Honeywell TH8321R1001 Vision Pro 8000 Programmable Thermostat - White - Smart Home Temperature Control for Energy Savings & Comfort - Perfect for Homes, Offices & Apartments

I was torn between this thermostat and the redesigned Honeywell Prestige (yes, redesigned is newer than Prestige 2.0, took me a while just to figure that much out). Both are 'pro install' which seems to mean that Honeywell doesn't publish a lot of information to make it easy for consumers to compare.. I thought the install was very easy.Besides the display, I found the features to be pretty much identical. I chose the Vision Pro 8000 because I liked the option to wire directly to the furnace or use an EIM. The new (redesigned) Prestige models are limited to 2 wires for power and use wireless for all communications. This is great if you don't have enough wires and can't easily pull a new cable. But I worry that Honeywell can't predict all the toys my neighbors will install over the next 20 years and one day I'd come home to frozen pipes because some new wireless band took out the communications and never switched on the furnace.I found out later that the Presitge models can fall back to using the duct sensors connected to the EIM to keep the house from freezing if the communications drop out. Good feature as long as you install those duct sensors - which a fair number of Amazon reviewers seemed not to bother with.Overall I've been pretty happy with the Vision Pro 8000. I added an outdoor sensor and Redlink gateway. Redlink works well and it's easy to monitor or adjust the temperature from my Android phone. I added a wireless indoor sensor so my set point is based on the average of the thermostat (main level) and indoor sensor (upstairs). Note that you cannot display the individual temperatures (or individual humidity) or program anything clever like run the fan (without the heat) to equalize a large temperature difference between the two levels.With accessories, expect the total system to cost more than double the thermostat alone. But if you're okay with that, my only real complaint is the display. I don't mind that it's not color like the Presitge. But I have a window on the opposite wall and the glare can make the thermostat hard to read. Also, Honeywell really went cheap here. Only two lines of the display can show free form text for menus so it's not as nice looking as it could be. Most of the screen is 7-segment displays of temperature, time, or up and down adjustment arrows - kind of like your old style wrist watches or calculators.The screen normally displays the time but not date or day of week. If you hold the temperature (e.g. hold temp at 70 degrees until 6pm) then it shows 'hold until 6pm' on the screen and there is no longer a spot to display the current time.Overall, pretty minor complaints on the screen. But for $100 more than a basic programmable thermostat, I was hoping for a little more.Great system for hard to control and varied size spaces. The RedLink remotes are necessary to be used with this thermostat. To call this a thermostat is a bit misleading as it is more of a central processing unit with multiple remote sensors. I use 5 RedLink sensors in wildly different spaces: a huge vaulted ceiling area, a kitchen, a living room and two bedrooms. The RedLink sensors send the temps and humidity of the rooms back to the “thermostat” which AVERAGES the temps of all five and then compared it to a sixth EXTERIOR unit and runs the furnace or AC until the AVERAGE of all 5 meet the temperature set. I don’t have a humidifier but it’s my understanding it works the same. Love the system as it saved its cost in less than a year. Cut my electric bill by 15-20% a month. Brilliant idea from Honeywell. I recommend professional installation by a tech familiar with it. Also check whether you need a hardwired version or a battery powered one. It evens tells you when to change batteries in the thermostat and each RedLink remote. As to remotes, buy and install them yourself. And save. I bought the remotes for about $33 each and set them in less than 5 minutes each. The HVAC dealer wanted $175 EACH for this simple put-in-thé-battery and press the Connect button deal.Handy thermostat. It took a little while to familiarize myself with the software in order to program it but after a few tries it's functioning as advertised.Our situation: The upstairs hallway leading to 3 bedrooms is exposed to the living room. Being close to the ceiling of the living room means that hallway is where the warm air is. 2 of 3 bedroom doors are usually closed due to our adult kids occupying those rooms. So, the problem statement here is how do we regulate the temperature of those bedrooms given that the doors are closed and the thermostat is registering the temperature near the 2nd floor ceiling height of the living room?The solution was this thermostat combined with the Honeywell C7189R1004 Wireless Indoor Sensor. I hooked up the Vision Pro 8000 to the low-voltage wiring and got it functioning without much hassle at all. It was just like any other thermostat: Red, Yellow, Green, White and Black wires to the corresponding connectors. The cool part was pairing the R1004 with it. In the setup program, I told the thermostat to only pay attention to the temperature detected by the R1004 and ignoring the hallway temperature. Now, the thermostat will only kick the A/C on when the one bedroom reaches a certain temperature reading. Next, I believe I will purchase 2 more R1004 units and place each in the remaining bedrooms and tell the Vision Pro 8000 to take the average of the 3 room temperatures when controlling the A/C or heat.Other things this unit can do is connect to the internet via your wireless router, communicate with outdoor sensors, regulate fresh air and monitor humidity. I am electing to do none of these other options so I cannot comment on how well it performs with that. But I can say that its ability to communicate with the remote room sensors resolves our problem nicely.I will close with one word of caution: the operating system software is not for the novice user. It's meant for air conditioning installers and is capable of custom messages and things like that where a specialist can customize it to reflect their business. If you're basically familiar and comfortable with technology, especially programmable thermostats, then with a little effort you should be able to figure this device out and it's well worth the effort.Currently have 3 of these in our commercial buildings.WiFi works great! Great for keeping staff from accessing programs....3 levels of security options.Will eventually have 7 of these in our building.tres bon