Proliphix Uniphy NT10e and NT20e TCP/IP Enabled Thermostats
In my search for ways to save money on home energy, I’ve tried a number of automated thermostat solutions. Most of them are pretty limited in that while they will let you set a schedule for the set temperature for your heating and cooling, they lack much flexibility if you want to get very customized. For example, the very cheap ones don’t distinguish between weekdays and weekends even though you are likely to have very different climate control needs between these two. The more sophisticated might add a weekend program, but again no way to distinguish between Saturday and Sunday, which might well be on different schedules for your household.
Even if you get a more sophisticated one that does separate the two weekend days, you have other headaches. For one, they can be a pain to program and if you let the battery get too low, they tend to reset themselves meaning time to program them all over again. Ditto if the battery is out of the unit for too long when replacing it. One other annoyance, at least for me is the hold button. This is a great feature if you want to lock in a specific temperature for a longer period such as setting your heat to 50 degrees while you are on your skiing vacation or something like that, but at least in my house, it is all too common for someone to use the hold button to lock in the temperature to increase heating or cooling for “just an hour or so” and then forget meaning that we burn a lot more gas and use a lot more electricity than we intended to do.
I have always been intrigued by the idea of the remote control thermostat that allows you to check and set temperatures without needing to be standing right in front of the thermostat. Since I’m a computer guy, the idea of being able to remotely access it via one of my computers or even better, over the Internet held a lot of appeal. I’ve admired some of the HVAC control systems that one sees in the higher end Home Automation rigs, but have generally been put off by the cost (thousands of dollars) plus the fact that most of the really sophisticated systems require that I hire a certified tech to come out and set it up for me.
I recently did a search for IP enabled thermostats and stumbled upon Proliphix’s web site. They make a line of TCP/IP enabled thermostats for home and professional use. I decided to pick one up and see how I like it. In short – I love it. For the home market (which is what this blog is aimed at), Proliphix makes three different models. The Uniphy NT10e and the NT20e are siblings in that they use the same casing, are both hardwired, and as far as I can tell, use the same interface. The $45 higher price for the NT20e model gains you the ability to add up to two hardwired remote temperature sensors that you can place in other rooms. The NT20e can then average the data from all three sensors (the two remotes plus the one in the thermostat itself) to adjust your heating and cooling to a consistent level throughout the house. Both of these thermostats are hardwired meaning that in addition to the standard HVAC control wires found on every thermostat, you will need to run a CAT 5 Ethernet cable to wherever you have mounted the thermostat. The Ethernet cable provides both data connectivity back to your LAN as well as power to the thermostat. The power, incidentally, is provided by an Ethernet Power Adapter – either the two port EPA20 ($45) or the six port EPA60 ($115) that can provide power to 2 or 6 thermostats respectively. The Ethernet Power Adapter is intended to be located near your LAN switch and plugs into both the switch and A/C wall jack to provide power and data connectivity.
Proliphix also offers a wireless model – the IMT350 which does not require hard wiring, but does require being placed on your wireless network which, depending on how secure your network is and how flexible the IMT350 is, could be more or less of a pain than the wired NT models. (Plus, the IMT350 costs $100 more than the most expensive NT model, which may be a factor).
Once you get it wired up, the thermostat will automatically pull an IP address from your DHCP server (or you can manually assign one). You can then either change most of the settings using the thermostat’s controls or choose to make your life easier and log into the web interface. The web interface is pretty decent, but it looks like it was designed by folks with little sense of aesthetics. It is obviously a Freshman effort and reminds me of some of the web interfaces you found on Wireless Access points ten years ago. While it gets the job done, one very lacking feature is context sensitive help. A reasonably sophisticated user should be able to get most of the basic stuff configured without help, but some of the options are relatively cryptic and you need to download the reference manual from the Proliphix web site to understand what they mean.
That said, you have access to a wide range of control. Proliphix provides three separate control themes that allow you to create three customized on/off schemes. It also offers a calendar view that lets you alter specific days of the month. For example, you could set up Labor Day Monday to have a different schedule than a regular Monday when when everyone is away at work or school. Another cool feature is the custom period for the Hold button. You can configure it to be permanent – ie: when you press the hold button, the set temperature will remain locked in until you release the button – or you can set it to work for a specific time period such as 1 hour. This means that if someone makes a “temporary” adjustment to the temperature, it really is temporary and reverts back to its programming after the hold period has elapsed.
One way that I see myself using the system, particularly in the summer is to program my thermostat to keep the A/C off while my family is away on vacation. I can then use the calendar mode to set the A/C to turn on a few hours before we get home on the day we are scheduled to return so that the house is nice and cool when we walk in. If our plans change – say we are going to stay an extra day- it is very easy to simply log in via the Proliphix web site and adjust the schedule to reflect our new return day.
Proliphix also offers a web site that, once you register your thermostat with, allows you to remotely log in from anywhere in the world to check and manage your thermostat(s). The Proliphix web site interface is identical to the one that you get when you log directly into the thermostat in your home, so there is no additional learning curve.
One final nifty feature is the programmable high and low temperature alarms. Once you have registered your thermostat with the Proliphix web site, you can program it to automatically email you if the temperature exceeds either the maximum or minimum temperature you specify. This can be a boon if you are away on a vacation and the heating system breaks down. The email would give you the heads up necessary to dispatch a friend or family member to your house to determine what the situation was.
All-in-all, the Uniphy series of thermostats is a good alternative to a full blown home automation package. That said, the product is not without its shortcomings, which we’ll discuss next.
First of all, as this thermostat does require a hardwired connection to your LAN, this means that unless you are putting it into new construction where you can easily wire things, you are going to be faced with snaking an Ethernet cable from your switch to the Thermostat. This may be a deal breaker for some, but snaking wires is generally not that hard and you can always pay an electrician to do it for you. Proliphix’s newer IMT350 connects to your wireless network and presumably does not require any kind of hardwired connection (other than the HVAC control wires).
Secondly, Proliphix has taken a hybrid approach to the Ethernet wiring. The Ethernet power adapter sports a standard 110 punch down block, which makes terminating that end of the Ethernet cable very easy. They even include a wire stripper and punch down tool in the box to make your life simpler (although I did choose to use the more robust professional equipment I have). On the thermostat end of things however, it got a bit stickier. All of the wires in the thermostat (HVAC control, remote sensor, Ethernet) are secured using screws. Now this makes sense for the HVAC control and remote sensors, but it does not make sense for the Ethernet wires. It was a real pain getting just enough Ethernet cable untwisted so as to get them all connected without untwisting too much (this could compromise the Ethernet connection). Once connected, you are all set, but it took me more than an hour of troubleshooting back and forth to get everything up and working. It would have been much simpler to have found the standard 110 punchdown block for the Ethernet inside the thermostat. This is the most serious of the nits I have to pick and while it does seem minor, you try explaining to your wife why the air conditioning is still off after a couple of hours on a hot day.
The third negative is the price. At $250 for the NT10e plus $45 for the non-optional 2 port EPA, you are into the system for close to $300 for the base model. This seems a tad high for what is essentially a $40 thermostat plus maybe $50 of networking hardware. Clearly you are paying a premium for the R&D. Granted, this is after all, not a device with mass-market appeal, so you are not going to realize any economies of scale on this one. Suffice to say, that trying to justify the cost on a pure ROI basis is not going to work, particularly when you compare it to the $45 programmable thermostat that offers most of the same functions. On the other hand, there is a premium that I am willing to pay for the enhanced program-ability and remote access features, so I’m not unhappy with my purchase.
If you are in the market for a smart device like this one, I highly recommend that you check Proliphix out. As soon as I can free up some cash, I’ll probably be picking up a second one for my upstairs HVAC system.