Sensi Reviews

I have have this app installed since last fall. It had been working flawlessly, until it’s summer and I was ready to switch it from heat to cooling. I am now getting a wild ride!

Turned on cooling, it adds a “OEP” or “Smart Home Rate” schedule in the cooling section. Inside it, in a few hours it creates a day group for the current day, while all other days in the week are in a separate group. You wouldn’t care about this, except that the single-day group goes to 15c (60f)!!!

We woke up at night because the AC is working so hard and it’s getting so cold! I turned off the thermostat, restarted, and deleted the single day group, and overnight the 15c (60f) magic comes back! After multiple tries, now I have to turn off the system before going to bed. What a nightmare! I happen to have two this app thermostats for two floor level, and both dance the same tune. How frustrating!

So the thermostat itself is fine, no issues with the wiring or buttons, looks nice, simple design, whatever. but oh my god. Sensi . talk about a working nightmare. first, it disconnects from the internet spontaneously throughout the day. no network issue, has been reset multiple times. still continues to fail. secondly, don’t even waste your time making day groups and schedules. something called “peak time savings daily energy efficiency optimization” will consistently override them. i understand the thought process behind it, but there should at least be a way to turn that off. why even bother with a schedule when a program will just do whatever it wants. and lastly, we have two of these thermostats for different levels in our home. the first one turns off immediately after the temperature changes to what it’s set at. but the second one will continue to run for 10-15 minutes after it’s been turned off. even with countless tinkering and trying everything, there is a HUGE delay. overall, it’s fine. i guess.

edit; i’m changing my review from 2 stars to 1. since the newest update i can no longer keep it connected to our wifi. basically worthless now. should’ve just gotten a nest.

I’ll start by saying I got my thermostat free from my local municipality. If the thermostat you’re replacing is an old ‘set it and forget it’ wall dial this will be a huge upgrade. I’m not going to get in-depth with its features other than to say you can control this thermostat with your smartphone anywhere on the planet as long as your thermostat has connectivity to your home wi-if. Now with that said, in regards to connectivity issues voiced in other reviews; yes, it will occasionally lose connection to your home wi-fi. I’m not a network expert. I can’t explain why. I can understand how this immediately throws people into a tizzy. It’s been my experience however that if you just let it be it reconnects itself automatically, usually in less than a couple of minutes. Your experience may vary, again I’m not a network expert. It doesn’t happen often enough though for me to warrant immediately panning it (‘one star!!! This things garbage’). I’d say 95% of the time it opens immediately on my phone. It’s a small gripe for me and the specificity you have in setting heating and cooling schedules outweigh it. Now for the big gripe. After you sign up for Sensi the your junk mailbox will increase by 40+ messages a day. No joke. Nothing is ‘free’ I guess. Be warned.

This thermostat delivers. It’s cheaper than the competition - great if you don’t have a c wire. The battery life is incredible as the supplement power source. Made me realize I did not need to waste the extra $$ on a Nest. BUT I feel the this app app falls short on delivering options for control in the user interface. The geofence idea is great but I I’d like more manual control. Why doesn’t Sensi provide a direct “away” button that you preset to the desired away temperature and hit when you’re leaving the house. Then hit it when you’re about to return? Same goes for a “vacation” button. I have set an option as a separate schedule that I use when I leave for vacations but the way to get there within the this app app takes many steps which is sub par UX. Other thermostats offer that like the Eco Bee and it seems this app thermostats have the infrastructure to offer that too.

It does what it should and works the big three smart home systems, Homekit, Google and Alexa. However, getting it working with Homekit was WAY more than I'd bargained for. For some reason, homekit support requires it to be hard wired to a power line from your hvac system to work. Strangely, the other smart home systems do not require this. This caused much consternation and me eventually fiddling with rewiring my hvac system slightly to accommodate it. To be fair, I have no idea if competing products may require the same, but somehow I doubt it. Also, I bought a new Wi-Fi router and changed my network name and updating This device also proved more difficult than it should have been. So much so that I tried and gave up for several days before trying again and eventually succeeding with help of laptop instead of my iPhone. If you're technical and cheap, might be OK but be warned.

I like the this app app but here are the ways you can improve it:

1. Please make an IFTTT plugin to allow decisions to be made based in the IFTTT app. For instance: I want to be able to have IFTTT monitor indoor humidity and either turn on a smart plug connected to a humidifier if too low or, if too high, run the AC to dehumidify the air.

2. Please give us access to our temperature and humidity data (all of it) so I can compare it with outside ambient conditions and see how HVAC equipment is responding. If you can’t give use the data then allow IFTTT to collect it (to see and record current set point, temperature, humidity, and usage data from the thermostat). It would be nice if we could download this data along with our set points and runtimes on an hourly basis. This would help people like me make better decisions about what to set my thermostat to given the weather conditions or even the weather forecast, to save energy without sacrificing comfort.

Well I’ll be darned, 24 hours after writing this review it appears the issues have been fixed! THANK YOU! But still only 4 stars for TAKING SO LONG

Original recent review:
We bought two of these 1.5 years ago and had high hopes. My wife is blind and uses Apple Products extensively due to Apple OS VoiceOver feature. Unfortunately that relies on app developers testing against the voiceover API, and the this app developers apparently paid no heed to that. There are a numbers of quirks but the show stopper is Sensi refuses to announce the current temp setting. Well no problem I thought I will just report it, which I did... 1.5 years ago. The response was it was “in progress”. Uh huh... still waiting. Methinks it was a smokescreen and there is no intention to address voiceover Interface. We are now looking for a different solution.

I’ve had this for years and love that the developers are actively improving this product. Here are a couple of enhancements I’d like to see added to the backlog.

Time to Temp: Okay copying this one from Nest but shouldn’t be too hard to calculate with usage history or if you ask about home details sq/ft etc and calculate it that way.

Fan Timer: More control over the fan. Being able to turn on for say 30 minutes or 1 hour rather than just on/off/auto would be a really nice to have. I often manually turn it on and forget to turn it off for hours.

Usage Reports: One enhancement you could make to the graphs are to scale them for 24 hours per day and then fill in the blue for the hours actually used. That way if the AC is on from 1pm to 3pm I could clearly see that data rather than just a total summary of hours used over the 24 hour period.

Cycle Speed Control: I know you can set this to slow medium etc but I rather be able to control the degrees. For example I set to cool 72 it doesn’t need to come on at 72.1 I can allow a 2 degree swing. So wait until 74 before kicking. This allows more control, less wear and tear on the equipment and energy savings. Old Honeywell had this feature so does ecobee.

When I got my first this app about 1-1/2 yrs ago I was thrilled, especially with Sensi . Sadly, there's very little great in the tech world that psychopathic designers and programmers can't ruin. Sensi used to be simple and perfect--open it to a full screen view of your thermostat; and control changes stuck. Now, it first opens to a crippled small list view of "all" your thermostats--because most people have five or six right? You can change temperature up or down on the dinky view, but have to press to then get the full screen version for things like on/off heat/cool or fan. I use Sensi a lot as a remote to change fan on/auto so now have to navigate every time to do this--so damned annoying. Also, it used to solidly accept control changes now those are super flaky and often don't stick. I just tried going up from 68 to 72 and had to try several times because it bounced back to 70 then down again to 71. Many times it doesn't stick and send to device after closing app and you have to go back.

I used to praise this device to anyone any everyone. Now it is just another piece of annoying crap tech that barely works and is designed by psychotics with no clue.

I used to love Sensi. This was one of those rare apps you never had a problem or issue with, it just always worked. And it worked perfectly. Since they changed Sensi in the last 1-2 weeks, now when I open it instead of connecting immediately, it always shows a “Connecting...” message and it can take 10, 20, sometimes 30 seconds to connect. Absolutely nothing has changed on my end, so it had to be changes made to Sensi . Also, I’ve noticed when my furnace is running now, it’ll show on Sensi that it’s not. That’s annoying, too. Disappointed considering how well Sensi worked before they ruined it.

It’s my 3rd winter using Sensi. The first two were great! Never had any problems, and Sensi worked as expected. However this winter so far has been dismal! Whatever they did in the updates over the past year has created many bugs. Sensi is really flaky now w hard to pin down bugs.

One recurring issue is the delay that happens sometimes when you manually change the temp. You click the up arrow a few times and you see no change... so you click a few more times, the about 15 seconds later you see the temp went up double if what you wanted.

Another issue is the current schedule disappears every once in a while (doesn’t display down at the bottom). I can’t get it to show again, so I just manually set the temp. Then the next morning I find the heat is turned completely off.

Another ... if I manually change the temp within 30 or so mins before a scheduled changes, it sometimes skips the scheduled change.

Would be great if I could revert back to Sensi version from last year... I really never had any issues.

This is the second unit I have installed in a separate house. I have had Honeywell and Nest units before. Although the Honeywell models are highly accurate and dependable, I find the this app from Emerson to be the best unit I have ever used. It has a very good setup tutorial through Sensi . It guides you step by step from start to finish. The thermostat is very intuitive and logical in its operation, and this is most likely due to the engineering thought process that was a part of its background.
Sensi is refreshingly simply in its layout. What I have found over time is that technical support by phone is superb, probably one of the best among any company I have ever dealt with. They have always been able to assist me and solve my owner-induced issues. I am happy as well overtime with the fact that they have not made drastic changes to Sensi -this can be frustrating with other Apps as you have to relearn a system-this is not the case with the this app App. If someone were to ask, this is the only thermostat I would recommend.
Well done Emerson with your this app product!

My husband and I just moved into a new house and the first upgrade on my list was a wifi thermostat. We had a Nest at our old house and it worked fine, but I didn’t want to spend that much again, especially since we have 2 thermostats in this house. After much deliberation, we decided on the this app wifi (not touch screen). I absolutely love it! While the thermostat itself isn’t as eye-catching as the Nest was, I love Sensi so much more than the Nest app. I love that I can set multiple schedules for each setting (cool, heat, both). I go out of town frequently, so all I have to do is set it to the vacation schedule and I’m good to go! I’m so glad that I chose this thermostat!

When the utility offered to install for free I was not particularly interested , didnt see the need for WiFi thermostat. Now that it’s been in use for a month I really like the convenience if use. I’m truly impressed , not one issue with the install of either the unit or Sensi . Both installs were simple and worked from startup. The thermostat was included in an inspection of my home to upgrade my energy usage. I didn’t use the programming feature because being retired I’m not on a fixed schedule. Now I simply reach for my phone , even while lying in bed and change the settings. So without much effort I can affect my energy bill in a positive way. Great unit.

Upper and main floor this app thermostat’s have been a pleasant addition to our home.

During lunch at work I was able to review and alter settings via internet or cellular connection. This led me to discover several cool features like fan circulation, switch from heat to cooling, fan on continuous or system off.

This is a very helpful tool during service and or troubleshooting. Case in point was Service Tech arrived before scheduled appointment and I was able to engage a/c units remotely so they could hear the subject noise concerns outside.

One on vacation would benefit from this app to see real-time HVAC condition within the dwelling to adjust if desired.

I would like to offer a suggestion to incorporate humility adjustments via this app application. Maybe an upgraded humistat can talk with an upgraded this app to make these adjustments. If so, really would have liked to have been educated by salesperson of this option.

Cost now would prohibit us being able to afford four (4) additional this app and Aprilaire thermo and humidity stats.

We are very satisfied with the operation and yields of pleasure from this app we have.

Thanks

I was hesitant to get a thermostat with all of the remote capabilities that the this app has…I felt I didn’t need all of the bells and whistles offered by Emerson. I went with the this app because the price difference between it and others offered by my HVAC service providers was negligible. I am so pleased with my decision to upgrade to the this app! I love the geofencing feature. It really saves energy! I also love the humidity setting capabilities. Living in the Deep South, humidity is intense. I set my humidity kind of high (55%) and I believe the this app has had to overcool in only once but it made a huge difference. The other function I love on the Emerson this app is the ability to set high and low temps so the thermostat knows when to cool and when to heat! This is a function my husband and I searched for for over 30 years! No more physically switching between heating and cooling; this app takes care of that for us! I just love this thermostat!

I think Sensi and thermostat works great. I can adjust the AC or heat from anywhere; bed, on the way home early from work, on vacation, etc. it has worked flawlessly no matter what situation. It is more reliable than my WiFi. I don’t understand what you people are complaining about having to do an “extra step” to access your thermostat....it’s right there, all you have to do is bump the temp up or down. If you have to switch from AC to heat or to turn the fan on, is it really that big of a deal? It literally takes less than half a second to select your thermostat and go to the next menu. I like having all of the thermostats listed. I have a business that’s 25,000 sqft with 4 ACs....makes it a breeze to see them all on one screen and check the temps on the fly. Lets me know if there are any problems and if they are working correctly. Plus the option to “lock” the thermostats to prevent anyone tampering with them is a major win over the Honeywell thermostats.

I’ve used all the major brands. Some at higher price points and some lower. Many have claims of being the best and mostly those are exactly that; claims.
I’ve actually used scientific recording devices and data on the last three homes we’ve had. I can honestly say that they are the best. They keep the temperatures very constant and the features of being able to circulate the air without having the heat pump or AC on is great. We also like the geofencing and easy installation and programming (We have friends that I fear for them with a screwdriver, and have been able to use the tutorial and successfully install it themselves without my assistance- helpful as we’re 1000’s of miles away now!).
We’ve never had any issues and would never use anything else. I might also add that Emerson is known for their best in class process controls, so this device quality comes as no surprise. (And NO I don’t work for Emerson!) :)

The WiFi functionality was up and running in about 10 minutes. Very easy if the directions are followed. I love all of the advanced settings related to heat cycles, geofencing, and sensitivity of thermostat. Already I notice that my furnace isn’t running nearly as much this winter and my home is still at desired temps. The only issue I have was that when ordering my new thermostat, the this app was advertised as one of the few smart thermostats that “doesn’t need a c-wire” to replace older thermostats. This is a tad misleading. Although you don’t need a dedicated c-wire, your wire configuration has to be altered if you don’t have one. The installation walk-through on Sensi never addresses this. I installed per Sensi and furnace wouldn’t turn on. After an hour I luckily found a tutorial video on Sensi that showed how to use the “fan” wire as the c-wire. This worked, but you lose the ability to use the fan to circulate air. All in all, I love the thermostat and app, but wish the c-wire comparability would have been communicated better. Lots of people are replacing older thermostats that do not have more than 4 wires.

Although getting a complete overhaul of our existing Heat/AC unit was a bit pricey, I can tell you that having chosen this app was one of the BEST DECISIONS my Husband & I have ever made. It's extremely user friendly & the updates you've recently been doing have only improved the performance & boosted my opinion. The geofencing addition is sooooo helpful in our daily lives where we're so busy it's one less thing to worry about when leaving the house. I thought being able to log in while away from your home was perfect, but now having it automatically update the temperature to your specifications is just brilliant.
I'm NOT one to leave comments on Sensi Store (I think I've only ever done this 2x in all the years I've had my cell) but I wanted to give a big shout out to this company for outstanding customer service & a brilliant working system.

I have had my this app WiFi Thermostat for 3 years now. It worked beautifully without issue up until the last couple months. I can’t keep my thermostat connected to WiFi. I’ve tried everything I can think of and what support pages have suggested. I don’t know if this was triggered by an app update or not but since I haven’t changed things on my end, I have to assume it’s app related. Most of the time my thermostat shows a full connection but Sensi frequently shows a failed connection or worse yet doesn’t actual do what I’m asking it to do even though Sensi screen shows it follows the commands. For example turning off my AC from Sensi only to find it hasn’t actually turned anything off costing me money. I have read the other recent reviews and see I’m not the only one experiencing these issues. Please fix whatever went wrong so we can all get back to loving your product again.

Let me start by saying that I don’t take a 2 star review lightly. I’ve pretty much rated all of my purchases at 5 stars due to the fact that I only purchase products after investigating what others say and based on proven performance. When the thermostat is working, I love it! Unfortunately it can’t seem to stay connected to not only my google home account, but also to its own app. I’ve had it for around 4 months now and my monthly reports don’t show for any of them since it is offline so much. When you spend over one hundred dollars on something, it’s very disappointing to have so much trouble from it. I’m an HVAC tech so I’ve done my research and made sure everything is perfect for compatibility. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do that will resolve my problem. If I found a solution I would gladly change my review.

Have enjoyed the simplicity and reliability of the thermostat. Recent updates to change from Heat, Cool, or Auto have been very welcomed additions. Now starting to get monthly basic reports on usage. That is where the thermostat could be great..... if the information on usage was more detailed to include breakdown of daily usage with hour detail. I have not used geofencing this far, because I would not want the temperature to change in the house when I leave, if my wife is still at home. Maybe if possible to trigger the geofencing when both our phones move outside the 4 mile range?
Some of these ideas might be more than some people need, but would be nice to have the option. Would still highly recommend the thermostat!

This WiFi programmable thermostat is very easy to use, setup was actually pretty quick if you are already familiar with programmable thermostats. It was very easy to replace my existing one. Once you download the this app app it walks you through step by step. It only took about 20 minutes to install and setup. I love being able to change the temp by the use of my phone. Great product with a very nice look. The only con about it for me was not really an issue with the functionality of it at all but the outside diameter of the thermostat is smaller than my old one, thus exposing the old paint color on our wall. The actual screen display itself is a little larger than our old one so that’s a plus.