Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Honeywell VisionPRO TH8320U Adaptive Intelligent Recovery

Should the Adaptive Intelligent Recovery for the Honeywell VisionPRO TH8320U thermostat be smart enough to not run the resistance heat when recovering from a setback for a pre-programmed schedule? I'd like for the unit to use the heat pump unless it's not able to recover to the set temperature. I don't see any settings that would affect this behavior, am I just wishing on a star?

Another related question is the Heat Pump Temperature Lockout operation. The minimum temperature that this thermostat allows me to set is 40F to lockout the backup electric heat. This is actually pretty high, and the heatpump is easily capable of recovering the few degrees of setback in a reasonably short period of time down to 20 or 25F, any tricks to get this unit to work that way?

One thing I've considered is adding a resistor to fool the thermostat into thinking the sensor is reading 40F when it's actually at 25F. That would work, but then the outside temperature display would be useless. I much neater way would be to somehow get the thermostat to allow lower values.

Honestly, I don't know this for sure or not.. But from what I've read some where that AIR might be able to hold back the AUX heat...

I agree, that's the only downfall of the VP stat, and that's why I suggest the IAQ model over the VP.

Guess I never seen anyone "fool" the outside sensor...

It may be actually doing that, the two systems are freshly installed. I had the guy back yesterday, and he found that the installers has mis-wired the air handler and the unit was always running on the second stage and the backup heat was miswired. I think it might have recovered this morning without using the backup heat.

I'll be monitoring it, maybe my assumption was due to the wiring issue. I couldn't find anything that said it did or didn't inhibit the aux heat. In the absence of a statement to the contrary, I assumed that wasn't the way it worked, maybe I didn't give Motorola enough credit. :)

It would be easy enough to fool the outside sensor, but I prefer not to do that, given that I like having the outside temperature displayed correctly. I'm still thinking about that issue... :)

I just installed a Honeywell FocusPRO TH6220D1028 and have the same question. The Adaptive Intelligent Recovery would be pointless if it kicks in the Auxiliary heating element to 'catch up' to the heat set point.

However I am still questioning if the A.I.R. is smart enough to limit aux heat until necessary...

I am currently doing some test trials on my Amana system with the stat. I started playing with the program and while "In Recovery" from 68 to 72, the compressor ran constant for 15 mins and then the AUX heat kicked in. However I don't actually think my unit can get to 72 without the AUX heat. I'm going to try to Recover to 68 from 66 and see what happens.

I switched the Stage 2/AUX heat CPH(cycles per hour) to 3CPH and the Emergency Heat CPH to 3. Is this better than 9CPH? I figure the lower the number the less they would run...

Set to what you want it and leave it a lone for a few days.. The tstat needs to relearn when you mess with the program.

Honestly, HP are best to set it and forget it. Unless you go with a higher end t-stat like IAQ model. I never use the program on my A/C since I did not see any savings. I think program are best with gas/oil heat that can recover quicker.

I'm going to try:
Wake: 67°
Leave: 65°
Return: 67°
Sleep: 65°

It's gotta save me with 8 hrs at work and 6 hrs of sleep... (maybe)

The real point here is, I like to sleep with it cooler, so I set it to 64. However, when I get up and am taking a shower and running around the bathroom in my birthday suit all wet, I like it a bit warmer. :)

Of course, during the day, it's pointless to have the bedrooms at full temperature, hard to imagine that saves energy!