Honeywell Lyric thermostat

It looks like a poor man's version of a Nest except it costs $50 more and has to be purchased through a contractor. The distinguishing feature that they are touting (the geo-fencing capability) is not something I would even want. I don't want an app on my phone sending constant updates to Honeywell on exactly where I am located. This seems like an established company trying to play catch-up to an unanticipated change in their market and doing a poor job.

They sued Nest for allegedly violating patents that Honeywell wasn&#x27;t using (because they could&#x27;ve owned the Nest market if they&#x27;d moved first): <a href="http://honeywell.com/News/Pages/Honeywell-Files-Lawsuit-Alleging-Patent-Infringement-By-NestLabs;Follows-Similar-Litigation-Against-Other-Manufacturers.aspx" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;honeywell.com&#x2F;News&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;Honeywell-Files-Lawsuit-Alle...</a><p>No thanks. I don&#x27;t want to reward that behavior.

One reason I haven&#x27;t started adding &#x27;Smart Devices&#x27; to my home is that I am not confident that traditional device manufacturers are thinking about security like they should. Case in point, the Belkin WeMo vulnerability[1]. Does the convenience of adding these devices to your home make up for the fact that every one you add is a potential attack vector?<p>1: <a href="http://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/turning-the-belkin-wemo-into-a-deathtrap/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;01&#x2F;31&#x2F;turning-the-belkin-wemo-into-...</a>

As usual, the pricing is opaque. Click &quot;Get Lyric&quot; and it directs me to a list of &quot;certified contractors.&quot;<p>&gt; The Lyric Thermostat is currently available exclusively through Honeywell certified contractors.<p>It does say it will be available for self-installation &quot;soon.&quot; However, so far this continues the long-standing tradition with HVAC companies.

Best part: &quot;The Lyric Thermostat is currently available exclusively through Honeywell certified contractors.&quot; No, you cannot install this yourself. #facepalm

As of right now you can only get this through a contractor. Seems like DOA if they keep it that way.

&quot;The next generation of smart technology from the company that invented The Round thermostat.&quot;<p>Wow

Eww. This website could be the poster child of whatever is wrong with today&#x27;s web design trends.<p>It looks terrible unless you&#x27;re in full screen.<p>It breaks scrolling.<p>Fonts are some unreadable superthin sans-serif.<p>Flat drawings of real stuff that are hard to understand and take over the foreground.

I won&#x27;t buy a NEST after the Google acquisition; nice to see other players entering this space.<p>Laughable how long it took them -- Honeywell should have completely owned this market.<p>Next up for disruption is home security.

One other thing about the &quot;Internet of Things&quot; movement that has really bugged me: all of these Internet-enabled Things tend to rely on (oh, no, there&#x27;s that word again) the &quot;cloud.&quot;<p>I really don&#x27;t like the idea of my home reporting everything to third parties. If I want access to things on my home LAN, it should be through my own VPN and not a third party.

What, did Honeywell hire the vaunted Hardware Copying division of Samsung to make this? Couldn&#x27;t look more like a Nest rip-off if you set out from the start trying to make a Nest rip-off. (Which they likely did.)