Honeywell 1005/W1 Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat: 2-Minute Review

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In this in-depth review, we’ll see how Honeywell‘s top-of-the-line home thermostat, the 1005/W1, compares with its main competitors, Nest and Ecobee.

Honeywell thermostats are popular with homeowners and homebuilders, today.

That’s probably because the company has been making thermostats since it was founded more than a century ago, in 1885 – when one of Honeywell’s founders invented an early predecessor to the modern thermostat.

The Honeywell 1005/W1 WiFi smart touchscreen thermostat continues the company’s tradition by offering outstanding convenience, ease of use and, most importantly, energy efficiency. It’s also dual-fuel capable and comes with an extra-long 3 year warranty.

Best Touchscreen Thermostat

In our comprehensive guide to smart thermostats, we picked the Honeywell 1005/W1 as the best touchscreen thermostat.

This unit’s touch-enabled interface is outstanding: it’s easy to use and hassle-free. It also offers remote control through its smartphone and tablet app.

The 1005/W1 is also a great deal. Cost-wise, you’ll get a better deal with this Honeywell unit than you will buying a Nest or Ecobee3 thermostat.

So if you are looking for an easy-to-use smart home thermostat at an affordable price, the Honeywell 1005/W1 is a great choice.

The rest of this review dives into the specific features and issues you need to know about.

HVAC System Compatibility: C-Wire Required

System compatibility is one of the most important considerations when buying a thermostat.

Honeywell makes it easy for you to check whether this smart thermostat will work with your system. Check out the wiring compatibility checker on its official website. Just look at the wiring of your existing thermostat .

For example, if your system is indicated to be 110v or higher (high voltage systems), it is not compatible. Also, if there is a wire labeled G, your system is not compatible with this thermostat. Luckily, the Honeywell thermostat is designed to work with a wide variety of residential HVAC systems including heat pumps, conventional systems and traditional heating and cooling HVAC systems. So chances are that yours is compatible.

If you are not sure about it even after using the compatibility chart, the company offers the option of taking a picture of your current thermostat wiring and sending it to their customer care department. This will allow them to give you a more precise answer regarding system compatibility.

Installation

While installation and setup is not as easy as with a traditional non-smart thermostat, you should still be able to install and configure this Honeywell touchscreen thermostat without needing to call a professional.

The wiring part is pretty easy. An accompanying manual provides step-by-step guidance – and you can get more help online or from the company’s customer care.

One of the most essential things to note is that the Honeywell thermostat requires a C wire to function.

The C wire is a type of low voltage wire often used to provide power to smart thermostats. If your thermostat lacks a wire labeled C, you have just run into a bit of a problem.

Unlike Nest or Ecobee, Honeywell does not provide a workaround if a C wire is absent.

Nest does not always need a C wire, while Ecobee3 comes with a power extender kit that can be used in place of the common wire.

With the Honeywell thermostat, you absolutely need a C wire. If you don’t have one, the best option is to have it installed by a professional, which means more cost.

Note that sometimes, the C wire may be labeled differently – so confirm with a professional or with Honeywell customer care before reaching a conclusion.

Network Connectivity

Network connectivity is at the center of smart WiFi thermostats.

Like most smart thermostats, the Honeywell touchscreen thermostat depends on WiFi connectivity to function as intended.

After installing the Honeywell thermostat, you will be taken through a series of steps to help you scan for your home network and connect to it. Once connected, you can use the Total Connect Comfort app to remotely monitor and control your thermostat, wherever you are.

While you can also connect to a public or neighbor’s WiFi network (if it is open or you have access), this is highly discouraged for security reasons. While the thermostat is equipped with technology to keep the system secure, you need to take precautions.

Unlike the Nest thermostat, Honeywell 1005/W1 does not have Bluetooth connectivity.

An important point to note is that the thermostat needs WiFi to access external data such as outdoor weather conditions.

User Interface

One of the best features of the Honeywell 1005/W1 thermostat is the simplicity of the user interface.

The home screen is a one-stop-shop for the most important bits of information you need to know.

Even from a long distance, you can clearly see the current indoor temperature. Below that it shows you the indoor humidity level. On the right edge, two buttons allow you to increase or decrease the set temperature.

On the left side, you can see the current date and time, current outdoor temperature and humidity levels and the current status (cooling or heating mode).

So at a glance, you can see your home’s comfort level and with a touch, you can tweak the temperature level.

A tabbed menu at the top edge of the rectangular screen allows you to access other areas of the user interface such as the fan, HVAC system and main menu.

Purely for aesthetic purposes, you can change the touchscreen to match the color of your walls or whichever color fits your mood.

Additionally, you can set up a screen lock to ensure only the right individuals can access important settings on the panel.

Remote Control

For remote control and monitoring, Honeywell has Total Connect Comfort apps for both Android and iOS smartphones.

You can also access your thermostat through a web app via your laptop or desktop.

The apps are free of charge with no purchase fee or monthly subscription required.

With the app, you can do pretty much everything you can do on the thermostat touchscreen. This includes viewing and changing the current schedule, change heating or cooling systems, control connected devices such as fan and humidifier, access multiple thermostats and view a 5-day weather forecast.

There is also a neat feature that allows to-be-buyers run a virtual demo before buying the thermostat.

With Total Connect Comfort, you can also receive system alerts when the thermostat senses that something is not right or if you need to make a filter change.

Overall, the app user interface is really functional, if not the best looking out there. It may not look as sleek as that of Nest and even feels a bit outdated… but where it matters most – convenience and ease of use – it delivers without fail.

Energy Monitoring

OK, so this is why the Honeywell Touchscreen thermostat is cheaper than Nest and Ecobee3.

While those thermostats provide extensive energy monitoring and reporting (with a monthly energy report provided free of charge in both thermostats), the Honeywell thermostat does none of that.

This unit does not monitor energy usage over time which means it also does not provide any kind of data to show you how your energy expenditure has been changing.

For a smart thermostat, the lack of even basic energy monitoring is disappointing. This is especially true when you consider that the biggest premise of the Honeywell thermostat is saving you money.

So if you are looking for a thermostat that will keep you up to speed with important energy usage data, look elsewhere.

Scheduling And Automation

Where it fails in energy monitoring, the Honeywell 1005/W1 makes up for it with convenient scheduling options.

Scheduling can be done either on the touchscreen or remotely on the Total Connect Comfort app.

You can schedule comfort levels by day and by the hour.

For example, you can set a specific temperature for 6am when you wake up during the weekdays and another for 8am when you wake up on weekends.

You can also set specific temperature levels for when you are away at work, when you come home in the evening and when you go to sleep.

Note that you will need to edit the default schedule programmed into the thermostat to set your own customized schedule. You can do this from the panel or your smartphone.

If you need to make a quick change outside of a set schedule, (e.g. when you are home on a weekday) just select the preferred temperature and then set the hold time. The thermostat will go back to the set schedule when the hold timer expires.

There is also a convenient vacation mode option that automatically maintains energy-saving temperatures until you come back.

Honeywell also adds a bit of automation to the normal scheduling feature. The thermostat learns how long it takes to get to the programmed temperature and then incorporates that time period in ensuring the temperature is where it should be at a set time.

For example, when you set the thermostat to get the temperature down to 65 degrees at 10pm when you go to sleep, it will begin cooling before that time. So when the clock hits 10pm, the temperature is already where it should be.

The Honeywell 1005/W1 may not be as intelligent as the Nest third gen or Ecobee3, but it performs well enough to make comfort control easy for homeowners.

Sensors

This is another area where the Honeywell 1005/W1 is not at par with other top smart thermostats. This unit comes with only basic sensors which deprives it of the kind of intelligence displayed by the Ecobee and Nest.

There are temperature sensors which measure room temperature, allowing the thermostat to control comfort levels optimally.

One important thing to note is that some customers say these sensors tend to read temperature at a slightly higher level than what you might see with other thermostats. This is because of how the sensors measure room temperature. But the disparity is not big enough to cause any major differences in comfort levels or energy expenditures compared to other thermostats.

A second sensor measures humidity. It measures moisture levels in the house and displays the readings on the home screen.

Smart Home Integration

Today’s smart thermostats are being designed with increasingly smart homes in mind.

The Honeywell thermostat has not been left behind in this cross-device functionality. It integrates with a variety of smart home devices including Google Home, Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa (through Echo).

You can also integrate this thermostat with Samsung SmartThings, Logitech, IFTTT, Wink and many other devices and services.

An easy way to check for integration when shopping for new gadgets and services is to look for the ‘Works With Honeywell’ logo.

Specs

• Measures 3.5 inches high, 4.5 inches wide and 7/8 inches thick.
• Weighs 8 ounces.
• Voltage: 30v
• Color touchscreen.
• 7-day programing schedule.
• Requires WiFi connectivity.
• Requires C wire (no workaround).

Bottom-Line

We selected the Honeywell 1005/W1 as our best touchscreen smart thermostat.

Despite lacking the smarts of other thermostats, the touchscreen interface is simply a pleasure to use. It responds well to touch and navigating around various settings is smooth riding.

It is also one of the best when it comes to scheduling flexibility to fit any lifestyle. The major gap is the lack of any type of energy tracking feature.

So if you’re just looking for a convenient modern thermostat and you’re not really into tracking energy consumption, then the Honeywell 1005/W1 is a great choice.  Otherwise, take a look at the ecobee 3 or Nest 3rd generation.