EcoStat Mercury-Free 1 Heat/1 Cool Non-Programmable Round Thermostat

Don't know about reliability (only installed for a few weeks), but so far works as well as the Honeywell T8775A1009 I am also using. (One of those failed after 3 years, so this can't be much worse, and is a third the cost!)

Pros: Amazon fast shipping. Received earlier than expected delivery.Cons: Unfortunately, it has come dead on arrival. Put in the batteries and get no display. As a 34 year HVAC veteran, I measured the voltage of the provided batteries and found them at 1.52 volts DC. This is normal. So tried some others and still the same result. Well I put in on anyway thinking maybe it must need to get the 24 volt AC hooked up to power the thing too. And by the way there is NO (c) common terminal provided on the thermostat. Anyway, it still does not work, light up or display anything. So I assume it really is a defective unit. I was to install for an elderly woman whom is visually impaired and really needed a large number display. I have to now break the news to her. Think twice!Edit: Distributor promptly sent me a replacement for the dead thermostat. It works as advertised. It is a no frills unit, but has some unique features that I needed for an elderly, low vision person. A larger than most display, light button, and a huge turn dial for change the temperature setting.  EcoStat Mercury-Free 1 Heat/1 Cool Non-Programmable Round Thermostat  I recommend this product for a no frills, non-programmable easy to use thermostat that is easy to install too.

Bought this in December 2015. I had no issues with it for the first year. But after returning from vacation in February 2016, I was greeted by a wall of heat. The thermostat was arcing on one side and was registering 95 degrees! I could not turn it down. It had shorted out and I had to shut off the oil burner switch. It must have been like this for several days because the house was so hot the linoleum tiles were curling up from the floor. It used a half tank of oil and could have been a death sentence for any elderly person in the house or even pets.

Simple thermostat gets the job done. Only gripe is that sometimes it kicks off and then back on again within seconds.I have a second one now for my a/c zone. It's working just fine. Had a 5 minute timeout to protect the compressor from short cycling should the call for a/c come on too soon after the last call went off. No programming to go wrong, just set it and forget it.

This thermostat works great - easy to install, easy to use, works perfectly.I purchased this through another website for less than a tenth the price of a Nest. Yes, I own a Nest Version 2, and it's certainly the superior thermostat. But I still like this EcoStat: it's easier to install, setup, and use. I installed the Nest in our family's living room; this EcoStat went into my grungy workshop.Twisting a big round thermostat is way easier than pushing buttons on a panel. Much faster to get the right setting. An immediate win for both the Nest and the EcoStat.The EcoStat isn't programmable. You set the temp, and it'll do its best to keep the room at that temperature until you turn the ring to a different temperature. Works fine for me - when I leave my workshop, I turn the temperature down. (in fact, I connected my modern gas wall heater to the same circuit as the room lights. When I leave, I flip off the lights, and the heater shuts off. Unlike most gas heaters, mine needs both gas and electricity. This works fine in never-freezing Berkeley California, but wouldn't be good in Wisconsin, where a turned-off heater might mean frozen pipes tomorrow)No programming means no clock. No daylight savings time adjustments. No flashing time like 1980's video tape recorders.The EcoStat LCD display always shows the temperature, but at night, you gotta press a button to switch for the backlight. The thing doesn't sense your presence and light up as you walk past, like the Nest.Two BIG digits - 5/8 inches tall - show the room temp. Other round digital thermostats (Honeywell) have much smaller, less readable temperature readouts. My myopic eyes can read the temperature at arm's length.The Set point temperature is in smaller, but still easy to see digits. It's easy to see the temperature you're setting.Does it track temperature? Yep - I checked it against a lab thermometer, and they agreed within 1 degree F.The EcoStat also has a fan-only switch. And it works with an air conditioner/heatpump. But I haven't tried those - I've got a pretty simple gas heater in my shop. And air conditioners are a rarity in the San Francisco bay region.Compare the EcoStat with the Nest Thermostat? The Ecostat feels like it's made of plastic. Hmmm - it *is* made of plastic. That's what you get for twenty five smackers. But it feels OK (not as smooth as our Nest - the ring clicks with each degree change. Those clicks feel a bit cheap, but that doesn't bother this ol' techie) The whole metal ring of the Nest rotates with a smoothness that feels like it's made like a Nikon zoom lens.The Nest and the EcoStat are the same diameter; with the Ecostat a smidgen thicker. The entire Nest rotates as you move your fingers; with the EcoStat, you grasp a quarter inch ring. Again, a win for the Nest.The Nest display is much nicer than this Ecostat - brightly and colorfully backlit, high contrast, readily visible from 8 feet away. A sweet design that shows current temperature, setpoint, and how long until the room will come to temperature. The Ecostat's anemic LCD just displays the room temp and setpoint.Nest is powered by your furnace. Ecostat uses a pair of AAA batteries which will need replacement in a year or two.The Nest may (unlikely, but possibly) require pulling a new wire from your furnace to your thermostat (the common wire). And it won't work on a "Millivolt" system (the kind that are powered by electricity generated by a gas pilot), The EcoStat, like most battery powered thermostats, works fine with two-wire systems, and will be quite happy with a millivolt system. Neither will work to control a 120 or 240 volt heater.Within ten minutes of wiring the EcoStat, I knew it was working properly. I turned it up, and the furnace went on. Turned it down, and the heater went off. It took a week or two before the Nest thermostat figured out my family's routines and self-programmed. Of course, since the Nest actually keeps track of our movements, it refines its schedule and makes fairly good predictions of when we're getting up and when we're returning.This EcoStat knows not of the internet, and generates no reports - it's deaf and dumb. The Nest talks & listens over the Internet, letting me adjust the house temp remotely. I receive monthly reports from Nest about how many hours my furnace has been running (By the way, am I the only one to roll my eyes at Nest's email saying "Since Oct 2011, all Nest Thermostat Schedules have saved 1,774,469,650 kWh" ? Someone at Nest should take a basic class in statistics to understand the difference between empty precision and accuracy.)And yes, the Nest thermostat can control multi-stage furnaces, heatpumps, and airconditioners. The EcoStat is strictly one stage, on/off. (Well. really it has three states: heat/off/cool).The Nest comes packed in a truly wonderful box - a beautiful, gift box. The EcoStat is packed in a cheap cardboard box. The Nest comes with a screwdriver and a variety of mounting hardware. In the EcoStat box, I found a few plastic mollybolts and plaster screws to help you put it on the wall. To cover up holes in the wall, the Nest has a very nice wallplate. The EcoStat has a round white plastic mask. Both cover up holes & scratches in your wall.A few tech notes: this has connections for up to 7 wires: RC, RH, G, B, O, W, Y. If you know what all these do, then you know more about heating and air conditioning than I do. The EcoStat works on Gas- standing pilot, electronic ignition, gas-fired boilers, oil-fired boilers, oil-fired furnaces, single stage heat pumps with auxilary heat, and electric air conditioners. It apparently will not control multistage heat pumps or 120/120V line voltage electric heating systems. It'll happily work in C or F, but not Kelvin. And a switch lets you prevent rapid compressor cycling (2 minutes or 5 minutes) In short, the EcoStat is a perfectly competent, easy to use, non-programmable thermostat. Just what I need in my workshop.Summary: I'm happy with my Nest - it fits well in my home. I'm happy with my EcoStat - it fits well in my workshop.

Pretty strait forward. But some of the internals could have been done better. Something shorted and the heat would not shut off. Then the display got messed up. I pulled it from the wall like a cursed object. Later I rebuilt it and it is still working. But as an entry level Electrical Engineer I also adjusted a few contacts, added solder and cleaned a few non solder points that had something smeared on them. The dial no longer behaved as before. But I am happy. You get what you pay for right? I would say get this. Just keep in mind, its a roll of the dice if the issues I faced will happen to yours. I hope yours just sits on a wall and looks great.

I purchased four (4), one for each of my separate units. With-in a few months, one (1) of the thermostats quit turning on the compressor. After 6 months, I've gone through all four and now only have one thermostat working. Since these were purchased online, it takes too long to get replacements so I'm now on my way to the local hardware store where I can purchase a unit that will work and can be readily replaced if it doesn't.