Honeywell Wi-Fi 7-Day Programmable Touchscreen Thermostat - RTH8580WF, "Requires C Wire"

Prior to this purchase I had never installed a thermostat and had zero knowledge of HVAC systems. I spent time reading online how to determine if this thermostat worked with my existing system (my AC equipment is 20 years old so I was quite worried), and I contacted Honeywell and confirmed my wiring setup with them before purchase. Honeywell responded quickly and confirmed my existing wiring would work with this, and told me what wires to connect where to make it work.Installation was very easy, and the only difficulties I encountered had nothing to do with the thermostat and more to do with my own wall mounting issues. I had to drill holes in our plaster wall to mount it, and drilling into old plaster always is scary as sometimes it just explodes, but I was able to install the included anchors without difficulty. Then I discovered my wires didn't have much slack to them, so I had a difficult time getting a couple of them into the wall plate because the Honeywell positioning on the wall was slightly off from where the old thermostat was installed.Once I got the wires connected I just followed the instructions and everything has worked perfectly since then. I did have to change some of the default settings, and the system they set up, while it works, is not intuitivive to anyone -- it absolutely requires the manual to make changes. I needed to configure it for my radiator heat (water/pump), and the "auto" temp control (which will switch between heat/AC to keep temp in a defined range) is not an option unless you make it available through the menus. I assume they did this not to confuse people, because even when the Auto option is available, it's still just a choice next to heat, cool, and off, so it's not as if you are FORCED to use it by enabling it.Setting up the WiFi worked but not as smoothly as I would have hoped -- I used my Macbook Pro to configure it, and the Honeywell website locked up while I was trying to finalize the setup, so I couldn't tell at first if it actually worked. It turns out it did set up correctly, but I could only tell that by looking at the thermostat and seeing that it showed a WiFi connection. Also I've noticed just when walking by the thermostat it seems to randomly at times telling me that it is connecting back to the WiFi when it should never have lost its connection. I have a fairly new and high-quality router that connects by WiFi to multiple devices, none of which just randomly lose their connections. It so far hasn't imapcted my ability to use the iPhone app, however, so I'm letting it go for now.The iPhone app is very nice, and they just pushed out a software update for it to add functionality, including a 5-day forecast. It does NOT let you program the daily schedule, but it does let you change heat/cool/off, fan, shows you current temp and set temp, and let's you change the set temp to something else.When you change the set temp you can make it a permanent hold, or a temporary hold to a specified time at which point it goes back to its scheduled programming at the next scheduled change. There is no vacation mode option in the app, but I honestly think it is not necessary -- when you're leaving you can turn the temp up at home or via the app, and since you can change it via the app you can set it to whatever you want before coming back home. I've tested the app both over WiFi at my house and WiFi elsewhere as well as around town over AT&T, and I always connect to the thermostat within 5 seconds.The thermostat itself does exactly what it is supposed to -- it gives an accurate temperature read, it has enough customization so we can program it how we want, it looks great on the wall, and it is easy to read regardless of the ambient light. I've read mention on the Home Depot website that people didn't like the plastic feeling or that you could feel a little give when pushing on it because of how it mounts to the wall plate. Unless you buy a Nest thermostat plastic is pretty much the choice of material, and and the give is VERY slight, and I have zero concern that it is not stable on the wall.Lastly I will say I ordered this the first day it became available on Amazon -- I think because of a pricing error I received it cheaper than intended, as the day after I ordered it the price on Amazon went from $99 to $199. So apparently I got this cheaper than most/all other customers, which just adds to my satisfaction. I did contact the selling company after installation because of potential problems after installation as I thought I had a defective unit (the WiFi connection issue and one unrelated thing that ended up not the fault of the thermostat). The company was responsive to my concerns and offered to ship another one out free of charge, but I ultimately told them it was not needed as I actually don't think the unit is defective.Overall for the price I think this is as good a thermostat as you can buy, particularly with the WiFi features and the solid quality of Honeywell behind it. It does not have all the features or awesome aesthetics of the Nest (which I almost bought), but it has enough features and a good enough appearance to satisfy 99% of customers at a significantly lower price.----------------August 2013 updateI've had this for a year now and am very thankful I purchased this and not the Nest. The smartphone app now lets me control everything of real importance, and the iPad app looks great. The Nest still looks slightly cooler and more futuristic, but this one does everything perfectly, and still looks good after a year of use. I've never had a single problem connecting remotely to this thermostat, and it does a great job of the core thermostat functions. Unless you have to have the Nest aesthetics, I can't think of a reason to buy it over this product.

*** UPDATE 4/24/2013 ***One of my thermostats suddenly lost communication with Total Connect Comfort. I had e-mail alerts set to notify me if this happened for over 2 hours, and today it did. I checked everything on my end and thermostat was still connected to my Wi-Fi network with full signal strength. I had been surfing the internet all afternoon also and had no connectivity problems on my end.I called Honeywell about the issue and the person who answered the phone put me on hold for about 10 minutes while he was researching the problem. When he came back, he asked me to remove the thermostat from the wall, wait about a minute, then re-attach it. Doing so caused it to re-connect to my network and then the connection restored itself in Total Connect.My question to Honeywell was why would it have lost communication in the first place, given that I show it connected with full signal strength and no connectivity problems on my end. He said it could have been weak signal from my router, which I assured him isn't the case and even if it was, surely it would have re-connected at some point within the 2 hour period that it claimed it couldn't communicate.I advised him that this is a deal-breaker for me, since this is the only reason I purchased these. If I have to remove/re-attach the thermostat every time this happens, then what do I do if I'm out of town and need to control my system and this happens? He had no suggestions, but said if he happened to find a solution he may call me back. I'm not counting on that though, as he didn't seem too concerned about it being a serious problem.I am going to return these and go back to what I was using, since I likely can't count on these being reliable for remote control. It's really a shame, given that when they work they are great!Sadly, I will have to lower my rating to 1-star, given the complete failure of remote connectivity and no way to remotely resolve it.*** ORIGINAL REVIEW ***I replaced my existing high-end White Rodgers 90 Series Blue touchscreen thermostats with these due to wanting the ability to monitor and control my HVAC system over the internet. This was a somewhat difficult decision, as my existing stats were very nice and feature-rich (just no WiFi).I swapped the stats with ease and had these up and running within minutes. The setup process was very easy; the thermostat becomes its own network, which you connect to in order to join it to your own network. The process is very simple; just connect to the thermostats network from a tablet or computer, open your browser and go to [...] You then select the network you what to connect it to and enter the password. It then connects and joins the network. You then create a total connect comfort account, which is different from a total connect account (for those who already have one this is useful to note). After you create the account, you can add locations and then add the thermostats by entering the MAC ID and MAC CRC numbers included with them, and also displayed on the top line of the display screen during this part of the process.The whole system work very well. I can control everything from anywhere, as well as monitor the temp. and set and change schedules. The interface is very nice and easy to use. The thermostats themselves are also nice looking and easy to read (not quite as nice as the White Rodgers, but still very nice.) My only complaint about the overall look of the screen is that the backlighting is not uniform across the entire screen; it appears to be brighter in the lower-right corner. Overall, it's not too bad though - I'm just spoiled by the beautiful blue backlighting I had on the White Rodgers 12 sq. inch touchscreens.I'm very happy with the temperature control that these provide, as well as the adeptive smart response technology, which is an improvement over most other stats. It maintains the setpoint within 1 degree, which is very nice. It also 'learns' how long it takes your system to recover to desired setpoint when changing from one schedule period to another and makes adjustments to pre heat or cool accordingly, making for better comfort.The stat also allows many installer configuration options. These require you to have the manual in hand to look up what the different numbers mean, as they correspond to each option. This is different from the White Rodgers, which you can program pretty much without the manual, especially once you've done it at least once.Also, these thermostats do not have programmable fan options (for some reason, which I can't understand since the fan is electronically controlled). I miss that from my old ones, which had AUTO / ON / PROG (which would run on 10 min / off 20 min if no call for heat or cool for one hour.) It also allowed the fan setting to be part of the schedule (AUTO or ON during specific schedule period).These also do not have any password lockout or temperature limit capabilities, but I no longer need that and having remote control is a better plus anyway.All and all, I would recommend these, especially given the quality and convenience they offer for the price.