Can I Control My Z-Wave Thermostats w/o Internet?

Yes, you can control your Z-Wave Thermostats without internet. There are two ways to do this. The first is to do on-site Z-Wave operation through a Z-Wave controller. The other is to control the thermostat remotely using an interactive service platform through a cellular connection.

A Z-Wave thermostat receives commands from a Z-Wave controller. This means that the user must have some way of providing the command to the Z-Wave controller so that it can be sent to the Z-Wave thermostat. This does not require an internet connection. There are ways to provide a command to a Z-Wave controller for a programmed Z-Wave thermostat without having to use an internet connection.

The first is to just operate the Z-Wave controller locally. Many alarm systems, like the Honeywell Lyric Controller, 2GIG GC3 and Qolsys IQ Panel 2 Plus allow for local Z-Wave control that can be done right from the panel. If a user is on-site, they can just go to their panel to control their Z-Wave thermostat. Depending on the panel, the user might not even need to have alarm monitoring service to do this.

Another option is to control the Z-Wave thermostat remotely using an interactive service through a cellular connection. Most modern security systems can connect with some type of interactive service platform, such as Total Connect 2.0 or Alarm.com. In most cases, these services do not require an internet connection. In fact, Alarm.com actually requires that the panel has a cellular connection to be used.

These services can instead be accessed by using cellular communication with the security panel. This will require that the panel has a cellular connection established and that the user has a monitoring plan that includes access to the service. When a user wants to control their Z-Wave thermostat, they can just pull up the mobile app for their interactive service and operate their Z-Wave devices from there. No internet connection is required.