What's in a name? The Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat is a smart display at its core, and I'm here for it

The best smart thermostats are incredibly convenient, but I'd imagine for most of us, they're something you install, set up a schedule for your preferred temps, and then you forget about it. At least, that's mostly been my experience after years of using Nest and Ecobee products. However, when Honeywell Home announced its X8S Smart Thermostat, my interest was piqued.

Not only does it boast a 5-inch display full of information about your home and local weather, but it pulls double-duty as a smart display to see and talk to whoever is at your door, so long as you have a First Alert VX1 or Ring video doorbell.

I tested the X8S Smart Thermostat in my home for three weeks, determined to see if the large screen and extra intercom capability would turn this smart thermostat into something I regularly interact with.

Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat review: Price and availability

The Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat is available right now, directly from Honeywell Home along with participating retailers like Lowe's or Amazon. It's priced at $220, firmly putting it on the high end of smart thermostats, while staying below the $260 Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium or the $280 Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen).

Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat review: Design

The X8S is available in an all white or all black body. I opted for the white model to match the rest of our house, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I think the black version is more appealing for no other reason than it hides the bezels around the display.

Speaking of the display, the X8S has a 5-inch 480 x 800 touchscreen that you use to navigate settings, adjust the temperature or display one of several idle screens when not in use. Of course, it's also what you'll be staring at if you decide to answer your video doorbell on it.

The thermostat itself measures 5.24 inches wide by 3.54 inches tall. It sticks out just under an inch (0.96 inches to be exact) from the wall.

Even though its overall footprint is bigger than a Nest or Ecobee thermostat, the wall plate is almost identical in size to the wall plate for the Ecobee I swapped out. That's a huge win if you're afraid of putting extra holes in your wall that won't be covered by a future thermostat.

There's no denying the overall design of the X8S looks very much like an Amazon Echo Show 5 or a slightly smaller Nest Hub (2nd Gen) on your wall.

The entire look and feel of the X8S screams smart display, and I'm not mad at it.

Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat review: Installation

Your installation experience will depend on the type of heating/cooling system you have in your home. I have a single-stage forced air heater with central air for the warmer months here in Colorado.

My home was built in the 70's and as such, there isn't an extra power wire (referred to as a C Wire) running from the furnace room to the thermostat. If your setup is similar, you'll need to get a C-Wire Power Adapter from Honeywell Home; it's free, you just have to request one using the promo code included in the box with the X8S.

I'd previously installed our Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, which also required a C-Wire adapter, so I figured making the switch would be a breeze. I was (mostly) wrong.

The entire installation process took close to two hours, with 90 minutes of that dedicated to deciphering where exactly the wires would go on the wall plate for the X8S. The colors of the wires and the labels I had put on them during the Ecobee installation didn't match what Honeywell Home was expecting.

But after I sat down, read through the wiring guide a few times, I eventually was able to figure it out. I had to create a customized decoder ring, after which the install was straightforward.

Next, I had to remove Ecobee's C-Wire power adapter from my furnace, replace it with the Honeywell Home version, and I was up and running.

With power running to the X8S, I had to use the First Alert by Resideo app to create an account, then connect the thermostat to my home's Wi-Fi network. You don't have to connect the thermostat to the app, however doing so will allow you to remotely control your home's temp whether you're on the couch or on the other side of the country.

Honeywell Home also sent me a room sensor that I installed in my bedroom. The sensor feeds motion and temperature information to the X8S, which you can view in the companion app or on the display.

Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat review: Performance

During the initial setup, the X8S walked me through setting a schedule for the set temperature based on time of day and when people are most frequently home. Usually, that's where the setup process for a smart thermostat ends. From that point on, it's a hands-off experience.

With the X8S, I still needed to select my idle screen and connect my Ring account. The idle screen is akin to a screensaver for the X8S, displaying the time, along with inside and outside temperatures. There are eight different screens to pick from with varying colors and designs. It's a fun way to let the user customize the look of the X8S.

My favorite Idle Screen is a stack of text, with the time on top, followed by the inside temp and outside temp/conditions below.

My thermostat is located in a hallway, which means you have to walk directly past it to even see the display; otherwise I could totally see this being a handy feature to have from across the room.

I also took a few minutes to connect my Ring account to the First Alert app, giving it permission to access my Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. After the initial connection, I got distracted and forgot all about it for the next couple of days. That is, until a delivery driver rang our doorbell and I heard a new chime in the house. I immediately ran over to the X8S and sure enough, there was a live stream of the driver running back to his truck with a package sitting on my porch.

Throughout my time testing, I'd often hear the chime on the X8S before the Ring app would alert me that someone was at my door. I rarely ever walked over to it, however, because it's just around the corner from my door. It would feel awkward talking to someone standing at my door through a thermostat while they can simultaneously hear me inside the house talking to them.

That said, being able to quickly glance at the thermostat and screen who's at the door while I'm walking down the hallway is a feature that I'm sure I'll greatly appreciate when door-to-door solar panel companies and solicitors start walking the block once the weather warms up.

As far as streaming and audio quality is concerned, it's a mixed experience. The video from the doorbell to the X8S came in clear and was rarely pixelated in my testing. Outgoing audio from the thermostat to the doorbell was without issue, but in the handful of test calls I performed, the incoming audio was choppy and I could only make out a few words at a time. Sometimes, it dropped altogether. We reached out to Honeywell, who said that a number of factors might contribute to this.

The X8S does its job of letting you see and tell whoever is at your door you'll be right there or you aren't home (ha!), but in my experience, hearing what they have to say back is going to be hit or miss.

I do wonder why the X8S is limited to streaming from video doorbells. Why not allow me to view another camera? Or going even further, recreate a Brilliant-esque experience and let me control other smart home devices, like my porch light.

One of my favorite features of the X8S that I definitely need to lean into more is telling the thermostat which room to treat as a priority when heating or cooling the house. You'll need a remote sensor to use it, but basically it allows you to tell the thermostat to use that sensor's readings to control your system. This is the feature that has made the Ecobee our favorite smart thermostat, so it’s nice to see another company adopt it.

For example, during the winter my bedroom is consistently colder than the rest of the house at night when I go to bed. With the Room Sensor installed, I can tell the X8S to prioritize the temperature of that room and heat it to my set temperature, ignoring whatever the thermostat in the hallway 10 feet away says.

Even better, you can automate which room takes priority when creating your schedule. Using the above example, I could set the X8S to use my bedroom's temperature as the priority around 9:30 pm to heat it up prior to me going to bed, then have it switch back to the thermostat as priority around 10 pm.

Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat review: Smart Home Compatibility

The X8S is compatible with Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home and is Matter-certified. After initial setup within the First Alert app, I added the X8S to my Homekit setup by scanning a Matter QR code on the thermostat's display using the Home app.

You would follow a similar process to add it to Alexa or Google Home. Alternatively, you can connect your Honeywell Home account to Alexa to control the thermostat using Amazon's assistant.

I was disappointed with the overall lack of controls and features available in the Home app on my iPhone. I can see the current temperature and adjust the set point up or down, and control if it's set to heat, cool or auto. But that's it.

With Ecobee's Premium thermostat, I was able to see the temperature of the remote sensor in another room, and view the current status of motion near the thermostat or sensor.

It's nice to have the X8S in the Home app, but it's very basic support that requires me to use the First Alert app if I wanted more granular insight and control.

Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat review: Verdict

For those in the market for a new smart thermostat, the Honeywell Home X8S Smart Thermostat offers a compelling experience similar to what other high-end thermostats like the Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) or the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium offer.

The X8S is the first thermostat I found myself interacting with post-installation, even if it was just glancing at the screen as I walked by it because the information displayed on the screen was not only valuable, but it also looked good.

Like Ecobee’s smart thermostat, the ability to answer my Ring doorbell when the front door is just a few feet away isn't going to be something I use often, but I can see the value of for someone with a different home layout than me -- even with the audio issues I experienced.