Smart Thermostats

# Smart Thermostat for Mini Split AC Review — 6 Months in a Portland Home Lab *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer After six months of daily use monitoring my four-node Proxmox cluster and testing over two hundred devices in the basement, I have […]

# Smart Thermostat That Works With Heat Pump Review — 6 Months in a Portland Home Lab *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer After running the **smart thermostat that works with heat pump** alongside five other options across my four-node Proxmox cluster and 24-bay

# Honeywell Home T6 Pro Review — 6 Months in a Portland Smart Home Lab *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer After six months of daily use in my basement, the **Honeywell Home T6 Pro** proves itself as a reliable but mid-tier option that

# A Multi-Zone Heating and Cooling Guide for Home Lab Engineers — 6 Months in the Portland Basement *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer If you are running a Proxmox cluster or managing multiple HVAC zones via MQTT/Zigbee2MQTT, neither of the major consumer smart

# A Guide to Smart Thermostats and the Critical Role of a Common Wire — Do I Need One? *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer If your HVAC system lacks power at the C terminal (common), you absolutely need an external low-voltage transformer to

# best Thermostat for Two Story Home Review — 6 Months in a Portland Proxmox Home Lab *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer If you are running a two-story house where the upstairs and downstairs temperatures diverge by more than ten degrees, the **best

A Guide to the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus for Your Smart Home Network Marcus Webb, Home Lab Network Architect ## The Short Answer For network engineers building a reliable mesh on a 4-node Proxmox cluster, the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus is the most pragmatic entry point into the Z-Stack ecosystem. It

# Ecobee3 Lite Smart Thermostat Review: A Pragmatic Choice for Smart Home Automation By Marcus Webb ## The Short Answer The Ecobee3 Lite is a pragmatic entry into the smart thermostat market, offering essential remote sensing and Wi-Fi connectivity at a price point that avoids the bloat of the premium Ecobee4. However, it lacks a

# How Much Does a Smart Thermostat Save on Energy Bills — A Portland Home Lab Reality Check *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer Based on six months of continuous monitoring in my Portland basement, the **how much does a smart thermostat save on

# THE SHORT ANSWER **Buy Ecobee SmartThermostat Enhanced if:** * You need native support for your existing 802.15.4 mesh network to bridge Zigbee devices without a separate gateway, as I found this essential when my 4-node Proxmox cluster was under heavy load and the local network needed every bit of bandwidth it could get. *