Honeywell's Google Home Integration Supports Multi-Zone HVAC
Barking out instructions to your smart thermostat when you're too hot to get off the couch just got a little easier, with Honeywell announcing its connected temperature controllers now play nice with Google Home. The new integration allows for complete control over one or more HVAC zones via Google's smart speaker, and builds on Honeywell's existing support for the Google Assistant on iOS and Android devices. In fact, the company says, this makes it the only thermostat brand to support all of the major smart hubs.
If you've not been keeping up, there's quite a list of those at this point. In addition to Honeywell playing nice with Google's systems, there's also Amazon's Alexa, Apple's HomeKit, Samsung's SmartThings, and IFTTT. The latter, of course, means that there's actually far broader integration, since you can daisy-chain IFTTT recipes across multiple services not natively supported by Honeywell.
The integration allows for both specific and general commands. For instance, if you know exactly what temperature you want the room set to, you can say "Ok Google, set the temperature to 68 degrees." However, if you're more interested in just a general change in climate, you can say "Ok Google, make the temperature cooler."
It also supports homes or offices with multiple heating and cooling zones. As long as you have an individual connected thermostat for each zone, you can specify in the Google Home settings which one corresponds to each area. Then, you can ask the smart speaker for a specific temperature in a specific zone.
In order for it to work, you'll need one of a handful of Honeywell's connected thermostats. That includes the Lyric line-up of Lyric Round, T6, and T6 Pro, along with the Total Connect Comfort WiFi and RedLINK models. All also allow for remote control – even outside of the home – using Honeywell's own apps.
The benefit, the company argues, is that users needn't be locked into a specific smart home platform just because of what their thermostat supports. That's important, given how straightforward it is to switch connected speaker – usually just a case of plugging it in and logging into your account with Google, Apple, or whoever else – versus installing a brand new thermostat on the wall. Of course, it's not just Honeywell which is looking to tie up links with all of the home IoT platforms, and rivals like ecobee and Nest have their own integrations too.