lackluster. It has a button reminiscent of the Nest Learning thermostat, but it didn’t work as smoothly. It also required a fairly loud click to engage and adjust the temperature. The Wyze thermostat also integrates with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
Overall, the build wasn’t great, and installation took longer, but for $70 more, we think the investment for the basic Nest thermostat makes more sense.
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