Zen Thermostat - ZigBee Edition

I have an old home and therefore have a very simple setup which is Heat only via steam radiators. For the past couple of years I've been enviously looking at the Nest and Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart thermostats, but have never been able to bring myself to spend $300+ to get a C (common) wire installed (the high cost comes from quotes from "certified" Nest installers). Couple that with the cost of the thermostat itself and it becomes a very expensive solution that would only be used for a fraction of the full year. The envy only got worse after getting Smartthings working with my lights because I yearned to extend my home automation capabilities. Finally, I couldn't take it and had convinced myself to settle on getting one of those bland, ugly zwave thermostats, BUT thankfully somehow...someway... the grace of the tech gods guided my browser to the ZEN and my whole being expelled a big sigh of relief! ZEN is more expensive than those ugly cheap z-wave thermostats but I bought an Amazon Warehouse open box unit which came to me with no scratches or blemishes of any kind and was "like new" for a very nice discounted price. It is a very simple and straightforward unit which gave me pause but with the integration to Smartthings and it's slick modern design, gives me everything I need. As it pertains to my Smartthings set up, I have Smartthings routines to turn down the heat at a certain time at night, to turn down the heat when i leave the house, and turn on the heat in the early evening so that the house is warm when I get home. I'm also able to remotely manually check and override the temperature setting in the Smartthings app. The last bonus that makes this such a great product for me is that with my Amazon Echo, I can tell Alexa to set the thermostat to a particular temperature and she responds to me with a gracious confirmation as the ZEN thermostat complies.

Where do I start with this thing? Let's see: The "display" if you can call it that is nothing more than a matrix of LEDs that simulate letters and numbers. There's no LCD screen or even a familiar LED (iPad, TV, etc) screen. When I first put in the batteries I thought something was wrong. The interface is *terrible*. It's nearly impossible to distinguish an "8" from a "B". The LEDs in the matrix are so far apart that it's actually easier to read the display at six feet or more rather than close up. Think Star Trek blinking lights at Sulu's console. Too far apart.Lag: Wow....when I set a temperature, turn on heat/AC or turn on the fan from a smart device I expect it to respond within a second or two. It took a full 27 seconds before the fan would turn on.Temperature settings: Who thought that setting a 79.4 or 68.7 degrees is a smart idea? MAYBE setting a half a degree makes sense at the zero and point-5 range.Instructions: The web site that helps you determine how to set up the wiring doesn't work (at least for me) in Chrome. I kept getting "We need more information. Please email a picture of your wiring....". I had to use Internet Explorer to get past the first step.The "touch" screen. Another wow. There's no indication whatsoever on where or how to touch this thing. Swipe? Naw.... The other difficulty I had was in setting the proper code for my furnace. I thought I could push and hold on the screen and it would eventually "spin fast" to bypass the 100 codes I wasn't interested in. Unfortunately, it would scroll through about 30 codes before stopping and making me release my finger and press-and-hold again.....only to be faced with the same unwanted pausing/stopping.Sometimes simple is better. My current wireless thermostat (now abandoned by Duke energy) isn't great but it's world's ahead of this thing.This thing is NOT simple. It's a terrible and difficult interface to navigate. I would have gladly spent $50 more for a LCD touch screen instead of that junk LED matrix. It's reminiscent of "Future World."Back in the box and returned for refund.