:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/spr-best-programmable-thermostats-tout-7da30d217be741e19d20729e7ad05534.jpg?w=1920&resize=1920,1267&ssl=1 "We Tested Programmable Thermostats to Keep You Cool This Summer")
Don’t touch the thermostat—just get a reliable programmable one and let it take care of itself. Sure, you do need to first schedule when you want your heater and/or air conditioner to run, and check every so often that it’s still set to comfortable and efficient temperatures. But today’s best programmable thermostats are easier than ever to schedule, with the flexibility to heat and cool your home exactly how and when you want.
To help you find the right device for your situation, we performed comprehensive real-world tests on a selection of electronic digital thermostats, which are the more common thermostat type today over older mechanical counterparts. The options we reviewed included straightforward, low-frills programming capabilities, like weekly or daily scheduling.
We also looked at “smart” thermostats that use Wi-Fi connectivity to integrate with your smartphone, other gadgets, and various data points inside or outside the home. (I highlight our best smart thermostat picks in a separate article, including the model I use myself.) We’ve found internet-connected thermostats to be the most convenient and energy efficient, since you can control them through a mobile app or even let them make schedule adjustments on their own.
Each thermostat we’ve featured can be installed on your own if you’re comfortable with some wiring, and they’re generally compatible with most standard types of HVAC systems.
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Attractive touch display with colored backlighting
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Intuitive on-device and app controls
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Good compatibility with HVAC systems and smart platforms
With its impressive balance of design, user-friendliness, and connected features, the Sensi Touch Smart Thermostat for Copeland emerged from testing as our overall top pick. The touchscreen controls feel responsive and intuitive to navigate, making the programming process easier than with buttons and codes or a dial like Google Nest’s that can take time to get used to.
Available in black, white, or silver frame to match your decor, the Sensi Touch is a bit on the bulky side as far as wall units go. But that also means large temperature numbers we could easily see from across the dining room, aided by a backlight for readability during both bright days and dark nights. The light also changes colors so you can quickly tell if your system is heating or cooling.
As a smart thermostat, the device connects to your Wi-Fi network for mobile controls and detailed temperature scheduling, and we found the app very straightforward to use. We particularly appreciated how different users could all access the thermostat remotely from both phones or tablets, as well as geofencing capabilities that can automatically turn your system off and on when you leave the house or return.
Like most thermostats with high-end displays and internet connectivity, the Sensi Touch requires a common wire, or C-wire, to draw constant power, so check if that’s available to you or if alternative solutions may be needed. In general, the device is compatible with most HVAC setups, and it took us just over 20 minutes to install.
The smart features also offer wide compatibility with leading smart home platforms, including the less commonly supported Apple HomeKit. This model, though, doesn’t support remote sensors to check temperatures in other rooms—a newer, pricier Sensi Touch 2 is available with sensor options if that’s important to you.
Dimensions: 3.207 x 5.401 x 1.040 inches | Power Source: Hardwired (C-wire required) | Display: Touchscreen | Sensor Capabilities: Temperature, humidity | Smart Home Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings | Energy Star: Yes
Your Thermostat Can Lower Your Energy Bill
A thermostat’s energy-saving features, particularly on smart thermostats, can reduce monthly energy consumption by giving you opportunities to run your system less. Savings depend on a lot of factors, including your region’s climate. Areas with more extreme temperatures can see greater reduction in costs. Smart thermostats with their Energy Star certificate lead to average savings of 8 percent, or about $50 per year.
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Wi-Fi connectivity for remote app control
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Support voice commands and other functions through Alexa and Google
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Quite simple to install and operate
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No advanced energy-saving smart features
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Dated, non-touchscreen design
We found the model RTH6580WF thermostat from Honeywell Home an ideal choice for households wanting a simple climate control unit that still offers convenient wireless capabilities. Its more traditional digital thermostat design includes just a small, green-backlit display and a few buttons, but we’ve had no issues using or programming it over the past several years. The flexible 7-day scheduling supports four different temperature settings per day, with independent schedules for each day of the week.
Beyond the basic physical unit, though, the thermostat’s Wi-Fi connection opens many more modern possibilities, like controls through the Resideo mobile app that we found pretty fast and easy to use. You can also link it to the Amazon Alexa or Google Home smart ecosystems, allowing for voice commands and other integrations.
Our test household used Alexa as their main way of controlling the thermostat, and the platform’s “Hunches” technology has learned their temperature preferences over time, helping make up for the limited smart features provided directly by Honeywell.
Setting up the thermostat is also relatively simple, but we did call for professional installation of a new C-wire for our review unit. And while it doesn’t provide detailed energy usage tracking or efficiency suggestions through the app, Honeywell sends periodic e-mails showing energy use statistics and comparisons to previous years, which you could use to inform your own energy-saving solutions.
Dimensions: 3.5 x 5.75 x 1.5 inches | Power Source: Hardwired (C-wire required) | Display: Digital | Sensor Capabilities: Temperature | Smart Home Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Home | Energy Star: Yes
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No day-to-day scheduling or smart features
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Less intuitive to program than touchscreen or app interfaces
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Can be hard to read with no backlight
If all you need is a thermostat you can set to a single schedule for the whole week and leave alone, we found the Honeywell Home model RTH221B great for just that. It held temperatures accurately during our testing, and you can program different cooling/heating settings for when you wake up, leave the house, return home, and go to bed.
As you’d expect, the simple device is simpler to install than more complex smart thermostats. It runs on a pair of replaceable AAA batteries with no C-wire needed, so all you have to do is connect the standard HVAC wires; clear instructions and label stickers for the wires made the process quite painless. We did struggle a little bit with fitting the unit onto the backplate, and since it’s smaller than the old thermostat it replaced, it left some unpainted wall around it that will need to be addressed.
With no Wi-Fi or smart functions, you don’t need to do any other software setup or connect to any online accounts. The lack of an app or touch display, though, means you need to use the few buttons and small digital readout for all your initial programming and changes in settings. We managed just fine with the user manual, but it wasn’t intuitive enough to figure out on our own. The lack of backlighting also makes the display somewhat difficult to read in low light.
Dimensions: 3.38 x 4.75 x 1.11 inches | Power Source: 2 AAA batteries | Display: Digital | Sensor Capabilities: Temperature | Smart Home Compatibility: None | Energy Star: No
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Effective, user-friendly controls and scheduling
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Works seamlessly with Alexa and Ring gadgets
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Nice value for a smart thermostat
The Amazon Smart Thermostat impressed us with its attractive look, energy-saving potential, and overall accessibility, available for a lower price than many of its high-tech thermostat competitors. Built on dependable hardware from Honeywell Home, we liked the device’s minimalist design and touch-sensitive controls, with display brightness you can adjust through the app.
Installing the thermostat took us between one and a half to two hours, which we considered reasonable given we needed to configure a C-wire adapter accessory (not included) to meet its power requirements. The package provided clear instructions and a QR code to help connect to Wi-Fi.
Once you’re logged into your Amazon account, it’s very easy to sync up with other smart products from both Alexa and Ring (another Amazon-owned brand known for its wireless doorbells and security cameras).
Besides letting you control your cooling and heating through the app or voice commands, we found Alexa’s Hunches especially useful in automatically adjusting our temperatures when it noticed that everyone might be out of the house or asleep for the night.
Even without the most advanced AI or eco-smart technologies built in, we were able to keep an eye on our high consumption periods through the usage data we started receiving after having the thermostat active for a certain amount of time.
Dimensions: 3.56 x 3.56 x 0.84 inches | Power Source: Hardwired (C-wire required) | Display: Digital (with touch buttons) | Sensor Capabilities: Temperature, humidity | Smart Home Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Ring | Energy Star: Yes
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Distinct circular dial with upgraded display
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Energy-saving machine learning features
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C-wire often not required
Google’s Nest Learning Thermostat, in its 4th iteration, is still one of the most widely recognizable smart thermostats around. You navigate by rotating and clicking the disc-shaped device, which is now slimmer with a larger, crisper display. Its customizable “Farsight” feature lets you see basic info like the temperature from farther away, then switches to a more detailed readout when you get close; we had it show the date, time, humidity, and a summary of the weather outside.
While it’s certainly still a programmable thermostat, a big selling point of Nest’s “learning” model is its intelligent scheduling technology that can “learn” your daily habits and temperature preferences after about a week of use. You can have it optimize your heating/cooling schedule automatically, or give you suggestions that you can accept or reject (an option that wasn’t available with the older Nest Learning Thermostat I’ve used in the past).
Other eco-conscious functions we appreciated include adapting temperatures based on humidity, and weighing whether natural heating or cooling from sunlight or windows can help cut back your usage. Nest rewards energy-saving activity with “Leaf” symbols in its reports, and offers some incentives for coordinating with your utility provider during peak times.
Another helpful innovation in the thermostat’s design is a built-in battery that recharges itself, removing the need for a C-wire in most cases and giving us a quick 10-minute installation in our review setup. And, since we tested in a household of Google users, integrating with phones and various devices was very smooth. Our unit also came with two remote temperature sensors that helped balance temperatures in other rooms in the house.
Dimensions: 3.9 x 3.9 x 1.1 inches | Power Source: Hardwired (C-wire required in certain cases) | Display: Digital | Sensor Capabilities: Temperature, humidity, proximity, light | Smart Home Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Nest | Energy Star: Yes
Other Options We Recommend
While we have not hands-on tested the following products, these two stood out in our research as strong options to consider. The Copeland ST55 model doesn’t boast a flashy touch display like our overall best pick does, but it’s still easy to navigate through its traditional button interface and clear LCD screen.
It’s similarly simple to install, with no C-wire required for most conventional HVAC configurations. The thermostat can connect to Wi-Fi and benefit from the same Sensi app and smart features as its higher-end counterparts, including remote programming, home/away activation, and historical usage reports.
The Honeywell Home T5 (model RTH8560D) represents some of the most premium design and functionality you’ll find in a programmable thermostat without smart features.
It has a modern look, a cool bluish backlight, and a touchscreen that lets you tap through the menus and settings. It offers flexible 7-day scheduling, and “smart learning” that activates your heating or cooling early so it reaches your desired temperature right at the time you programmed.
Final Verdict
The Copeland Sensi Touch Smart Thermostat is our overall top pick for a programmable thermostat, giving us a big, intuitive touch display, a convenient app for scheduling and controls, and a nice set of smart features to help us save on energy and utility costs. We also liked the flexible and effective Honeywell Home Wi-Fi 7-Day Programmable Thermostat as another Wi-Fi-equipped model with strong smart integration potential, but with a more traditional design, simpler interface, and lower price tag.
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How We Tested the Programmable Thermostats
Our insights for this article came from our real-world tests on thermostats, reviewed over a combined total of 2,016 hours. We picked products from dependable brands, leaning toward models that were widely available for residential use and geared toward DIY installation.
Each household had the option of hiring a professional for setup if they wanted, but for all the products that made this list, our reviewers were able to handle the primary installation themselves without much issue.
After mounting and wiring all hardware components, we documented the process of connecting to Wi-Fi for our internet-enabled thermostats. We set up the associated mobile apps and linked to compatible smart platforms that the household was using, such as Alexa, Google Home, or Apple HomeKit.
Some of the key considerations in our reviews included how accurately the thermostats held the temperatures we set, how flexible the scheduling options were, and how easy or difficult it was to program. For smart models, we gauged the usability of the apps, the availability of usage reports, and any other advanced features meant to help save energy.
What to Look for in a Programmable Thermostat
Research Reliability and Scheduling Capabilities
Modern digital thermostats should be able to maintain temperatures accurate to what you’ve set, with more precise temperature readings than older manual thermostat types. More importantly, programmable thermostats let you customize your heating and/or cooling schedules to suit your preferences for different times of the day or different days of the week, depending on the device’s complexity.
Two of our picks from the same brand demonstrate the range of flexibility you might find on programmable thermostats: our best value model, the Honeywell Home Wi-Fi 7-Day Programmable Thermostat, allows for a separate individual schedule for each day of the week, while our best basic option, the Honeywell Home 1-Week Programmable Thermostat, will run the same schedule every day. Both support four time periods within each day, so you could set your system to run less when you’re out of the house or asleep.
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Other types of basic programmable thermostats you might see are 5-2 thermostats where you can set a different weekend schedule versus the weekdays, or 5-1-1 models that have separate Saturday and Sunday programming. With smart thermostats, you can usually program much more detailed and customizable schedules through the phone app.
Think About Compatibility With Current HVAC System
The thermostats we tested in this batch were designed for wide general compatibility with most common types of forced-air heating and cooling systems. These are low-voltage thermostats that run on 12 to 24 volts and connect using a set of thin electrical wires. They’re typically also compatible with heat pumps and radiant heat systems, and most support both single-stage and multi-stage equipment, but check the compatibility details of the models you’re considering to be sure.
These types of thermostats are generally not compatible with line voltage systems like baseboard heaters and other electric heaters, which draw from high-voltage 120V or 240V circuits you might use for larger appliances. You’ll need dedicated thermostats for these and other specialized HVAC cases.
Another important compatibility consideration is whether the thermostat requires a common wire, or C-wire, which is often the case when you need to power a touchscreen or Wi-Fi features. An older home may not have a C-wire at the thermostat location, so you’d either need an electrician to install a new one, or possibly add a C-wire power adapter if it’s available for your device.
The Google Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen), our best design pick, is a rare case of a smart thermostat that doesn’t need a C-wire in most cases because it sports an internal battery that charges itself.
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Understand Installation Needs
In most cases where you’re replacing an existing thermostat with a new one, installation can be fairly straightforward. You’ll first need to make sure electrical power is completely shut off from your HVAC system. Then, when you remove the old unit, you’ll want to take a picture of the wiring and/or label each wire; some products come with labels you can stick on.
This way you can keep track of exactly where the wires should go on the new device. You’ll also need to physically mount the unit to the wall, which may include drilling new holes for drywall anchors and mounting screws.
For many of our test thermostats, installation was hassle-free and took less than 30 minutes. Our best smart pick, the Amazon Smart Thermostat, took longer because we needed to install a C-wire adapter at the furnace, but it was still possible as a do-it-yourself project.
We were also guided along by easy-to-follow instructions, step-by-step online videos, and QR codes for getting connected to Wi-Fi.
Standout Features
Programmable thermostats can be very basic and still serve their purpose, but more premium models may include a number of advanced features:
- Touchscreens: A high-end touch display helped the Copeland Sensi Touch Smart Thermostat earn our overall best recommendation, since it makes controlling the thermostat and programming schedules a lot more intuitive for most users. A backlit, high-resolution screen also tends to be easier to read and nicer to look at as a fixture on your wall.
- Geofencing: Custom programming really starts saving energy when you can set additional rules for when your system should run or not, or having a device that can learn these instances on its own. Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats often include geofencing technology to detect when your connected smartphone leaves or enters within a certain perimeter around your home. The thermostat can then turn your system down when it senses you’re away, and kick it back up when you’re back home.
- Remote sensors: For larger homes in particular, remote temperature sensors can monitor temperatures in rooms far away from the thermostat unit that might not be getting adequate heating or cooling. Thermostats that support room sensors can factor in those areas and balance your system’s operation accordingly. Some sensors additionally detect your presence or motion to know whether that room’s temperature needs to be considered or not.
Why Trust The Spruce?
Anton Galang is a writer for The Spruce with particular expertise and interest in home technology. In addition to this article and our piece on the best smart thermostats, he has also covered fridges, door locks, cooktops, and various other smart gadgets.
In writing this article on programmable thermostats, he analyzed and incorporated the insights from our real-world testing, combined with his own research and experience. He previously used an early-generation Google Nest Learning Thermostat and currently has a non-learning Nest model in his home. Both versions have served well in keeping comfy temps through the wild swings of Chicago weather, as well as keeping the rest of his family from fiddling with the thermostat.