I’m using a Honeywell Z-Wave thermostat with SmartThings. I have run into a few issues with this model.
I picked this unit because it has Z-Wave but also has an internal schedule. I programmed the internal schedule for the temperatures I want if we are home and I intended for SmartThings to handle adjusting the setpoints when we are away from the house.
When this thermostat receives a command from SmartThings, it goes into a “Temporary Hold.” This didn’t cause any problems for awhile but lately, the thermostat seems to inconsistently override this “Temporary Hold” with it’s own internal schedule. If it did this consistently, I could work around it. The inconsistency is the problem.
The thermostat supports an internal “energy saving” setpoint that can be triggered via Z-Wave. I have not seen anything within SmartThings that currently uses this feature. I am going to try to write an app that will do this.
I originally had this thermostat set up with schedules and connected to the ST hub. It takes a bit to get over doing things the “old” way. It’s like the old days of coding sequentially (Cobol, Basic, Fortran) and then discovering event driven languages like VB or C++, whole new ballgame.
I finally scrapped all the schedules and just set up ST modes to change the temp when I enter the bathroom in the morning (warm), my wife enters her bathroom (hotter) or we leave the house (cool). No more schedules, just based on occupancy - motion and presence.
Watch out for the setting in the thermostat that tries to intelligently schedule your temps, I believe it’s on by default. Didn’t catch the setting for a few days and I thought I was going crazy. The furnace would come on at the oddest times somewhere around my schedule but never exactly on time. I turned it off and the thermostat follows your schedules exactly on time.
I too found the best way is to disable the internal schedule on the thermostat. On my prior home automation system (Vera) I just re-built the schedule using Scenes (essentially Vera’s version of smart apps). On Smart Things, I use modes and presence so now it gets a little warmer in the day, a little cooler at night, and way cooler when no one is home.