Is It Really Worth It to Upgrade to a Smart Thermostat?

Most Chattanooga thermostats still do the same four jobs they did twenty years ago.

Heat. Cool. Auto. Fan on or auto.

That is not a bad system. It is just a limited one. And this time of year — 50° mornings and 80° afternoons — is when those limits show up.

What a traditional thermostat actually offers

A standard thermostat is a switch with a temperature sensor in one hallway.

System mode tells the equipment what it is allowed to do:

• Heat — heating only. Cooling is locked out.

• Cool — cooling only. Heating is locked out.

• Auto — both. It can switch between heat and cool when the house crosses the setpoints.

• Off — neither. The fan can still run if you turn it on.

• Fan is separate:

• Auto — the fan runs only when the system is heating or cooling.

• On — the fan runs all the time, even if the compressor or furnace is off.

  
  

If you have a heat pump, you may also see Emergency Heat or Aux. That is backup electric heat. It is not an everyday setting.

That is the whole menu on most older stats. One number. One sensor. You walk over and change it.

What a smart thermostat adds

A smart thermostat still has Heat, Cool, Auto, and Fan. Those basics do not go away.

What changes is how much information the thermostat has, and how little you have to stand in the hallway to use it.

Most of the brands we install and recommend — Nest, ecobee, Honeywell Home, Sensi, and others — add some mix of this:

• Two setpoints at once. Heat to 68. Cool to 74. Auto handles the swing days without you flipping modes.

• Phone control. Change it from work, from the ballgame, or from the other end of the house.

• Schedules you will actually use. Set it once in the app instead of fighting the buttons on the wall.

• Home / Away. Some use your phone’s location. Some use room sensors. The house stops conditioning

• empty air all afternoon.

• Extra sensors. Helpful in two-story Chattanooga houses where the hallway thermostat never matches the upstairs bedroom.

• Humidity on the screen. Useful here. Our air is wet in summer and all over the place in fall.

• Better heat-pump settings. Aux lockout, staging, and dual-fuel controls that a $30 stat usually cannot do

• well.

• Reminders and history. Filter change, runtime, and a look at how hard the system worked last week.

A fancy thermostat will not fix undersized ducts, a dirty coil, or a system that was never set up for heat-pump operation.

What it will do is stop the most common September and October call we get: the house was fine all summer, the first cool night hits, and the thermostat is still locked in Cool.

Auto plus two setpoints solves that. Remote access solves the “we left it at 68 and went to the lake” problem.

Room sensors help the two-story houses on the ridges where heat stacks upstairs.

We do not push one brand. Nest, ecobee, Honeywell Home, Sensi — they each do the job if they are matched to the equipment and wired correctly. That last part is the one people skip.

If you are thinking about swapping one

Tell us what system you have. Straight AC and furnace, heat pump, dual fuel, or inverter. Some older boards need a C-wire. Some heat pumps need the reversing valve set the right way or they will fight you all winter.

Scenic Air can recommend a thermostat that fits the house, install it, and set Heat / Cool / Auto the way Chattanooga weather actually works.

Call (423) 463-6228