Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95793 in Home Improvement
• Brand: Honeywell
• Model: YRTH6300B1007
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.23 pounds

Features

• For use with central gas, oil, or electric heating and cooling or single stage heat pumps
• Soft-touch keys
• 2 by 8.2 by 9.2 inches
• 1.3 pounds

Amazon.com Product Description
Installing a programmable thermostat can save you hundreds of dollars in heating costs each year. These devices allow you to tell your furnace exactly when you want it to turn on and off, and they help you strike a balance between comfort and economy.

This model from Honeywell is fully programmable. It features four independent time zones per day, which means you can set it to heat to a certain temperature when you wake up, shut off when you leave for work, turn on again before you come home, then lower the temperature while you sleep. Each day is programmed separately, so you can change the settings for the weekend, for example.

If the word "programmable" makes you nervous, don't worry-the menu-driven software is very easy and intuitive to use. Note that you will have to hardwire the device to your power supply and to your heating unit-this isn't hard to do, but make sure you read the instructions thoroughly before you start.--Josh Dettweiler

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Great value, but documentation and support are awful
By Douglas Vanderweide
This thermostat is a vast improvement over the old-school mercury-switch thermostat it's replaced. But I am severely disappointed with Honeywell's installation guide, Web support site and telephone support.

This was the cheapest electronic thermostat I could find that was back-lit.

It's very easy to program, and the setup steps couldn't be more straightforward: Remove the mechanism from your old thermostat, label the wires (with the included labels) based on the wiring diagrams in the documentation; remove the old thermostat plate from the wall; install the labeled wires, according to another diagram, into the new thermostat; mount the new thermostat plate to the wall; plug in the face plate; follow the instructions to set up your thermostat and program it.

If only it were that easy.

Two install guide drawings showed two different wiring labels. The only things the drawings agreed upon was that I should connect only one wire to the new thermostat -- which was clearly wrong, and proven when I followed both instructions; the furnace turned on but wouldn't shut off.

So I called the Honeywell telephone support number, was told there was an unusually high call volume, and then Honeywell HUNG UP. I tried a couple more times: Call volume too high, try again later, CLICK.

The included CD-ROM is mostly an advertisement for the product and other Honeywell controls, and its "interactive" install guide had the same bad instructions as the printed manual. Honeywell's Web site contains only a PDF version of the printed install guide; no other mention.

I eventually made contact via phone, an hour later and after 20 minutes on hold, with an overseas operator. He explained: On a two-wire oil furnace system, you need to connect one wire to the R terminal and another to the W terminal. It doesn't matter which wire goes where, but both need to be connected.

Once I had that information, everything went smoothly. The other two thermostats took all of 10 minutes to install, set up and program.

So far, the furnace is kicking in far less often and the temperature in the house is considerably more consistent. It's too soon to say if it's going to save us money, but we need only use 40 fewer gallons of heating oil this winter -- about 5 percent of our seasonal use -- for these thermostats to have paid for themselves.

So I am very pleased with the units, but wish Honeywell would have done a better job documenting the installation, or at least made more help for this unit more readily available.

Some more notes about the RTH6300B:

-- You can program this unit to set a given temperature when you wake up; then change the temperature when you go to work; then change the temperature again around the time you return from work; and change the temperature once more when you go to bed.

The 5-2 program means, one group of these time settings you can run from Monday through Friday; and a second set you can run on Saturday and Sunday.

You don't have to use all these cycles; you can set just a basic temp for the morning and use it all day. All the other time changes are optional. So, if you don't want the temperature to change much on weekends, you can just set the morning temp; if you actually work Wednesday through Sunday, you just lie to the unit and set it fast a couple of days.

You can override the temperature program at any time and adjust the temperature accordingly.

-- Although I am using these units to control a simple oil-fired hot water baseboard heating system, the unit can handle oil, gas, electric, central air and most heat pumps; it can control fans, vents and more so long as those are integrated into your HVAC system. However, it will not work with your system if your current thermostat / heat control has more than five wires.

-- You will need a flat-head jeweler's screwdriver for installation (the wires fit into a terminal block); most dollar stores sell jeweler's screwdrivers. Or, if you have an eyeglasses repair screwdriver, that should work just fine, too.

-- The unit itself comes with anchored mounting screws, so lack of studs isn't an issue. However, the thermostat is wider than a standard housing stud, so keep that in mind.

-- It operates on two AA batteries. If you're handy, you could easily hack this with a low-amperage 3V transformer (available at any Radio Shack) to wall-power the unit.

According to the documentation, there is an audible low-battery alarm; I've owned my units four months, and the batteries are still going strong.

-- Another reviewer noted that the clock loses time; my units lose about two minutes a month. I see this as the smallest of annoyances, given that the program doesn't need to be all that accurate and correcting the time takes all of 10 seconds.

-- Another reviewer noted that the unit makes an audible click when switching. It's about as loud, and long, as the "pop" made when you take the lid off a vacuum-sealed jar.

-- Because the unit is battery powered, the back light only works for a few seconds after pressing a button (that is, it's not always back-lit).

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
intuitive to use, thoughtful design
By C. Park
This thermostat functions just as a programmable should. It is easy to program, all the key info is on the display, and it's easy to enter "hold" mode and such, when you need to deviate from the program.

Its intuitive design also makes it easy for me to quickly instruct others on its use. My elderly parents have no problem quickly understanding the operation. I replaced a Hunter due to this ease-of-use issue and I couldn't be happier with the Honeywell.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Works Great!
By PCamp
I installed the Honeywell Electronic Focus Programmable Thermostat without a problem. Total installation time took about 15/20 minutes. The unit looks really good and the backlit display is great! I also like the fact that it displays both the current temperature inside the house as well as the set temperature. I only have two complaints with this unit. As others have said, when the thermostat needs to turn my central air on, I hear two clicks coming from the thermostat. I suppose I will get used to this over time, as it's not as noisy as my LUX thermostats for the individual heat zones. My second complaint is not really a major one, but I just wish there was a way to program the unit to disable heat. This thermostat in my home will only operate the central air, so when I click the button to turn the system on, it does go to the cool setting first. But when I want to turn the unit off, I have to press the system button twice because the second time you press it, it goes to heat, then the third time goes to off. The instructions include ways to disable the AC and a couple of other scenarios, but none of them allow you to just have the thermostat function for cooling only. So if you're only going to use this unit to operate heat and nothing else, you'll be ok as you can disable the cool setting. Another feature I do like that I forgot to mention before is that when you use the "hold" setting, it will remember the last temperature you had it set for even if you turn the system off. To sum this up, if the clicking sound won't be an issue for you, I would highly recommend this thermostat. I also should mention that I have had no issues at all with the unit keeping the time, as one other reviewer mentioned.