Honeywell Home Single Zone Connected Thermostat

Manual room thermostat with smart features
Yes
Mobile controls
Yes
Hands-free controls
Yes
Visual features
No
Audio output
Yes
Tactile features
No
Dexterity features
Yes
Simplicity
Yes

What is it? This wall-mounted, dial room thermostat can be controlled manually or via the Honeywell Total Comfort app or website.

Category: A manual room thermostat with smart features 

Money-saving features: 

  • Mobile control
  • Hands-free controls
  • Can become programmable when used with the app
  • Can be used as part of a zone control system

It has the following ease-of-use features:

1. Mobile control

  • Can be controlled via the Honeywell Total Connect Comfort app (for Android and IOS).
  • We also tested the app with Apple’s Voice-over screen reader and found that most buttons are well labelled and most elements read-over well.

2. Hands-free features

  • Voice-control works with Amazon’s Alex, Google Assistant, Siri and IFTTT when paired with a smart speaker

3. Visual features

  • The Honeywell Home Single Zone Thermostat has a mono display with a dim backlight for night viewing
  • The device displays the current room temperature is displayed in medium to large numbers o
  • A small flame is used to indicate when the heating is on or off
  • The colour contrast is a white dial and a mono-grey screen

4. Audio features

  • There is no audio output on the device itself,but audio verification is available for basic features when paired with a smart speaker or smart assistant
  • The Honeywell Total Comfort app works reasonably well with Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader, and most buttons are clearly labelled

5. Tactile features

  • The device has a tactile dial user interface 
  • Tactile clicks provide verification when increasing and decreasing the temperature

6. Dexterity features

  • The dial turns relatively easily with little strength required 

7. Simplicity 

  • The device is very simple to use manually

Is there anything I should watch out for? 

  • In daylight the display has poor colour contrast and low screen brightness and is difficult to see in bright light
  • The dial has no tactile verification features or points of reference and will spin continuously through 360°
  • Although the device has no audio output and verification, these feature are available when paired with a smart speaker.  

Who might want to buy it?

We think that this product would be great for people who want a room thermostat with a simple, familiar design and who might want to enable more money-saving smart features at a later date  

Our consumer panel told us:

  • The simple to use design makes it more accessible for people with cognitive impairments
  • The easy to turn dial makes it more accessible for people with dexterity impairments
  • The poor colour contrast on the  device itself makes it less accessible for some people with visual impairments
  • When paired with an app or smart speaker this product become much more accessible for people with visual impairments