Thermostat replacement

[subieman89]

I need help severely my dog is in my rv while I am at work. And I am a space cadet. I need her comfort when I am gone to be priority 1. I need to change the thermostat from this Dometic to a programmable or wifi one. I see a lot of forums show replacement but I only have a 12v- comm and 12v+ connections

[TomHaycraft]

Following to watch for replies from others. No need for high-tech on mine ... but would like to see the current temperature, give me a better idea where to "start" the A/C or heater settings.

Tom

[Megan Coriale]

I would be interested in a how-to or at least some advice here as well. The thermostat that came in our 2015 323BHS is, quite frankly, cheap. The ability to see the current temp and possibly have some small amount of customization would be a plus.

[Hugoodlu]

I wonder if Nest would work?

[offtohavasu]

Most of the smart thermostats require the "C" wire off the transformer from the furnace, which is 24V AC. You can buy transformers like this one to if you cannot get the correct voltage: http://store.radiothermostat.com/24V...ransformer.htm

[Cqyqte]

If you what to change over to a house style thermostat where you can automate the heat/cool features or even gain wifi control, you will have to find a thermostat that operates on batteries. Honeywell has several to chose from as I am aware of. The fact that the thermostat operates on batteries indicates that it is simply an electronically controlled switch and therefore switching a 12V DC system is no problem at all. The only issue you will have is deciding to either do away with your "high" speed or your "low" speed fan setting. However, you can get amibitous and add an extra switch to allow you to choose either or manually. I personally chose to go with the "low" speed setting as the high was just too noisey. Now as for Wifi features, well that's a whole other story. Most RV'rs will connect to campground wifi signals and the campground routers will not be set to allow for port forwarding so once you are away from their LAN network you will not be able to connect back to your Wifi thermostat, so I would recommend to hold off on the Wifi concept and just go simple.

[offtohavasu]

I've seen thermostats that will run on batteries, even wifi stats, but in order for the wifi part to work, it requires the C wire (there will be a notation on the box indicating this). To power the wifi module continuously on batteries would eat them up PDQ.

[Cqyqte]

Some may ask then why change the thermostat then, well we travel with furry little buddies and in the spring and fall it is not uncommon to wake up with the heat on to later change it to air conditioning before noon. The thermostats in most RV's are very simple, even the new digital ones and have to be manually switch from heat to cool. That can be deadly if you remember that you left the fur baby's in the trailer with the setting on heat and it's 1:00 pm and you are 30 miles away. So changing the thermostat to a household one with the automatic switch over from heat to cool based on set temperatures is brilliant. No more panic situations.

[Cqyqte]

I've seen thermostats that will run on batteries, even wifi stats, but in order for the wifi part to work, it requires the C wire (there will be a notation on the box indicating this). To power the wifi module continuously on batteries would eat them up PDQ.

Not 100% certain, but I think the circuitry in the thermostat uses the 24V AC passes it through a diode bridge to create DC voltage which then runs the electronics probably at 5V DC. I am not sure what the 12V DC would look like after running through the same diode bridge? But since the wifi wouldn't be accessible from the external side of the campground wifi, what's the point.

[offtohavasu]

Most wifi thermostats don't run directly from your phone(app)-outside wifi (internet)-to wifi. They check in to a site, say Honeywell, and that's what your phone app communicates to. The stat checks for changes on the Honeywell site and then makes changes accordingly. As long as you have a wifi connection wherever, the app should work, given you have the common (C) connected on the stat.