AprilAire Healthy Air

Purely as a thermostat, I’m reasonably happy with my AprilAire S86W MUPRs. (Full disclosure, I didn’t have a choice on which Wi-Fi thermostat to select, as I had old, non-WiFi AprilAire thermostats and wanted to continue to use my same wired remote temperature sensors.) However, the visual design of the app leaves MUCH to be desired. First and foremost, it wastes so much screen real estate with the “Healthy Air Control” branding. I have multiple thermostats for a zone control system, and I cannot quickly see or adjust any of them from the front screen, but have to scroll and open up each tstat individually to control it. Furthermore, the main interface doesn’t even show what the tstat‘s current temperature setting is, only what temperature the tstat is presently reading. So nothing is visible at a glance, and nothing can be changed quickly. Bad and worse. The screen on the thermostats themselves is likewise annoying. It displays (like the app) the current temperature reading, but not the current temperature setting. For that, buttons need to be pressed. A very cumbersome interface.

UPDATE: someone from AprilAire contacted me after leaving this review. He said my thermostat was in fact deleted from my account. Promised to send DETAILED instructions on how to get this $200 piece of junk working with the app that they just updated. Nope, didn’t happen. I’m here again attempting over and over to make it work. Same failed attempts. AVOID AprilAire thermostats at all cost if you plan to utilize the app for remote access! ORIGINAL REVIEW: Did not select this thermostat, it was installed by a contractor. Initially I could connect (always took 2 attempts and often more) for remote access to the system. Recent app updated REMOVED my thermostat from my account. Assumed once I logged back in, the thermostat would still be there. NOPE! This was particularly irritating because the thermostat is in a second home an hour and a half drive each way. I reached out via social media and was ignored. Get through the holidays and drive down here expecting to reconnect the app to the thermostat. NOPE! Thermostat is connected to internet - all bars showing. I go through the set up process and it says to connect my phone to the APRILAIRXXXXXX wifi and THERE IS NO APRILAIRXXXXXXXX wifi. I called customer service and they work Monday through Friday. I’m not here during the week. I attempt to find a solution online and each online user document refers me to another one. There is no solution other than ripping this $200 thing out and installing a Honeywell! Avoid AprilAir at all cost!

This app only allows users to create 4 temperature schedule adjustments per day. If users could have perhaps 10-12 schedule adjustments per day then users could better balance comfort and peak hour rates from our utilities. Other similar thermostat apps like Nest and Ecobee offer infinite adjustments throughout the day and excellent scheduling capabilities including away from home options and geofencing. More adjustments throughout the day would allow users to reduce their utility bills and ultimately reduce power consumption and could help curb power demands, climate change, rolling blackouts, etc. I hope this review is read by the developers of this app and the management of Aprilaire. Aprilaire makes great products and the app should be just as good as the hardware installed in our homes.