Today I received and installed a MicroAir EasyTouch 352 RV Thermostat and thought I would write up some information about it.
It has a lot of nice features - it combines some of the features of smart home thermostats with systems/needs for RVs.
Some of the specific RV needs - my trailer came with a Coleman-Mach Quiet series air conditioner with a heat strip, so the OEM thermostat has a setting for electric heat (the heat strip) or gas heat (the Dometic furnace). The MicroAir thermostat keeps the ability to choose which source of heat you want to use.
It has the ability to set a temp for AC and heat, where the thermostat will turn on either heat or air, depending on the temperature settings - more or less a set and forget type of thing. I probably would not use it as I don’t want the AC to come on automatically while I have all the windows open.
There’s the ability to set a time/day schedule with up to 6 different settings. My experiment at the moment is for 2 different settings - one set to lower the heat setting at my usual bedtime (I like to have the trailer cooler at night), then go up right before I get up in the mornings. It gets the time and location from either Bluetooth or WiFi so you need to have bluetooth set up and occasionally access the phone to set the current time.
It is both Bluetooth and WiFi. The same app is used for both - once the app is set up, the first screen you see offers you the choice of connecting by bluetooth or wifi. You don’t need wifi to connect to the thermostat, but you need bluetooth set up before you can access it with WiFi. Both appear the same, only the symbol at the top of the device (phone for instance) tells you which you are using. I verified that I had mine set up correctly by going to the other end of the park I’m in and turning on the AC - it was running when I got back to the trailer.
I originally bought the thermostat for the Bluetooth capability - I wanted to raise the temperature of the trailer without getting out of my nice, warm bed. All right, I’m lazy and don’t like getting cold all of a sudden. I thought the wifi capability cool, it appealed to that little bit of geek in me mostly. I can see myself using it on occasion, but I don’t have a pet so I’m not sure how much I’ll really use it.
On the left is weather information. It gets this from the internet, either WiFi or Bluetooth. If you use bluetooth it will update when you connect to it. If I understood what I read correctly, it will fetch the information when connected to the internet.
The monitor is back-lit and has a day and a night mode. When you are using the monitor, it is fairly bright. After 30 seconds of inactivity, it either dims (day mode) or goes off completely (night mode). So no trouble with sleeping - put it in night mode and the screen goes black after 30 seconds. In the photo both the Cerbo touch screen and the thermostat are active.
The thermostat came with a card showing the various symbols, but referred you to MicroAir’s website for any type of instructions. I had previously downloaded the manual for this thermostat:
EasyTouch 352 Thermostat Owners Manual
This gives all the information about installing and setting up the thermostat. It doesn’t cover all of the features and how to set things up beyond the basic operation. There is a second manual that gives a complete guide to operations, settings and how it all operates (that’s how I learned that the thermostat gets its time information from the phone, there’s no setting for it). I’m very glad I read through it when I was setting it up, it really clarified a lot of things:
EasyStart Thermostats Operating Manual
The instructions are excellent - they reminded me to pull the fuse for the thermostat before doing anything, then recommended taking a photo of the wiring for the old thermostat - a great idea. The wire configuration is the same as the OEM one, so I put the wires in the same order. I would have liked a second set of hands to hold the thermostat as I was putting on the wires - I found it very awkward and it took me quite a bit to get those wires properly seated in the holes. But I managed it on my own eventually. They said to set up the thermostat at the device first, before connecting to it on the phone.
My feeling is that while the thermostat will work to turn on the heat and AC without using bluetooth, connecting a phone unlocks a number of features I’m going to use a lot (the schedules) so an important part of the thermostat.
Overall, I’m more impressed and pleased with it than I had expected to be.