Page 3: Installation, WiFi Setup
Installation
The 3M-50 thermostat has two covers that pop off of the top and bottom. The top has a sticker warning you to turn off the HVAC power before removing the old thermostat. If you've ever watched HVAC technicians, they rarely do this. We did it, just to be safe. You can see all the touch areas in this photo very well. A set of anchors and screws for mounting were located under the bottom panel.
The top panel contains the wire ports for various HVAC systems. Once you remove your old thermostat, make sure you label each wire BEFORE you unhook them. If you forget what was was hooked into what, you'll end of tracing the lines back to the HVAC system. There is no standard coloring for HVAC wiring.
A caveat about the 3M-50. The thermostat requires that the HVAC "C" wire is provided for power. Many installations don't bother running this power wire since the thermostats run off of battery power. If you don't have a "C" wire (we didn't), you'll end up running another line from the HVAC unit. If you can't do that, you can put a 12-24V transformer to the 3M-50 for power. Batteries alone will not be able to power the WiFi model. The thermostat will work with batteries alone, but you lose the WiFi function. Make sure you have power going to the thermostat.
After a few days of tracing wiring and running a new "C" wire, we had the 3M-50 up and running on HVAC power. Since the batteries are now only for backup, you'll probably never notice when they run out unless there is a power failure... but our batteries are already dieing in this image.
WiFi Setup
After correctly wiring the thermostat, you'll need a device that can connect to a WiFi network. This could be anything like a smart-phone or a laptop, but if you don't have a device, you won't be able to set the thermostat up. If you're reading this site, you'll be able to manually setup the thermostat. Once you connect to the thermostat wireless network, you navigate to the WiFi module by going to 192.168.10.1 over HTTP. Once on the internal webserver, you can setup the thermostat for DHCP or a static address and the rest is fairly simple.
The network setup is easy enough to understand. You'll have to type everything in manually, the model won't scan networks for you. Even if it did, you should be hiding your SSID. The model supports 802.11i, so WPA2 will work fine with the thermostat.
After the wireless setup is completed, you'll be given a PIN and access code. The PIN is located on the thermostat on the top left (where the time would be). You need to go to http://www.radiothermostat.com/wifi/ and complete the setup from there.
Once everything is setup, you are given a web based control that mimics the thermostat display. You operate it the same way. It is a bit clunky, but it works.
One thing that we don't like is the privacy policy (pdf) of the Radio Thermostat website. Once you sign up, you're basically giving up your personal information for sale by the company. This includes your name, address, and even temperature status. This is a VERY huge problem for a system like this. Why should this random company be able to sell all my information? ASE Labs will not recommend use of this website for this very reason. Privacy is too important to lose on a thermostat.
There may be a saving grace, though. In Q1 of 2011, there will be an API released that will allow you to control the thermostat directly. Once this happens, we'll be happy to recommend the product without using the website. Your privacy is important, protect it.
While there may not be an API released, if you are handy with a packet sniffer, you can figure everything out on your own. We'll try to list what we've found from our inspection or from around the web. The thermostat uses JSON for data and it is RESTful. If you do a GET /tstat/info, you will get the current conditions of the thermostat (in JSON). You can change the URL of the "cloud" service the thermostat uses by going to the internal web server of the thermostat. We tried changing that to another computer, but we didn't capture any packets... We'll have to wait for the API for control.
The 3M-50 thermostat has two covers that pop off of the top and bottom. The top has a sticker warning you to turn off the HVAC power before removing the old thermostat. If you've ever watched HVAC technicians, they rarely do this. We did it, just to be safe. You can see all the touch areas in this photo very well. A set of anchors and screws for mounting were located under the bottom panel.
The top panel contains the wire ports for various HVAC systems. Once you remove your old thermostat, make sure you label each wire BEFORE you unhook them. If you forget what was was hooked into what, you'll end of tracing the lines back to the HVAC system. There is no standard coloring for HVAC wiring.
A caveat about the 3M-50. The thermostat requires that the HVAC "C" wire is provided for power. Many installations don't bother running this power wire since the thermostats run off of battery power. If you don't have a "C" wire (we didn't), you'll end up running another line from the HVAC unit. If you can't do that, you can put a 12-24V transformer to the 3M-50 for power. Batteries alone will not be able to power the WiFi model. The thermostat will work with batteries alone, but you lose the WiFi function. Make sure you have power going to the thermostat.
After a few days of tracing wiring and running a new "C" wire, we had the 3M-50 up and running on HVAC power. Since the batteries are now only for backup, you'll probably never notice when they run out unless there is a power failure... but our batteries are already dieing in this image.
WiFi Setup
After correctly wiring the thermostat, you'll need a device that can connect to a WiFi network. This could be anything like a smart-phone or a laptop, but if you don't have a device, you won't be able to set the thermostat up. If you're reading this site, you'll be able to manually setup the thermostat. Once you connect to the thermostat wireless network, you navigate to the WiFi module by going to 192.168.10.1 over HTTP. Once on the internal webserver, you can setup the thermostat for DHCP or a static address and the rest is fairly simple.
The network setup is easy enough to understand. You'll have to type everything in manually, the model won't scan networks for you. Even if it did, you should be hiding your SSID. The model supports 802.11i, so WPA2 will work fine with the thermostat.
After the wireless setup is completed, you'll be given a PIN and access code. The PIN is located on the thermostat on the top left (where the time would be). You need to go to http://www.radiothermostat.com/wifi/ and complete the setup from there.
Once everything is setup, you are given a web based control that mimics the thermostat display. You operate it the same way. It is a bit clunky, but it works.
One thing that we don't like is the privacy policy (pdf) of the Radio Thermostat website. Once you sign up, you're basically giving up your personal information for sale by the company. This includes your name, address, and even temperature status. This is a VERY huge problem for a system like this. Why should this random company be able to sell all my information? ASE Labs will not recommend use of this website for this very reason. Privacy is too important to lose on a thermostat.
There may be a saving grace, though. In Q1 of 2011, there will be an API released that will allow you to control the thermostat directly. Once this happens, we'll be happy to recommend the product without using the website. Your privacy is important, protect it.
While there may not be an API released, if you are handy with a packet sniffer, you can figure everything out on your own. We'll try to list what we've found from our inspection or from around the web. The thermostat uses JSON for data and it is RESTful. If you do a GET /tstat/info, you will get the current conditions of the thermostat (in JSON). You can change the URL of the "cloud" service the thermostat uses by going to the internal web server of the thermostat. We tried changing that to another computer, but we didn't capture any packets... We'll have to wait for the API for control.