RLV3120A1005 Digital Non-Programmable Thermostat for Electric Heat Only

So far so good, our old school resistor knob thermostats kept going bad (wouldn’t shut off our baseboard heaters), which would seem very dangerous as they got really hot.This is my first time trying a digital one and so far it really turns on/off (shown on screen as well), to keep it at your desired temperature.Note the default was set in Celsius units! Press and hold both up/down buttons together for 3 sec, then press either up/down, then hold both buttons again for 1 sec to save unit of choice.

The Honewell RLV3120A1005/H is an extremely simple thermostat for two wire baseboard heaters. You set the temperature, and it holds it there until you decide to come back and change it again.I’m replacing an old Swan manual thermostat from the 60’s. It was a simple On/Off thermostat which worked off an expanding piece of metal. Accuracy was not its strong point as my room went from feeling like Antarctica to Guam in less than a half hour if I tried to set it to a measly 70 degrees. The heater was either on full blast or turned off. This made my room feel very stuffy and overly warm. There’s probably a reason for that but I’m no heating expert.I would have liked to get a programmable model but I didn’t want to spend too much (I’m renting the house from the college after all) so I settled on the Honeywell. Looked to do all I needed it to anyway.The thermostat feels pretty substantial. Upon opening it up you’ll find a large heat sync and some beefy circuitry to handle the baseboard heater. It’s rated for 1000 watts at 120 volts and 2000 watts at 240 volts. That’s a roughly 7 to 9-foot heater. The exterior plastic feels solid too. The buttons are very clicky but don’t have a very satisfying travel.Installing was a piece of cake. It has black two wires coming out the back, roughly 4-5 inches long which you connect to the baseboard heater wires in your wall. Color and order don’t matter. The box includes wire nuts for securing your connection and two screws for attaching the device to the wall. After killing the breaker (always cut the power to your heater before installing these things) I wrapped the wires together, used the nuts to secure the connection, carefully replaced them into the wall box, and screwed the thermostat in. The screws that come with the thermostat are very long and didn’t fit my wall box so I used the ones that secured the previous thermostat. Once it was secured to my wall, I slipped the top plate over the thermostat and switched the power back on. Worked like a charm.Operation is stupid simple. The display always shows the ambient temperature. Clicking the up or down keys once shows the temperature setting. Clicking them again changes the setting to the desired temperature. Clicking both keys at once brings up a setting to change from Celsius to Fahrenheit. When the heater is on the thermostat will display 1-5 little flame icons. The thermostat will throttle the heater to keep energy use to a minimum and make sure your room doesn’t get turned into an oven for the sake of a single degree. The flame icons indicate how intense the heater is running with five being blazing hot and one being warm to the touch. This throttling works great and the temperature is kept within around +/- 1 degree most of the time. When on full intensity, the thermostat can get a little warm to the touch (guess that’s why it has a heat sync), but not enough to worry about.Pros and Cons!Pros:• Super easy to use• Setup is super easy, just two wires!• Display is easy to read and clear. No noticeable fade from different angles.• Runs heater at optimal intensity for smooth heating and lower power bills• Stays accurate to setting• Does not click when turning on or offCons:• Buttons are plastic and don’t feel all that great to press (nitpicking, they are fine)• Buttons on my unit feel slanted to the left. They are tilted away from you with a noticeable angle that you can feel when you press them. Weird design choice in my opinion so maybe it’s a defect? (Also nitpicking, they are fine)• There is pretty much no other functionality other than adjusting the set temperature (which is fine because that’s what it is)• The screws were very long and didn’t fit in my wall box so I had to use the screws from my old thermostat. Not a huge deal either but a little annoying.My heater is a simple 7 foot two wire electric baseboard heater with no forced air.Overall, this is a fantastic unit. If you are looking for a simple thermostat to run your baseboard heater then pick up the Honeywell RLV3120A1005/H

T-Stat performs well, and easy to install.2-Comments:1) Display is not back-lit so forget adjustment at night w/o lighting up the room. I know, description doesn't say it is, but adding seems like a no-brainer.2) Device is electrically pretty sensitive to voltage fluctuation. I've had several fail, presumable due to power outages, brown-outs, etc.

I bought 3 of these to replace my old dial thermostats. The difference was noticeable immediately. The problem with the old dial thermostats I had was that they weren't accurately stopping when the temperature they were set to was reached. That made it so that it was either too hot or too cold and never just right because they never shut off when they should of unless I turned them off manually. For example I would set the one in my bedroom to 50 degrees fahrenheit and it would keep heating until it was 85+ degrees. It was very annoying to wake up in the middle of the night just to turn the heat off because it was unbearable.I installed these in the 3 most used rooms in my house and the difference was noticeable immediately. The heat turns off at the temperature it's set at and when it drops below, instead of turning on full blast, it'll send a little current to the heater until it gets back to the temperature it's set at and then turn off again. This is denoted by the 5 bars under the thermostat, if they are on full blast it has 5 bars, if it's close to the temp it's set at, it's 1 or 2 bars. If it's at the desired temp there are 0 bars.I wish I would have bought these sooner, I can now set the temp and forget about it instead of turning it on and off all the time due to it not stopping on it's own with the old dials. I have a few rooms left to replace and I'll be buying more soon.Setup was a breeze. One thing to note is that these do not have a place for the ground wire to hook up to but that doesn't prevent them from working.I'd recommend these to anyone who has baseboard heat and still has the old dial thermostats. The small investment in these is well worth the results.