wireless tstats- honeywell redlink experience?

keyote

Have to tstat 2 apts on same zone, wire was never pulled and drilling through radiant floor and pulling through wall in occupied apts not good situation.
From my research the honeywell redlink seemed a more reliable wireless system, i dont even understand how a mere wifi could be used in a building where the three units all have there own cable internet accounts none owned by building. But i know very little about this except some marketing install and spec reading.

zoning by room this way now seems not worth effort same for doing individual apts again loads too small.
This honeywell wireless system has less expensive wireless companion modules that can be used to change thermostat location or to average thermostat location. thinking i would put main module in room with highest load and companions in other rooms for an average through the two 1 bedroom apts, might be overkill but am a bit worried each apt has a room with a lot of glazing and a room with very little, and one apt is north and east the other south and east.

ratio

I've not had any problems with RedLINK, they're my go-to stat when forced to go wireless. IDK about averaging stats via RedLINK, unless you mean averaging sensors wired into one wireless stat.

keyote

thanks
they claim wall/ floor penetration like its nothing to them im dubious but they would need to get through one wood floor and some fire rated sheetrock walls can they really do that at least

John Mills_5

No problems here either. Redlink isn't WiFi remember.

I have a wireless indoor sensor at home on mine. It averages with the thermostat in the hall and sits on my nightstand in the summer and in the living room which gets a bit cool in the winter.

ratio

Ah, yes: I forgot about the wireless indoor sensors. Yes, several of them can communicate to one stat, & average with or without the internal sensor, at least on the new 8000 series. IDK about the 5000 or 6000 stats.

The signal can indeed penetrate walls & floors. I have at my parent's house a stat two floors away that works just fine, it also uses the THM4000 for two of the three zones (a wired TH8110 with a wireless indoor & a outdoor sensor serves the third [the outdoor temp & RH is available at all the stats—neat-o!])

Harvey Ramer

Honeywell owns the lowband frequency that powers redlink. It's very powerful.

SWEI

RedLINK uses 900 MHz, which goes through walls far better than 2.4 GHz WiFi does (and orders of magnitude better than 5.8 GHz WiFi.)

Bob Bona_4

Been using since they came out...6 yrs ago? No probs. Use when forced to as well. Prefer hardwired power stealing any day.

keyote

yes i read some white papers on red link seemed pretty impressive on paper the frequency type and their software supposedly continually checks itself on various signal variants to make sure its still in contact with its various parts glad to hear its real world performance matches the paper gets me out of a jamb. thank you guys

njtommy

I use redlink all the time. With either the prestige iaq or 8000s. Also having 4 averaging sensors in my home 1 in each bed room and 1 in the living room/ kitchen are. It Really does a nice job keeping the house at set point. They are especially good with duel fuel systems.

keyote

can you tell me the differences, can the sensors be read or logged individually while they are averaging or relocating Id like to understand whats going on in parts of the house.
I was told these would not also work on the minisplits heatpumps in summer for AC although they claim to have ac inputs any idea why that is?

stonehouse

Take a look at the Ecobee too. I have it in my old stonehouse, along with 3 remote sensors on my 1 pipe steam system. It's been very reliable and I like the look and feel better than the Honeywell.

keyote

thanks stone the ecobee wifi is not robust enough to penetrate commercial building structure and navigate competing wifi systems

njtommy

Unfortunately I don't think you can see each sensor individually. It will just display the average temp on the t-stat screen.

When you attach the sensor to the system you can label them by room.

Depending on the brand mini split you can use a regular t-stat that is wifi but Mitsubishi is the only one I've seen doing that right now. I'm not sure if they are able to do redlink or not. It would be really nice tho.

Harvey Ramer

Ecobee makes a thermostat that Daikin rebrands and uses on their units. It is WiFi.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

The Honeywell wireless system works extremely well. You just have to remember to supply closure relays when using a zone valve or pump control since Honeywell does not provide dry contacts when there's a call for heat.

ratio

Keep in mind that the THM400R pictured above to the left of the zone panel will run at most four wireless zones, and can only be used if the TAZ add-a-zone panel is not used. If you need more than four zones, you must use an EIM for each zone. I can, however, attest that 12 EIMs right beside each other will work. No matter how dum it looks.

hvacfreak2

When they first came out we tested one in a school with cmu masonry walls. We could not get far enough away to where it didn't work on that floor at least. I haven't heard anything bad about the Redlink series stuff. I just sold a job with a gateway and a new series 8000, I set up an account and that seems to work really well.

ratio

You can download the app & try it out, there's a demo set up. "Total Connect Comfort" should get you there.

hvacfreak2

Yeah the app is great , first saw it yesterday. I connected the 8000 and watched the changes on my phone , desktop , and the stat.

keyote

yes the app is a great feature and am looking forward to it Im going to be using the lochinvar KHN 085 which also has conxus doubt they will merld but at least ill have the system from both ends.
I had sort of deduced you were limited to the four zones and then was told i couldn't keep adding the adpanels kind a sucks but could run 4 packs parallel dos the 8000 series change any of that?

ratio

IIRC you can have up to 64 zones via multiple TAZ panels? You'd have to have one EIM per zone however. The TAZ ties in to the same terminals as the THM4000R--you can use one or more TAZ, properly addressed, or one THM4000R.

For sure, two TAZ panels operate correctly, I've installed 9-12 zone systems in the past.

keyote

ratio thanks

"Keep in mind that the THM400R pictured above to the left of the zone panel will run at most four wireless zones, and can only be used if the TAZ add-a-zone panel is not used. If you need more than four zones, you must use an EIM for each zone. I can, however, attest that 12 EIMs right beside each other will work. No matter how dum it looks"

So I can use a TMH400R for up to 4 wireless zones but I cant parallel another TMH400R for 4 more? This TMH400R would then tie in to say the taco zone control panel or boiler control panel?

If I wanted more than 4 zones I should use a TAZ for every 4 zones and add EIMs for each zone?

And this is the same situation with the 8000 series?

"The TAZ ties in to the same terminals as the THM4000R"
-terminals on what?

keyote

Alan

"The Honeywell wireless system works extremely well. You just have to remember to supply closure relays when using a zone valve or pump control since Honeywell does not provide dry contacts when there's a call for heat."

Im new to this, but Im good with reading instructions. for now trying to get a general idea. So youre saying between the taco wireless components and the zone valves, pumps, boiler, i will need to use say, a taco multi zone switching relay? would this be in place of a taco valve control module or in addition? is it possible the lochinvars fancy smart control handles any of this.

ratio

The zone panel, HZ322 in Allen's picture above, is the main controller, it takes inputs from up to three zones with that particular panel, & managers the dampers (or valves) and the heat source, and coordinates opposing calls so that the zones only receive what they need.

The HZ432, their flagship panel in the TrueZONE line, can manage up to 60 additional zones via TAZ panels that comnunicate with the HZ432 via the ABCD terminals. (I don't know if the HZ3xx panels can be expanded via TAZ panels.) The THM4000R wireless receiver communicates with the HZxxx panel via the ABCD terminals as well, but in a way that is not compatible with the TAZ panel—hence one or the other. This is the brown wire that connects the two panels in Allen's picture above. It is possible to use wireless stats for all 64 zones, each zone would require an EIM to comnunicate with each stat. It would get ugly, the installation instructions call for 2' separation between each EIM, I would expect that to be necessary for best (furthest distance) reliability.

I would suggest reading the manuals for these on Honeywell's website: customer.honeywell.com.

It might be possible to cascade one HZ432 panel into another, which would allow you to to 16 zones. Let's see if I can drawl that:

HZ432 ← HZ432 ← THMR4000 ← 4 zones

   ↑ HZ432 ← THMR4000R ← 4 zones

   ↑ HZ432 ← THMR4000R ← 4 zones

   ↑ HZ432 ← THMR4000R ← 4 zones

Or something like that. Each HZ432 with a receiver ties into a zone on the "master" HZ432, which would manage the heat source. This has implications regarding changeover which I have not considered. There may also be "emergent behavior".

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Keynote:

On the job that I took the photo of, I had three zones; one pump per zone. I used a Taco SR503 to control the pumps.

The Honeywell HZ322 (large panel in photo) has terminals to control dampers and I wired a relay (the RIB relays that surround the junction box, lower right hand corner of photo) to terminals M1 and M4 of the HZ322. The two "normally open" contacts of the relay were wired to the TT terminals of the SR503. On a call for heat, terminals M1 and M4 are energized, closing the RIB relay which closes the Taco relay which starts the pump and turns on the boiler. The same thing can be done with a zone valve controller.

Here is the manual for the HZ322:
https://forwardthinking.honeywell.com/related_links/zoning/truezone/install/69-2199.pdf