There are ever more aspects of comfortable living that can now be more easily accessed remotely, either by voice command or smartphone. Thermostats are definitely not lagging behind in this respect, and the Sensi smart thermostat is one which successfully combines the feel and functionality you’re used to with more sophisticated technology. In this article we’ll guide you through Emerson Sensi UP500W Review.
Review: Features of the Emerson Sensi Smart Thermostat
The App:
By far the best feature of the Sensi smart thermostat is, unsurprisingly, Its App. There’s the standard option of using your phone as a remote from anywhere, but a few other features make using this thermostat that much more practical.
Geofencing:
The first is so-called geofencing. This feature relies on your smartphone’s GPS system to determine its position. Once it’s on and the phone is not in your home, the thermostat will turn itself off or adjust the temperature to use less energy.
Once the phone enters a certain radius, the thermostat will spring to life once again, making the temperature ideal just before you arrive.
The second app feature is weekly scheduling. This gives you nuanced control over its temperature settings for each day of the week.
Standard settings for more conservative use during weekday mornings comes as a preset, but adapting it or creating a custom schedule that’s more in line with your family’s weekly habits is easy to accomplish.
The manufacturer went so far as to give you the option of disabling analog input and relying only on the app, which is handy if you’re going away for a while and don’t want someone who is house sitting to fiddle around with the temperature settings.
Installation Process:
Installing this thermostat shouldn’t take you longer than 15 minutes since everything about it is easily understood and laid out logically. Even if you encounter problems along the way, the app features both instructions and a step-by-step video tutorial that should to be enough to help anyone out. It can be connected to many HVAC systems and doesn’t require a common wire.
You might like our guide about “C-Wire”.
Appearance-wise, the thermostat looks appealing and shouldn’t be out of place as a replacement for your old one. Its soft contours and white color go well with the pleasant light blue color of its light-up screen.
Temperature Adjustment:
It has a functional overview of the device’s battery and Wi-Fi status, current and desired temperatures, as well as its modes of operation.
Some other smart thermostats have trouble with temperature fluctuations. This product makes accurate readings of the room and keeps the ambient temperature steady.
Whenever you feel that it needs adjusting, setting a new temperature in 1-degree increments is both precise and easy to do.
To give the thermostat even more of a high-tech feel, integration with Amazon’s Alexa as well as Google Home & Assistant is present, allowing for complete control of its features through simple voice commands.
With smart functionality comes unique related problems. In this thermostat’s case, it’s the fact that it doesn’t have its own internal server, relying on a cloud service instead.
This means that if ever the service is to go offline, your thermostat’s smart features become inaccessible. Naturally you can still adjust everything, including the weekly scheduling, manually via the console, but you won’t be able to program it remotely in that case.
The Wi-Fi antenna built into it isn’t very strong either. If your router is close to the thermostat there are no problems, but the farther removed it is, and especially if it’s on a different floor, the choppier its connection will become.
[easyazon_image align=”center” height=”500″ identifier=”B01N0GV37T” locale=”US” src=”https://greatsmartgadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/41I7I4sZ1fL-1.jpg” tag=”gsg066-20″ width=”500″]Pros
- Very easy to install and set up with excellent guidance from the app
- No need for additional wiring in most cases
- Weekly scheduler and geofencing features provide a great deal of micromanagement potential and have a positive impact on keeping energy costs low
- Analog display is big and straightforward so every family member can use the thermostat effectively
- Round-the-clock support that efficiently deals with any issues you might have with the thermostat
Cons
- Wi-Fi connection can be dodgy, depending on how far away your router is
- The thermostat’s smart features are completely dependent on the company’s cloud network – if that fails, so do they
Conclusion
The Sensi smart thermostat is a good example of a hybrid of a more traditional form with cutting edge functionality. It’s great that you can keep an eye on all of its fine points through your smartphone and still have a grandparent be able to use it intuitively as we guided you through our review of Emerson Sensi Thermostat UP500W.
As smart thermostats go, it’s actually quite affordable while not lacking in any major functions. If you take into account that everything about it is designed to automate energy efficiency and run when you’re around, its value becomes even more apparent.
Easy installation, helpful 24-hour support and a green approach to comfortable living are the icing on the cake, making the Sensi Smart Thermostat a modern convenience well worth investing in.