Smart thermostats are useful and convenient. It helps you feel more comfortable without having to adjust your home’s temperature throughout the day, as well as helps you save on energy costs. And thanks to Ecobee and Nest, more and more people are now familiar with smart thermostats and how they function.
However, there are consumers who get quickly turned off by the expensive price tags of these leading smart thermostats and therefore look for cheaper yet equally capable alternatives. One good alternative is the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat.
Design
The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat comes in either piano black or pearl white finish, which makes it look very elegant and enables it to blend easily with any interior décor and color scheme.
Everything about the Lux Geo looks smooth, thanks to its rounded edges and soft curves. Its face has an easy-to-read display as well as a control wheel to make it easy to control.
Display
The thermostat’s large display is packed with information. At the top of the screen, you have a row of icons that light up when activated or when relevant, such as the low battery icon, the thermostat lockout icon, and the auto change icon. Other information that you can glean at the top of the display include the current system mode, whether the system fan is running or whether the cooling or heating equipment is running, as well as the Wi-Fi network icon. You can also view the current room temperature, the target temperature, the current date and time, and the current program period.
Features
- Easy to Install: One of the selling points of the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat is the fact that it is very easy to install and program. You can put it up either vertically or horizontally, which means that you can be more flexible with its placement. It measures 3.12 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches. So if you plan to put it in tighter spaces, you can place it vertically.
- 7-Day Programming: With seven-day programming, you can account for every day of each week. This means you can enjoy your time at home with just the right temperature every day and at the same time save more on power costs.
- Flexible App Use: And speaking of programming, you can use the companion mobile app to program the thermostat or you can do it on the unit itself using the control wheel. Meanwhile, you can use the mobile app or the Web portal site to control the thermostat. Apart from coming up with your own schedule, you can also get recommendations from the app on what settings are more energy-efficient. All you have to do is to open the mobile app and select one of its many energy profiles to be able to choose the most efficient settings while also remaining comfortable.
- Multiple Periods: You can set up either two or four periods per day, and you can also lock the controls of your smart thermostat so that nobody can adjust the temperature setting without your knowledge.
- Multi-control. The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat is also great if you have multiple Lux Geo thermostats around the house. You can control all of these thermostats all in one app. You can also connect different Lux Geo Smart Thermostats located in different homes using different Wi-Fi networks. If you have elderly parents that you want to monitor or if you have a vacation home, you can monitor their thermostats, too, using your own app.
- Works with Alexa: The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat works with Amazon Alexa, which allows you to control it by simply using voice commands.
Other features worth noting:
The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat also has the following features and functionalities:
- Three-year warranty
- Choose between Celsius or Fahrenheit
- Customizable temperature swing
- Low battery alert
- Monitors your air filter.
- Customizable second stage heat offset
- Low and high temperature alerts
- Mercury free
Pros of the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat
- Flexibility: I love the flexibility that the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat offers when it comes to powering the device. You can easily add it to your current cooling and heating systems via a C-wire. But if your system does not have a common wire, you can power it using two AA lithium ion batteries. Just in case you run out of batteries or do not have time to buy batteries and you need to replace the ones in your thermostat, then you could use a micro-USB to provide power. You can also forget the batteries altogether and just use the micro-USB, but that would mean there would be an extra wire showing on your thermostat and that could be a little bit of an eyesore.
- Power Saving Options: The smart thermostat also saves on power when it is running on batteries. It will have less information displayed on the screen when it is on standby, and it will turn off the display when you go to sleep at night. If you need to check on the temperature, you can rotate the control wheel or press any button to light up the display. You can also set how long you want the backlight to stay lit.
- Good Display: The display is also very easy to read with sufficient backlighting helping you see things even in the dark. When daylight savings comes, the smart thermostat will automatically adjust itself so that you do not have to go through the trouble of having to reprogram everything.
- Strong Override Features: The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat also allows you to temporarily override your programmed settings. So if it is especially hot today, you can turn up the airconditioning and cool down without affecting the programmed settings. You can also hold temperatures manually.
- Has Geo-Fencing: Lux Geo Smart Thermostat is also one of the very few smart thermostats in the market that feature geofencing. Geofencing simply means that the thermostat uses your phone’s location to see where you are. If you are outside of a pre-set radius, it would think that you are away from home and will therefore go on more energy-efficient mode, turning down the heat or the airconditioning. Once you arrive home, it will automatically turn up the AC or the heat for you to be more comfortable.
- Geo-Fencing = Cost Savings: The geofencing feature allows you to save more on energy costs. That is because even when it is easy to program the thermostat, there is no way for you to factor in those unscheduled trips out to the market or surprise dinners outside, or unplanned business trips. The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat knows when you are at home and when you are out of the house, and therefore adjusts temperature accordingly.
- Good Price Point: Lux has an attractive price (check here on Amazon) and there are some merchants there that offer it at a much lower price.
What could be better
- Sticks Out from the Wall: The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat is a little thick, measuring 1.32 inches from the wall surface. This means that you would need to put it somewhere where there is less foot traffic as it would protrude more prominently than traditional thermostats.
- Batteries Need Replacement: Also, if you are planning to use only AA batteries to power your thermostat, you might need to replace the batteries in just a few months. Going for the battery-only option might mean more expense over time.
Before you buy
Take note that the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat is not compatible with some HVAC systems such as heat pumps (which has two compressor stages), line voltage systems, and three-wire heat only water systems. It does, however, work with:
- Gas millivolt heaters
- Conventional heating and cooling systems to two-stage heat and cool
- Heat pumps with up to two-stage heat and one-stage cool
- Two-wire heat only water systems
Final Word on Lux Geo Smart Thermostat
The Lux Geo Smart Thermostat may not have the self-learning capabilities that you get from the Nest Thermostat, but it is a lot cheaper than Nest’s price tag here. You still get a very capable thermostat that can help you do away with having to find a common wire, which most heating and cooling systems do not have nowadays.
Comparable to the Sensi: If you are looking for a comparable thermostat, you can check out Emerson Sensi, which sells at roughly the same price as the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat. Both smart thermostats do not have learning capabilities but can be controlled using voice commands via Amazon Alexa. However, the Sensi is quite plain-looking when compared with the Lux Geo.
Programming the Sensi using the mobile app is as easy as programming the Lux Geo, but if you have to do the programming of your Sensi on the thermostat unit itself, then Lux Geo wins with its rotary control, as opposed to the Sensi’s buttons. You can read my full review of the Sensi here.
One area where the Sensi wins, however, is that it allows you to make as many changes to your room temperature throughout the day. What this means is that you can program different target temperatures throughout the day. For instance, set the temperature to 72F in the morning, then make it progressively cooler in the afternoon, and then set the temperature to 73F in the early evening and then to 74F two hours after, before going to 70F by bedtime. Lux Geo only allows up to four scheduled adjustments per day.
Bottom Line: In general, though, the Lux Geo Smart Thermostat gives you everything that you are looking for in a smart thermostat without the expensive price tag (check here for the latest prices). Not only do you have the power to make temperature changes up to four times a day, every day of the week, you can also easily control temperature settings no matter where you are. Plus, it does have an optional geofencing feature that allows you to save more, and allows you to forget about common wires!
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