> This does indeed require some fancy touchscreen super thermostat thing though, so that's probably the crux of this.
And that's where things start to, in a technical term, suck.
I added a forced air heat pump to my house two years ago. I already had a boiler and radiator heat, this added some duct work to the house that covers most of the rooms. The boiler has got to stay in for right now because it powers the water heater (indirect water heater). I'll probably replace that with a heat pump water heater next year once more of the rebates come online.
We got a reasonably high performance heat pump from Lennox. The price was fair - especially given the amount of work that needed to be done to add in duct work to my house. And, to be honest, it works great. At least on the mechanical front.
However, because it is a modulating heat pump it requires a communicating thermostat. I'm pretty sure this giant tablet thing mounted to my wall will die before the rest of the system. The software is buggy and laggy - sometimes not taking my finger presses and not saving changes to my schedule. It's ability to detect occupancy is hot garbage because it requires me to have the iComfort app installed and always give it access to my location.
And that's where stuff gets really awesome! The iOS app and the web site are such hot trash that every time I use it I feel like I need to write another negative review. There's actually two different versions of the devices that use two different apps - both called iComfort. I'm on the newer "fancier" one that can support multiple homes. But, about half the time the app never loads properly and when it does load it doesn't take setting changes most of the time. Meaning that you need to kill the app and try again.
Looking through the source code for the web page reveals why it might have these problems. The JavaScript has numerous syntax errors that browsers might just ignore, inconsistently named functions, no discernible style, and typos that make it obvious that it was outsourced to the lowest bidder.
Now, I thought I'd be okay because it has IFTTT integration. Nope. You can turn the thermostat off, but not on. You can change the temperature, but not activate a program. A worthless integration.
I'd love to find a way to just replace it with another Ecobee or a even better, something with a true local API.
tl;dr: Lennox S30, E30, M30 thermostats are not worth your money.