RLV4305A1000 5-2 Day Programmable Thermostat for Electric Baseboard Heaters

Firstly lets quickly get this out of the way. This is a LINE Voltage thermostat. The simplest way to describe this is -its a light switch.. just switches on when it hits the temp to kick of or off. So if you're seeing 3 or 4 super thin wires this isnt the right item for you... That being said - my home is basically a hot water boiler hooked up to 2 zones and zone control is either powering on or off these water circulators. Its just a simple 120v line. I replaced two analogue mercury style thermostats and hook up is straight forward and dummy proof. The first thing before you start the replacement ... TURN OFF the Power at the breaker! This is line voltage or 120v will be uncomfortable.. or if you're 240v... yeah don't want to touch a live wire there.... The thermostat is NOT polarity sensitive. That means you can join either the hot or neutral to either black wire - complete the circuit and shove everything back in. For me I used standard Wagos rather than nut connectors and replacing both thermostats was a breeze. I did have an issue with the FIRST one I bought from a big box store. The unit kept on rebooting which every 4 minutes throws out a 2.5 and 11.9 code. I tried to search what these codes mean but on the 2nd and replacement installs I noted i get these codes ON boot but the working ones just never showed those codes after boot. The Amazon shipped unit worked flawlessly and I was able to return to the big orange box store with no issues. So for anyone with LINE voltage heating or cooling - this is a great thermostat to program your wake up away and sleep ranges for the temps in the home. Better than 1 setting regardless of there is a human home or not. Super Easy DIY - just work safe! have fun!!

This review is for the "new" version, RLV4305A. I got this to control a 1200W Electric Radiant Cove Heater (QMark RCC12012C) that I installed to provide supplementary heat in a bedroom. For this project, a programmable thermostat was a requirement. If I let this radiant heater run continuously, it could cost me over $100/month in electricity, just to improve the heat in one room which I am mostly not in during the day. It really is silent. The box says it uses a TRIAC, which I learned is like a dimmer. So instead of clicking off when the room gets noticeably warm and clicking back on when it gets noticeably cold, this t-stat constantly raises and lowers the dimming level to tightly track the setpoint. There is some indication of this in the display, showing 0-5 heat wave squiggles, depending on how much power it allows through. The LCD display lights up when you press a button and stays lit for 10 seconds or so. Normally, it is completely dark. Without the backlight, it is still readable if there is enough ambient light, like during the day or with room lighting on. In normal use, it displays the current time and temp, mode and period, plus the squiggles mentioned above. Touching the temp up/down button once will show the set temp. Install is straight-forward if you are familiar with household electric service. This device is installed in series with the electric heater (like a wall switch) and modulates the line-voltage AC electricity that actually passes through both the thermostat and the heater(s). There are no low-voltage control lines here like a regular household thermostat has. I don't understand why there are 4 mounting holes in the unit. I used the 2 left holes with the 2 included screws to mount it to the left half of a 2-gang electrical box. I don't get why the other 2 right holes don't line up with the holes on the right side of the box, but even like this, it is plenty firm and secure and it completely covers the box opening. Programming is easy. "5-2" means you set separate Mon-Fri and Sat-Sun schedules, but nothing more sophisticated. By default, the M-F weekday schedule has 4 time periods (wake, leave, return, sleep) to program, but the Sat-Sun schedule only has 2 (wake, sleep). However, you can set times and temps for the 2 other Sat-Sun periods (leave, return) too. If you have a weird schedule you want to program, this might not be sufficient, but for most cases this should be good enough and easier to program. There are enough buttons with meaningful labels to make the work of programming it fairly easy. Rotate though the 8 periods with the "pgm" button, and change the time with the hr/min buttons and the temp with the up/down buttons. Finish/save by pressing the "⏎" button. Not rocket science. There is no "OFF" button or mode. "Manual" mode is a constant set temp like an old thermostat. The "Away" mode allows for a lower constant set temp (default 59f), presumably for extended time away from home. "Standby" mode is almost OFF, but it will turn on if the temp drops below 41f. In all the modes, it draws a tiny bit of power for itself. I have not tested this unit during an extended power outage, but it claims to remember the date/time for 5 hours or so without power. There is no battery compartment, so it must have something like a rechargeable battery or a big capacitor inside it. I'm very happy with the quality and the price is better than every other programmable line voltage thermostat that I've seen.

Since first purchasing an electric house 28 years ago I have searched from time to time for programmable thermostats to no avail. Recently I had a thermostat go wonky and I looked to replace it. Lo and behold I came across these and was overjoyed. So I ordered one. It went in easy, worked right away and I was happy. So I went and bought two more. Opened the first box and there was no hardware. Not a big deal as the hardware is two wire nuts (although you need three to install these) and two M2.5 X 0.45, 6mm long Phillips screws. Wire nuts I had, screws not any that were long enough, and neither did HomoDepot. So I e-mailed the manufacturer and after more then a week had not heard back. I gave up on them and started a return and ordered a replacement. In the meanwhile I went to install thermostat #3. It had the hardware, but it didn't work. Completely dead. OK, I'll use that hardware to install therm #2 (which I had not yet returned) and return #3 instead. So now I had two working and one going back. Then #4 arrived and that one had spastic fits. It powered on, the display went crazy and that was about all. So now another one has to go back and orders placed for two more. In total I purchased six thermostats and to be totally honest, of those two were brand new and four were amazon bargain basements. But it was one brand new one that was DOA, and one bargain basement that went haywire. And two in total that had no hardware. And in case you forgot about customer support, they did finally respond almost three weeks later and told me what type of screw I needed to go buy. I could tell them what to do with that screw but I've got better things to do with my time. The moral of my story, if you get one that works you are golden. I just hope they stay working. They do have a 1 year warranty but make sure you save the box, I have a feeling that's their loophole.

I have been using this thermostat now for about a month. If you have the skill to change an in wall light switch, you can install this thermostat. I use mine to control an oil filled roll around type radiator style space heater. You cannot use this thermostat, or any other external thermostat if your heating unit has a built in electronic control. Manual contols only! (switches & turnable more or less heat knob). This thermostat is completely quiet, fairly easy to enter settings, (read the instruction sheet until you understand) and controls room temperature within a degree. The room temperature showing on the display is not as accurate as the temperature control cirquit, and is an unimportant aspect of this very accurate controller. Want dead on RTD type reading? Triple the cost of this thermostat! Mine reads 2 degrees high. So I set it at 70 instead of 68°. What is important is the industrial accuracy RTD tyle lab calibration temperature sensor on my night stand.(I'm a retired Energy Management/Automation controls Engineer with 38 years experience) This thermostat works very well. 15 second cyle, 15 minute cycle? Fan, no fan? This thermostat uses one or the other methods to control the electric heating element. The 15 minute cycle is used with heaters that also have fans in them. It runs for upwards of 15 minutes and cycles off to maintain the temperature. The 15 second cycle only controls the heating element. It uses a solid state switch (triac) to pulse the heat element on or off to closely ccontrol the room temperature. At near setpoint, this unit pulses power at 1 second on, 14 seconds off. If the room is way below setpoint, the heater will be on continuosly untill the room temperature approaches the setpoint, then starts by pulsing 14 seconds on, 1 second off, all the way to completely off at setpoint. This is standard electric heating (no fan) control with much higher accuracy. Been around for 30 plus years, but very expensive untill the past few years. This kind of pulsing is harmless to heater elements. I used a shallow surface mount wall box, surface mount wire/cable wall guides (2), mounted box 5 feet above a wall outlet, used a 20 foot round, 3 prong extention cord. I cut the extension cord long enough to push the male (the part that plugs into the wall) up into the wall box, then pushed the remaing cable up the second channel guide into the wall box, connected the two white wires together and used appropriately sized twist caps. Connected the thermostat wires to each individual black extension cord wires. Thermostat is not polarized. Mount the thermostat to the wall box. Plug the extension cord from one of the cable guides into the wall outlet, the socket end of the extension cord is for the room heater male plug. Turn the heater switch(s) to high, heat knob to max. Many oil filled heaters cannot reject enough heat on high without overheating the unit! So manufacturers put overheat cutoffs to cycle the element off until it cools. JUST GREAT! This derates the heater from 5200 btu's to about 3000, maybe. That 1500 watt heater is really 800/900 watts. The specs. are on paper only. Solution: A 7 inch metal cage, fully rotatable 3 speed table fan. 1 programable timer. Place the fan on a side of the heater, angle it up towards the upper portion of the oil filled heater. Plug the fan into the timer, the timer into another wall outlet. Match the timer schedule to the thermostats schedule. The heater can now output all its heat indefinately. One on/off cycle should be adequate. Clean the fan on a regular basis. DO NOT CONNECT ALL FOUR BLACK WIRES TOGETHER AS ONE BIG TWISTED CONNECTION. Reader assumes ALL liabilities! How I did mine, and posting on Amazon reviews, is not to be taken as an instruction or direction on how to install, wire, or use this product with an electric heater. If you are not well versed in electrical theory and application, consult someone who is.

Description: Yes, it is back-lit.No separate battery needed for this feature either. Current room temperature is displayed at all times along with the current time, day of the week and chosen modes (auto, manual, away, and standby. Standby is actually the 'off' mode).Screen lights up only when either 'Mode" or temperature 'up/down' button is pressed. This is a heat only thermostat. Can be programmed for fan-forced as well as baseboard- electrical or hot water heaters (with oil or gas boilers/furnaces). For 120 and 240 VAC@ 60 Hz. I have baseboard heaters that provide heat through heated water from an oil boiler/furnace. Installation: Hands down, the easiest installation for a thermostat. Two non-polar wires for two wire installation, with protective wire nuts(connectors) provided (there is an optional wiring diagram included for four-wire systems). Non-polar means you don't have to worry if you connect the 'hot' or neutral wires to the wrong wire of the thermostat. The wires on the thermostat were stripped for you already so as long as the house wiring was already stripped you didn't need to have wire strippers. It literally took me five minutes to install. Most of the time was wasted taking off my old, thirty something year old one. Programming: Programming was pretty straight forward too. This is where you need the manual for those who have basic electrical experience. Mon- Fri had wake, leave, return and sleep programming while Sat-Sun had wake and sleep You had the option to put the thermostat in basically, a pre-warming mode where it would consistently turn on the boiler to bring the room temperature up to your preset temperature request (this option is really so you don't have wait to have the room to your comfort level in the 'wake' segment. No more getting out of bed to a cold room and have to wait for the room to heat up.) However, you can turn off this feature by simply navigating using the mode button to this option to turn it off.Hence, this brings me to the only problem or suggestion I would have regarding this device- label. Conclusion: I think the designers should have gone that last step and simply labelled the 'Mode' (small button) and the temperature 'up' 'down' button (big button) on or near the buttons. Someone just looking at the thing or not having the manual wouldn't know which is which. Especially, if (like most people) you forfeit the manual and just start pressing buttons or use the quick setup option right there on the inside cover. Although, in the quick setup there are symbols of what these buttons look like. I do wish it was smaller in dimension too. Without that display side it would be the perfect size but, of course, you do need that. Overall, great, user friendly product.

Let me start out by saying I have nothing against this thermostat model itself. I own two of them I am very happy with and will be buying more. However, they will NOT be used ones from here! I've ordered four total - the first one was Amazon Renewed and for all appearances could have been new. It worked great. The second and third were both "Used - Very Good". The second also appeared to be new except for a smudge on the cover that wiped off, and works fine. The third had clearly been previously installed (no complaints there), but when powered would not display anything on the screen. It did put the heater full on immediately, as if there was some kind of short on the inside totally bypassing the control. I returned that one and bought a fourth, also "Used - Very Good". This one had also clearly been previously installed. It also did not display anything on the screen! I verified my heater resistance, checked my voltage, and finally swapped it with one of the first two units - and it remained dead as a rock. This one didn't even produce heat like the third one did. I'm in the process of returning it now. Realistically, I'm not sure I should have expected better - why would someone take a modern, programmable, digital switching thermostat off the wall if it works perfectly well? Every one I've gotten has either been new with some sort of minor cosmetic defect (i.e. a cleanable smudge) or has clearly been installed and then taken out. Probably because it didn't work. And then somehow based on the decent cosmetic appearance these bricks got sold on Amazon as used but in "very good" condition. I hope this can serve as a wake-up call to a quality control that does not seem to be working.

Easy to install and should save us some money.

I bought two of the old model, the Honeywell YRLV430A1005/U 5-2 Day Programmable Thermostat for Electric Baseboard Heating, a couple of years ago, and I was a little worried about buying this newer model before there were any reviews. I love it! It's such an improvement over the older model that now I want to replace my old ones. I had two main complaints about the old model. The first was what everyone complained about: needing a magnifying glass and a flashlight to read the display. This one has a display that lights up. I don't know if the display is actually bigger, but it's much easier to read. It says "man" instead of showing a tiny hand for manual mode. Also, you couldn't turn the old model off. You had to arrow it way down (one degree at a time) during summer. This one has a standby mode that switches the unit to only come on if the temperature drops below 41º. This allows me to open my windows in the fall and spring without worrying about the heat coming on. Other than that, it is very similar to the old model. You can program four different time settings for weekdays and then another four time settings for the weekend. I found programming to be easy, but I already knew how from the old models. The key is to hit the Program button after each time setting and only hit the arrow/return key when you're done and want to exit the program mode. I think the buttons are very intuitive. Now my only complaint is the size. It's a little big for a thermostat, definitely much bigger than our old manual thermostats. But it's wonderful to have the heat turn on and warm up a room before I get out of bed. These seem to turn on our older baseboard heaters much faster than our old manual thermostats, which seemed to have about a twenty to thirty minute lag time before the heater even turned on and started making noise (we have some old Intertherm heaters). I just thought these heaters took that long to turn on and start putting out heat. With these thermostats, they start up much more quickly.

I've not had this installed all that long, but the installation was straightforward, and it's working as expected. It's replacing a similar product, from a different manufacturer, that did not make it through it's third Winter of use [and only came with a 1 yr. warranty]. So far, I'm pleased. If it lasts five Winters, I'll really be pleased. One thing I do want to say: there were some reviews complaining about how difficult it was to set up and program this thermostat. If the least thing you do with any product is read the Instructions, you might have a bit of trouble with this. However, if you could read "Jack And The Beanstalk" to you child, and understood the story, read the instruction sheet and you can program the thermostat in 10 min. or less.

Easy to install, but instructions not the greatest. Worth buying to help reduce heating bills by automatically controlling heat settings.

Installation was very simple. The programing instructions are a bit difficult at first and the screen is a bit small (for older eyes). Apart from these two minor observations I would highly recommend this device as a first rate replacement for a "dumb thermostat"

This programmable thermostat is amazing and works so well with baseboard heaters and easy to install

Holds set point temperature very precisely, cycle time seems short when really cold outside but that is because of its precision in holding the set point, cycle time gets longer as the outside temperature gets warmer because the inside temperature does not drop below set point as fast. I also like the Auto function which allows you to set it to stop and start the electric wall heaters at certain set times when you are sleeping or away.