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After a new round of testing, we continue to recommend our current picks. We have made substantial updates to this guide and included our test results. Ac Temperature Control
What’s so smart about smart thermostats? They not only ensure your home’s temperature is comfortable, but they also do that while saving money and—not coincidentally—fighting climate change by better conserving energy resources. And the smartest ones do all that automatically.
Our pick, the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, kept the temperature more consistently pleasant year-round than any other model we tested, likely because of its ability to calculate the effects of humidity on comfort. It comes with a remote SmartSensor, which balances temps in your home, and it has a built-in smart speaker for use with Alexa or Siri. Ecobee’s privacy policy is best in class, and the company still provides support for even its earliest years-old models.
Ecobee’s top-tier model comes with the best remote sensor we’ve tested, a built-in microphone and speaker, Alexa for voice control, and an air-quality monitor.
The smartest thermostat is also the easiest to set up using AI, but those extra brains come at a higher price.
Though not as sophisticated as our other picks, this thermostat works with a wide variety of HVAC systems, is dead simple to use, and is inexpensive.
One of the few smart thermostats able to control inefficient electric baseboard heaters, the Mysa uses scheduling, geofencing, and an “Eco” mode to help you save money and energy.
Not all smart thermostats work with all HVAC systems (most models don’t support electric heating). Before buying, check compatibility on your HVAC manufacturer’s website.
Many thermostats can even out temperatures in your home by relying on tiny, add-on wireless sensors you can place in trouble spots.
In addition to touch controls and smartphone apps, voice commands can adjust smart thermostats via a smart speaker that supports Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, or Google Assistant.
Enabling geolocation, which tracks the location of your smartphone, lets the thermostat know when you are home or away so it can adjust your home’s temperature to save energy. You can turn it off in a thermostat’s settings, but you may lose energy savings.
Ecobee’s top-tier model comes with the best remote sensor we’ve tested, a built-in microphone and speaker, Alexa for voice control, and an air-quality monitor.
Compatible with: Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings
Our top pick, the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, isn’t the absolute easiest model to set up, but it’s the best overall for eking out every last BTU of efficiency. It provides lots of settings to fine-tune your indoor climate, includes the smartest remote sensor around, can be tweaked by voice commands, and can play audio via a built-in Alexa smart speaker. In our tests, it was the hands-down best performer at keeping the whole house consistently comfortable. (The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Enhanced, which has fewer features, works just as well and has a far lower price.)
The smartest thermostat is also the easiest to set up using AI, but those extra brains come at a higher price.
Compatible with: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings
For a simpler setup, the Google Nest Learning Thermostat is the best choice because built-in AI does most of the work for you. It doesn’t come with a remote sensor (and Nest’s aren’t as useful as Ecobee’s) or have built-in smart-speaker capabilities, which some owners may not need anyway. And some users have found that they sometimes have to override Nest’s AI to optimize their comfort and energy savings.
Though not as sophisticated as our other picks, this thermostat works with a wide variety of HVAC systems, is dead simple to use, and is inexpensive.
Compatible with: Amazon Alexa, Ring
The Amazon Smart Thermostat may be basic, with simple controls and rudimentary AI, but it does what it does well, and for some people that makes it ideal. It can be configured to run on a timed schedule, or, using Alexa Hunches (Amazon’s term for Alexa’s AI-based learning feature), it can eventually learn your patterns and suggest customized settings. The one conspicuous missing feature we’d like to see is compatibility with remote sensors, which our top picks have.
One of the few smart thermostats able to control inefficient electric baseboard heaters, the Mysa uses scheduling, geofencing, and an “Eco” mode to help you save money and energy.
Compatible with: Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home
If you have electric baseboard heating (or another type of high-voltage resistance heating), the Mysa Smart Thermostat (v2) adds smart control to those inefficient units. (It isn’t able to control cooling systems.) To help save money and energy—as much as 26% of your annual heating bill, Mysa claims—it makes use of scheduling, geofencing, and an “Eco” mode that subtly drops the temperature without affecting comfort. As many electric baseboard systems require a thermostat for every room, which can add up to a hefty price tag, for multiroom setups you may want to consider the more affordable Mysa Lite, which performs the same but has more basic controls and fewer features.
Roy Furchgott has personally reviewed more than 1,000 pieces of consumer technology and more than 500 apps, including a wide array of smart-home devices. His work has appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, Forbes, and Wired.
A smart thermostat is a good investment for anyone who wants to trim their energy use and utility bills without sacrificing comfort. Our picks are all Energy Star–certified, which means that if used as intended, they will save at least 8% of your annual heating and cooling bill. And the manufacturers of the devices in this guide claim you can save even more than that—as much as 20% per year. (It doesn’t hurt that saving energy is good for the planet, or that energy companies frequently offer rebates and incentives to replace a traditional thermostat with a smart one.)
These internet-connected thermostats are also a boon if you travel frequently or own more than one home, since they allow you to remotely ensure your property is correctly heated and cooled, and at your preferred temperature when you arrive.
When you’re traveling, thermostats can be set for ultra economy at a temperature outside your comfort level and then reset to your normal desired temp for when you return. Some do this automatically with geofencing, which controls temperature settings based on your location.
Owners of rentals, vacation homes, or Airbnbs can make certain that guests aren’t abusing the HVAC system or that pipes aren’t in danger of freezing in unoccupied properties.
A smart thermostat also gives caretakers who live separately from their charges, such as elderly relatives, one more avenue to monitor their well-being.
There is also a useful safety aspect to smart thermostats. Models like the Google Nest Learning Thermostat can interact with smart smoke detectors and instruct the HVAC system to shut down whenever the smoke alarm activates, helping to thwart the spread of fire and reduce potential smoke damage.
While these thermostats are likely to increase comfort and still save energy, their ability to do so is highly dependent on various factors, such as your home’s geographic location, how well your home is insulated, what type of heating and/or cooling system you have, and how toasty or cool you like your environment.
One important caveat: The AI that makes a thermostat smart can suffer from one flaw for a particular minority of users. Thermostats get much of their savings by strategically adjusting the temperature set point overnight or when you leave home, a process called a “setback.” Doing that lets your home’s temperature drop in the winter and rise in the summer. In some cases, depending on climate and equipment, too much of a setback can end up causing some HVACs to run nonstop to get the home back to your desired temperature but never quite get there before it’s time to do a setback, which defeats the purpose. Fortunately, it’s a problem that’s easily addressed (more on that below).
There are dozens of Wi-Fi–connected thermostats that claim to be smart but in reality may be only internet-connected. We considered only models that have what we think are the most important features:
We preferred models with additional capabilities, such as:
Our primary testing goal was to determine whether each thermostat was able to make our home consistently comfortable. Then, we looked at the ways it would achieve that and whether they ended up saving energy. Our picks were connected to a heat-pump-based HVAC for a period of months in a roughly 1,500-square-foot, three-level home in the mid-Atlantic region. All of them were installed relying on the guides included in the companion apps. Adjustments were made as needed until the thermostats ran as autonomously as possible.
Ecobee’s top-tier model comes with the best remote sensor we’ve tested, a built-in microphone and speaker, Alexa for voice control, and an air-quality monitor.
The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium kept my 1,500-square-foot, three-level house more consistently comfortable than any other thermostat we tested, likely because the Ecobee Premium is able to use indoor humidity data when automatically adjusting the temperature set point (more on that below). It comes with a terrific remote sensor to help balance temperatures throughout your home. It also has a mic and a built-in smart speaker, which enables voice control. The Ecobee Premium uses AI to figure out when to heat and cool, and it has stylish glass and metal hardware. Ecobee also has a best-in-class privacy policy, and notably, the company still provides tech support for even its earliest models.
Installation was reasonably straightforward but not perfect. A phone app walked me through the process step-by-step. Our setup was simplified because it already had a “C” wire, or common wire, which is a constant power source required by most modern thermostats. The Ecobee Premium includes a C-wire adapter for those systems that don’t have a C wire already. If you are uncomfortable fiddling with tools and wires, it might be smart to hire a qualified installer—you can find one on the Ecobee website.
Ecobee learns your schedule and your home. As with the Google Nest Learning Thermostat, the idea with the Ecobee Premium is that you set your preferred temperature manually, then Ecobee’s Schedule Assistant learns your behavior over time. If it sees that you could save more energy, it will suggest a better Schedule for you, but those changes don’t happen automatically—you have to make them yourself. Ecobee’s webpage gives you insights and real-time updates about your energy usage and thermostat set points (which Nest doesn’t offer).
Similarly, Ecobee also learns over time how long it takes to heat or cool your house, a process it calls Smart Recovery. It then uses that info to adjust when it kicks on so that your house is at your preferred temperature right at your preferred time.
The Eco+ setting may be the most valuable feature. Yet, an Ecobee representative says it’s the most underused, too. When you enable Eco+ mode, the thermostat considers a room’s humidity when automatically adjusting the temperature setting to secure greater efficiency and savings. Here’s a little trick of psychology: The higher the humidity in a room, the warmer the air feels. The Ecobee calculates how the temperature feels (just like weather websites tell you what the outdoor temperature “feels like”). Then, it takes advantage of that phenomenon whenever possible by heating just a little less in winter and cooling a little less in summer. The result is that the Ecobee is able to eke out maximum energy savings without any sacrifice in comfort.
The room sensors are excellent. One remote temperature and presence SmartSensor is included with the Premium. You’re meant to place it in another part of your house to help even out heating and cooling across your home. Additional sensors can be bought separately, depending on your needs.
These 1.75-inch, squarish sensors can not only help even out temps throughout a house but also detect when there is a person present and, if you like, prioritize the comfort settings in that room. So if you are in a room that runs hotter than the rest of the house, Ecobee will let the temperature drop throughout that heating zone until the warmer room you’re in is at your desired temperature. (The same process works with cooling, as well.) The unobtrusive sensors come with little magnetic stands for setting them on a shelf, table, or bookcase, but there are a variety of mounting options.
Ecobee Premium is like an Amazon Echo Dot on your wall. The Premium is the only current smart thermostat with a built-in smart speaker, and the audio quality and microphone responsiveness are on a par with those of the third-generation Amazon Echo Dot. All of the standard Echo speaker features are here, including Alexa Calling, Messaging, and Drop In, so you can use your thermostat as you would an old-school intercom system. Notably, while you can listen to Spotify directly through it, you can’t use it as a part of an Alexa multiroom music setup.
You can also enable the speaker to work with Siri to accept voice commands directly and to act as an AirPlay speaker, including as part of a multiroom audio system. We haven’t tested that feature yet, but we will update this review when we do (Ecobee explains the setup process here).
If you aren’t interested in having a smart assistant like Alexa (or Siri) in your home, you can completely disable it in the settings of the Ecobee app.
The Ecobee Premium is all metal and glass. This adds a level of polish that is important to some device owners (even if it makes no difference in performance). The display shows the temperature, the weather outside, the time, and indoor air-quality scores. When indoor air quality drops, the Ecobee sends an alert telling you to open a window or turn on an air purifier. Ecobee was purchased in 2021 by Generac, an auxiliary generator company, and the thermostat can now display the operating status of the company’s generators, although it can’t control them.
Don’t need built-in Alexa or an included remote sensor? You might consider the more basic Ecobee Smart Thermostat Enhanced, which doesn’t include the speaker and mic, remote sensor, or air-quality monitor. It also has more modest plastic housing. Beyond those differences, it runs an HVAC system just as well as the Premium model.
The Ecobee Premium’s installation is like that of most thermostats, though we did experience connection issues at first. There are also some obscure technical questions during setup that may require research (“How is your reversing valve energized?”). We experienced voice-command issues both with Siri and when using the built-in Alexa. This may be a problem specific to me—no voice recognition of any kind has ever worked well for me. I also should have dug deeper into privacy settings initially. One time, Alexa gave a spoken reminder through the thermostat to rate a previous Amazon purchase. I don’t want Amazon nagging me through my thermostat. I turned that setting off.
The author of this guide, Roy Furchgott, has kept the Ecobee Premium installed in his home since we first made it a pick. And after an initial hiccup, he remains very pleased. “The Ecobee initially changed temperatures too drastically in an attempt to save energy, which backfired, causing my heat-pump-based system to run almost nonstop. After manually fine-tuning it to correct this issue, and nearly a year and a half of testing since then, it has chugged along without incident. On top of being trouble-free, its looks have drawn admiring comments from visitors.”
The smartest thermostat is also the easiest to set up using AI, but those extra brains come at a higher price.
The Google Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd generation) uses artificial intelligence to learn your household’s preferences and deliver energy efficiency with little effort from you. Remote sensors are available to help out, though they cost extra and, unlike our top pick, don’t include presence detection. The Nest isn’t hard to install, and even after a decade we think its design still feels fresh, like a take on the iconic thermostats of the ’40s.
Installation is straightforward, as long as your system is compatible and has a C wire for power. Although Nest says that its thermostat technically does not require a C wire in order to operate in most cases, not using it may risk damaging some types of sensitive modern HVAC systems. We recommend using the C wire if you have one available.
Google’s AI is top notch. As you adjust your temperature manually for the first week or so, it does a good job of learning your preferences. After that, the Nest takes the wheel. Where the AI really shines is in calculating how long it will take to bring your space to your preferred temperature. The speed at which your house heats and cools depends on variables like your HVAC type, your home’s insulation, and the local weather. If you want the house to be 68 degrees when you get up in the winter, the Nest calculates how much earlier to start heating when it’s 30 degrees outside, compared to the later start required by 45 degrees. (The Ecobee Premium has a similar feature, called Smart Recovery.) The Nest app displays the automatically generated Schedule, and it lets you adjust the temperature, switch settings and climate modes, and view a 10-day history.
The Nest can work with remote Nest Temperature Sensors. You place these white mini pucks in different rooms to better average out temperatures throughout your home. The more pucks, the better the averaging works. But unlike the Ecobee’s SmartSensor, Nest’s sensors don’t have the ability to notice when someone is in a room, so you have to go through the process of manually scheduling which room to prioritize at what time—like the kitchen in the morning, the living room during the day, and the TV room in the evening.
You can also control your thermostat with the Nest app, the Nest web portal, the Google Home app, or SmartThings.
Nest’s AI works out what is best on average—but not everyone is average. Like other smart thermostats, Nest realizes the most energy savings by leveraging “setbacks,” which is the term for intentionally letting your home temperature drop a bit extra overnight in the winter (and rise a bit in the summer). The Department of Energy estimates that you can save up to 10% annually with a setback of seven to 10 degrees for eight hours a day.
There is a potential issue with setbacks that some owners may face, which makes setbacks of more than a few degrees problematic. Because some heating systems, especially heat pumps and hydronic heating with radiators, can take a relatively long time heat up a space, if a setback is too large, they may end up running nonstop all day to get to their goal temperature, “thereby canceling out any savings achieved by lowering the temperature setting,” according to the DOE. One solution is to manually set up your Schedule; you could also limit the minimum set point.
Nest works especially well with other Nest devices. This includes security and doorbell cameras, as well as the Nest Protect smoke detector. For instance, in the event of a fire, it can automatically tell your HVAC system to shut down to prevent the spread of flames and smoke throughout other parts of your home, and your Nest cameras will grab video during the emergency. It’s an attractive feature few smart thermostats offer. (Ecobee can do something similar if you have a First Alert Onelink smoke alarm and integrate it with Apple Home; if you have a Ring Alarm system with an Alarm Smoke and CO Listener, you can manually create an Alexa Routine to do the same thing.) Nest also supports integration with Alexa-compatible devices.
The Nest is sleek. Its design pays homage to Henry Dreyfuss’s groundbreaking 1942 Honeywell thermostat. The Nest shows both the set and current temperatures, and it displays a green leaf when your settings are saving energy (a monthly report demonstrates how your savings compare to other “Nesters” in your area). Third-generation and later Nests can be set to show the time and date or the weather in a large font.
Though not as sophisticated as our other picks, this thermostat works with a wide variety of HVAC systems, is dead simple to use, and is inexpensive.
The Amazon Smart Thermostat offers spartan controls, rudimentary AI, and no remote sensors, but it’s functional enough at a bargain price that we think it’s worth considering for some people. It can be configured to run on a timed Schedule, or, using Alexa Hunches (Amazon’s term for Alexa’s AI-based learning feature), it can eventually deduce your patterns and suggest customized settings. One conspicuous missing feature is compatibility with remote sensors, which our top picks have.
Don’t fret the blank screen. The Amazon Smart Thermostat can be set to display the temperature at all times, or you can wake it with a tap. You can adjust the temperature with up or down arrows. You can also opt to use Alexa voice controls through compatible devices or the Alexa app on your smartphone.
Amazon’s thermostat is made by Honeywell. Tech support comes from Residio, Honeywell’s smart-home product division. Honeywell is among the most trusted brands in the HVAC world, which gives us confidence the device will last, and users should be able to get a hold of customer service if needed.
One small annoyance with the hardware, though: The thermostat switches on and off with an audible click. If, like me, you are especially sensitive to sounds, you may find it irksome.
Don’t do what we did, which is pause during installation. In testing, if I paused too long during installation, the app would force me to start the entire process over. (It is frustrating and tedious.) If you want to ensure that doesn’t happen, make sure to have details about your system handy so you don’t have to run around trying to find answers while beating the clock.
Amazon is greedy for personal data. The Alexa app requests access to far more personal data than is strictly reasonable, such as personal contacts. The good news is, you don’t have to agree to it; you can simply decline.
Similarly, the Alexa app will ask to know your location, but because it uses that for geolocation, you may want to keep that setting on (geolocation tracks when your smartphone is at home, to turn the thermostat up or down after you leave or return). Turning off geolocation is fine, but understand that it will prevent your thermostat from working as intended. You’ll have to manually change the mode using the app whenever you leave or return, or experience reduced energy savings.
One of the few smart thermostats able to control inefficient electric baseboard heaters, the Mysa uses scheduling, geofencing, and an “Eco” mode to help you save money and energy.
The Mysa Smart Thermostat (v2) is a line-voltage smart thermostat made specifically to control 120- or 240-volt electric heating systems, especially baseboard-style (it also works with hydronic electric baseboards, in-ceiling radiant systems, and in-wall forced fans). The Mysa is simple to wire if you’re replacing an existing thermostat, though it does require dealing with residential voltage lines, which can be dangerous. The Mysa app is easy to use, and the thermostat has a simple design with a subtle, dot-matrix-like display and capacitive touch controls.
Mysa also offers the lower-priced Mysa Lite (which has far fewer smart features and a less elegant interface) and a version for mini-split heat pumps. We hope to test them both soon.
Installation is simpler than with low-voltage models. That’s because the Mysa has just three wires to deal with. But you’re dealing with much higher voltage levels—as much as 240 volts, versus 24 volts with the Google Nest, Ecobee, and Amazon thermostats—so it’s imperative that you turn off your breakers and follow instructions to the letter. Installation took just a couple minutes, and setup using the app to create an account and integrate smart platforms like Alexa and Apple Home was equally simple.
The Mysa app provides multiple angles for managing your energy usage. If attempting to program a Schedule seems daunting, you can simply adopt an Energy Star–recommended workweek Schedule (which assumes you work in an office), which lets temperatures drop to 61 degrees while you’re away before kicking on again for your return. You can also create a customized Schedule using the setup wizard in the app.
Early Start is a terrific optional setting that should learn how long it takes for your heater to get your room to your preferred temperature and then, going forward, adjust your Schedule to make everything toasty right on time (it’s similar to methods used by both Nest and Ecobee).
And the Intelligent Eco Mode lets the Mysa make periodic half-degree temperature drops to boost your savings over time. The idea is that while you won’t likely sense the difference, over time the savings from small changes can add up to be meaningful.
You may be able to realize huge energy savings (Mysa says up to 26%) without having to deal with complex installs or management. Electric baseboard heating generally works by being all the way on or off, which for a typical 1,000-watt unit is about the equivalent of running a microwave whenever it’s on. Unlike other systems that are largely centralized, electric heating is handled room by room—each room has a heater and a thermostat—which makes it especially hard to manage in a way that is convenient or efficient. (Anyone who has ever run around a house tweaking the heating on or off, room by room, a few times a day understands that forgetting to turn one off leaves a sinking feeling—it’s like wondering whether you’ve left the stove on and are using paper money as fuel.) Being able to create a smart Routine that automatically turns the heat down on all the baseboard units in a house when you leave is a simple, powerful sanity saver. Similarly, having the heat come on everywhere a bit before you come home so you don’t walk into a freezing house is wonderful. And being able to program independent Schedules for rooms throughout a home is game changing.
Mysa delivers near-real-time reports of electrical usage. It directly measures the current that runs through it, letting you see exactly how much energy you’re burning—which, besides causing mortal panic, is a useful tool for figuring out ways to adjust your settings to find the best balance of comfort and savings. The app interface displays a running graph that you adjust to the day, week, or month; you can toggle between views of Usage, Ambient Temperature, Humidity, and the Setpoint.
We’ll concede that all but the most devout thermostat nerd probably won’t spend regular time digging into this data. But if you’re looking for ways to save—like a friend who bought a home and was floored after getting his first heating-season electrical bill of $900-plus—it’s extremely helpful.
The biggest drawback to a Mysa thermostat isn’t really its fault. Since electrical baseboard heating typically requires a thermostat in every room, putting in smart units throughout a home can quickly add zeros to the purchase price. One way to save is to use a single Mysa to control multiple baseboard units that are on a single circuit (provided the total load doesn’t exceed 3,800 watts). If you use multiple units, each requiring its own thermostat, you could also save money by using the less expensive Mysa Lite for secondary rooms (or look at Mysa’s bundle deals).
If you don’t want built-in Alexa: The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Enhanced performed as well as the Premium model in our tests, but it’s a lot less expensive because higher-end features are stripped out. It doesn’t have a built-in mic or an Alexa smart speaker, it doesn’t include a SmartSensor (they are sold only in pairs, for $80 to $100), the hardware is recycled plastic versus metal and glass, and it doesn’t have a built-in air-quality monitor.
If you don’t need remote temperature sensors: The Google Nest Thermostat is less expensive and simpler than the Google Nest Learning Thermostat. It doesn’t work as well, since it lacks AI to learn your heating and cooling schedule, and it doesn’t support remote sensors, either.
We intend to test the Mysa Lite and the Mysa Smart Thermostat for Mini-Split Heat Pumps & AC and will update this guide with our results. The Mysa Lite has buttons instead of touch controls and lacks a humidity sensor, energy monitoring, and the ability to be grouped with other units. The Mysa Smart Thermostat for Mini-Split Heat Pumps & AC is a smart solution to control not only mini-splits but also window and portable AC units. It’s not universally compatible.
We have tested a number of thermostats that we don’t recommend for a variety of reasons, such as performance issues. We’ve also dismissed models for having fewer features (or the same features but at a higher price), because they’ve been discontinued, or because they have security concerns.
Those thermostats include the Emerson Sensi Touch, the Lux Kono, the iDevices Thermostat, the Wyze Thermostat, and the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat.
This article was edited by Jon Chase and Grant Clauser.
Roy Furchgott has personally tried more than 1,000 pieces of consumer technology and more than 500 apps. Roy’s work has appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, Forbes, Outside, and Wired. In addition, Roy has won awards regionally and nationally for writing and regionally for photography.
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Inverter Ac Thermostat Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).