Orbit 83521 Clear Comfort Programmable Thermostat with Large, Easy-to-Read Display, White

Over the years, between my home and business, I have installed many thermostats in the past, mostly replacing older Honeywells with newer Honeywells. This time around the issue was the 5-2 days thing, I really hated to drive to the business Sunday night after extended Thanksgiving weekend (when thermostats are lowered) just to reactivate the thermostats for Monday morning. With the "I am mad as hell and I am not gonna take it anymore" attitude, I looked for thermostats which can handle 7 day schedule. And I was determined not to buy yet another Honeywells. So I found these and ordered 3 of them Saturday afternoon, they were shipped Sunday evening, I received them Monday afternoon and installed couple hours later. Everything went flawless, all 3 installations without a glitch. If another reviewer complains about clarity of instructions, then I would not know because I did not read them, the design is so intuitive that instructions were not needed. The programming was so quick thanks to the "copy all" function. The units look beautiful, 21st century, just the right size and buttons. Big digits with high contrast ratio. 3 AAA batteries are better than Honeywells' 2, higher display contrast, longer life. I have nothing negative to pick on. Well done!

Always used top brands for thermostats, this one looked very clear and bright display. Needless to say it's working perfectly. Easy to install.

We've been impressed with the ease of install of this thermostat right out of the box. We were able to use the same anchor holes the old thermostat used. Unfortunately this thermostat sits lower on the wall than the previous thermostat, so we'll need to do some spackling and painting to hide the exposed area (lesson learned - always remove the thermostat when you paint the walls). My 84 yo mother-in-law can be sitting 10 ft away on the couch and easily see the temperature w/o her glasses. The backlight only stays on for a few seconds after you've changed settings, and then it turns off, making the display a bit harder to read in a darker room. It would be nice if the programming had a 7 day setting for folks who don't need separate programs for weekday/weekend. I discovered the "copy" function about 4 days into programming the settings, and this made it much easier to set up for my elderly in-laws. One annoyance I did find while programming it was the setting function times out pretty quickly while you are setting temps and times, so if you have to pause and think about what you are setting, it times out and drops you out of the function within 3-5 seconds - way too fast. I feared I had to start over for that day I was programming, but I found it would save whatever settings you had gotten through before dropping you out. Give the user 10 seconds before it drops out of the feature and I'd be much happier. I also saw some folks complaining about hearing a 'click' when the unit comes on. You can hear it, but it's a muted click, and some folks might find that useful to know when the heat/AC is coming on. I see folks complaining about temperature 'swing' in their reviews of this unit, and another reviewer posted this very helpful info about accessing the advanced settings menu to address it (haven't tried it yet myself), so I'll copy his directions here in my review, too, as I believe this info is very important for folks who might experience this swing issue in use: "To access the advanced menu: 1. Slide the MODE switch to OFF. 2. Press RUN to wake up the thermostat and activate the back light. 3. Hold the RESET button. (This button is on the back of the thermostat where you installed the batteries.) 4. Press the SET button while holding the RESET button. (Do this fast! If you hold RESET for more than 5 seconds, it resets the entire thermometer to out-of-the box default values. If it does not work on the first try, release both buttons and try again.) 5. Release both buttons in less than 5 seconds. You should now see screen that displays "offset" in the upper right corner. Press SET to cycle through the advanced settings. OFFSET I found it helpful to increase the temperature offset by a couple of degrees. My thermostat is in the hallway where there are no heater vents. By the time the hallway reaches my desired temperature, the temperatures in the rooms with the vents are typically 2-3 degrees higher than the hallway temperature. EARLY START I left this off, but you can turn it on to have the heat start before the programmed time. I just programmed the start time to begin 15 minutes before I get home. SYSTEM TYPE Set to "F" for furnace, "HP" if you have a heat pump. MINIMUM CYCLE PERIOD According to the user manual: "Changing the minimum cycle period to six minutes or greater enables smart logic." Apparently the thermostat has some ability to learn the best cycle times for your system. They give a table in the manual for common cycle periods. I set mine to 12 minutes for a 1-stage furnace with an electric fan."

So, I bought this to replace the generic Honeywell thermostat I had been struggling with for years. ( Stupid little beige box with 2 toggles and one slider with an ambitious temp gauge. You know that bugger. And you hate it. Don't feel ashamed. It's a trash design. It's ok though. Read on.) It's getting to be that time of year again. I had a moment the other morning. Picture me. Groggily rising from my rest before the sun has even thought about starting this day. I emerge from my bedroom. It's cold, because the day prior, it was warm enough to not need heat. So you left it be. Clever chap, eh? It's Monday. It's 345 in the morning. I knew 2 things about the day so far: it was cold, and I needed to take care of the morning board meeting. A mad dash down the stairs, clad in only the skin I was born with (and... the skin that grew to cover my growth, of course). A tight turn onto linoleum floors. So cold. A slap of the ol thermostat and then a rush to the bathroom. It didn't have to be like this. I knew that. I had been holding out for my new thermostat. I had wanted one that had a full color display, iot abilities etc. But they were wants I had needs And now we are here. I've only just installed it on my arrival home from work. As you can imagine, after a 10 hour day at the plant, there isn't much I want to do but relax. I had a job though. 15 mins. One screwdriver. Done. Programming was super simple. Provided is a very well made booklet containing any information you might need for the device but yeah Here we go Rank time. 1-10. You know the drill Packaging 9/10 OI! That packaging was rugged. Absolutely beautiful presentation though Make a rip strip for easy access! Product Sexy/10 Let me not mince words: This thing is gorgeous. It just looks great. Slick, clean and modern. NICE! Programming 10/10 Responsive, easy to understand. This is some good stuff. Be up and running in 5 mins. Never have to touch the thing again This is a good product. I'm buying another one to replace my other thermostat. Which is also a beige vague box

The display is big and easy to read, and it has a backlight so you can read it even when the room is dark. The programming is pretty straightforward. There are 4 events for each day of the week. For each event you set a time and a temperature. Oh, and there are separate sets of events for heat and AC. You can copy from one day to another. So if, like me and I assume most people, your schedule is the same for all weekdays, you program Monday, and then you copy Monday to the rest of the weekdays, then deal with the weekend. It might be nice if there was a way to say "copy to the whole week" instead of day by day. But really, once you get it programmed once, you're probably not going to change it very often. You can even detach the control panel from the back so you can carry it to a table and sit down to program it if you're having trouble or need to think about it. Installation is pretty typical for a device like this. Different hvac systems can have slightly different wires, but for me, I had 4 wires: heat, a/c, fan, and ground. They have the screws labeled with abbreviations of the colors, like R for red and W for white. 3 of the 4 I had the colors matched the labels. Oh, you have to drill a couple of holes to attach it to the wall. They provide screws and anchors so that's not hard even for someone with my very limited carpentry skills. I've had it for maybe a month now and it's worked with no problems.

Nice and small and easy to install, a breeze to schedule for the whole week and you can just copy over from another day if you prefer. The screen is bright enough and is a slight blue/white hue with black text which should be easy to see. Buttons are easy to use and properly clicky, so you get proper feedback when you press them. While this is only intended for single stage thermostats, it will work with multi stage with it kicking into a higher mode after a few minutes. Make sure you set up the temperature difference for when it starts though before mounting it otherwise it will turn on and off every 5-10 mins trying to maintain a certain temp. You'll hear a very loud audible click when it does turn on.

Edit: Worked well for exactly six months. I posted this on Orbit's site: "The "Learning" function seems to have run amok. First few months the temp was maintained well (in TN in August), but for the last 3-4 months the A/C cycles on and off every three minutes! Our Aug. 2016 elec bill was $160; this year it's $220! Help!" and received an email stating From: Orbit Irrigation Products, Inc. <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 2:01 PM Subject: Your question has been moderated It cannot be published to the website, but.. — a8tomic, Our staff has read your question and values your contribution even though it did not meet all our website guidelines. Thanks for sharing, and we hope to publish next time! GREAT PR department, Orbit! My Original review: VERY cool looking t-stat. Looks like you paid $400. Well designed and made. Plenty big numbers and status indicators (it indicates by blinking while waiting to run while draft inducer runs and during compressor protection) for old eyes - no reading glasses necessary! My elderly parents' house had a regular Robertshaw they paid nearly $200 for (10 years ago) and they were always complaining about the 2 degree swing, which was not adjustable - only "cycles per hour" and that made it worse. This T-stat learned how to keep the house virtually the same temp (took about 4 days I guess), and they seem to think it runs less often than the old one (probably because they don't notice it - as it should be). This one does not have adjustable swing (almost a deal breaker but I'm very glad I tried it) but does have an improved version of the CPH and it really does learn to vary the swing in about a week. Could not be more pleased. I'd like to buy one for our house just for the looks, but I'll wait.... trying to wait... must... have... willpower...

Our old thermostat was a pain so I did a bit of research (meaning red the good, bad, and middle reviews) before ordering this one. We live near the Pacific Ocean so we have only a forced-air heater and no AC. I LOVED that I could install the three batteries and program the thermostat at a table instead of on the wall. I also really liked the "Copy from-copt to" function which allowed me to set Monday and copy that setting to each other week day with one click The display is nice and bright when any change is selected and dims nicely to a readable level after the change is complete. A very good price and really....do you need a $130 device?