Review by Don E. Guimond:

This very versatile programmable thermostat is a great alternative to purchasing a more expensive Honeywell thermostat. This thermostat will readily wire up to any single stage or two-stage heat pump system – electric or gas; my unit is a Rheem all electric two-stage heat pump system. Lux shipped the unit promptly and well-packaged. All necessary mounting accessories and clearly-written instructions came with the unit. Installation was a breeze. I must note that if you are a do-it-yourself type, I strongly recommend that you contact Lux and/or your A/C-heater manufacturer to compare notes on which color wire goes to which terminal on your thermostat when connecting the wires. Each system’s wiring codes are different, and thermostat makers add extra connection terminals to accommodate as many different systems as possible. For example, in my Rheem system, I have a brown “C” wire that is used as a common for the thermostat and a blue wire that is used to activate one of the heater controls. I connected the brown “C” wire to the “C” terminal and the blue wire to the “B” terminal of the thermostat. In other systems, there is no “C” wire and the blue wire is used as a common. In this particular case, if you were to connect the blue wire to the “B” terminal on your thermostat instead of connecting it to the “C” terminal, you could possibly damage your system. Once wired up correctly, the unit is very easy to program – it takes maybe 15 to 20 minutes to set up a 7-day routine that once set, can be left alone and never touched again and it will provide you with round-the-clock automatic temperature adjustments that will save you money and keep your home comfortable.

There is only one small negative to the Lux TX9100E thermostat. In some wiring applications, it may be necessary to insert a jumper wire between two specific terminals to correctly accommodate your particular system’s requirements. Lux does not include this jumper wire in its package. You are required to make one yourself if your system requires it.

Review by G. Orwig:

It took more time to remove the old thermostat than it did to install this new one. I did read the instructions carefully, but I did not look all the way through the packaging materials. I made my own wire labels from masking tape and carefully noted what each wire was connected to on the old thermostat. As I was getting the new thermostat out to install it, out pops a complete set of stick-on wire labels! Using those would have saved a few minutes.

The only thing that was not real clear was just when to attach the new thermostat to its wall-mounted base. Since I am using the optional battery backup mode, I found that I could sit in my recliner and program the thermostat, then click it into place on the wall mount. I don’t use a lot of alternate programs … just the same one each day. The “copy” option worked great. Just set up your first day, and copy it to the other days. Simple.

I have a heat pump with a second stage (very expensive to run) electric heat strip. My old thermostat would kick in that second stage whenever I clicked up the temperature setting a bit. This new thermostat lets you set just how far apart the setting for the heat pump and the second stage should be. Also, it has an “early recovery” mode that anticipates the morning “warmup” phase ahead of time, and it starts the phase early and gradually … once again so that the second stage heat does not kick in unless it is really cold outside.

If there are any negatives, the backlight is not very bright. When you press any button you can see the display in the dark, but it isn’t near as bright as a computer monitor or flat-screen tv. Still, if you are going to use this with the batteries as the sole source of power, this level of brightness would probably use minimal battery resources. If your wiring allows powering it directly from the furnace / heat pump, then it is too bad that there is not a brighter setting for the display.

Review by C. dupuis:

Others write that the fan does not move much air….Well, this fan is silent and it is not designed to move a ton of air. It works as described and it moves air nicely across the stove top surface. We have a soapstone stove and it seems to work nicely at moving some air across vs all of it rising. I look forward to having two fans moving air without the electical expense. I do not ever lift the fan without using the grab loop on top and I only clean the dust that has accumulated by using the brush adapter on my vacumm taking care never to touch the blades. I think the blades are balanced nicely and that aides in the silence of use. Good Luck!

Review by G. Ek:

This fan actually does work really well but only if you keep your stove reasonably warm. When in the “burn zone” at 400F and up this little fan moves air big time! It will start spinning at lower temperatures but the action starts when the stove is as warm as it should be, at 600F it spins so fast that we can slice bread and whip cream with it