I've got two thermostats in my home (downstairs and upstairs). Installation of the downstairs Nest worked like a charm. That controls a Goodman GPG15 Gas + AC combo unit. The old thermostat wiring made sense and translated to the Nest. I ran into a problem when I moved upstairs. The thermostat was wired the same as above, so I expected smooth sailing. When I was done, Nest reported an issue with the common (blue) wire. Come to think of it, we did have to replace the batteries every once in a while upstairs or the whole thermostat would shut off. Now that makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is the furnace wiring. I'm 'handy', but this is my first endeavor with a furnace. Also, the upstairs thermostat controls a Goodman GSC13 compressor (just cooling, not a combo). The image below is busy, but: [list] [*]Two thick brown wires each run to one of my thermostats. I understand the wiring of the right tstat wire. Three colored wires go to the correct terminals and the R wire is pigtailed to the main power (not sure why it doesn't just use the R terminal, but fine). [*]The second brown wire I don't understand. It's only using two wires making a simple circuit from Y on the control box (red wire) to C (white wire). [/list] Looking at the image above, my guess is the right thermostat wires go to the downstairs thermostat and control the GPG (which does heating and cooling). That would mean the left thermostat wire would run to the upstairs thermostat. Even so, I'm not sure how the upstairs thermostat was able to control the heat before. Lastly, I thought about simply connecting both blue wires to the common port and tstats. That's my current next step, but I wanted to check first. The fact that one wire is already there gave me some pause. Mostly, I don't like changing a system I don't fully understand. Thanks in advance for any help!

Need advice. I have a Nest e controlling a boiler for basement in-floor heat. Nothing fancy, just on and off. The temperature is pretty much set the same year-round. I do have a remote temperature puck on the first floor. I find both the nest thermostat and the remote puck helpful when I am away. The Nest e is starting to malfunction and I need to replace it. I have liked the Nest e other than having Google in my house. One thing I like about it is the report the next day of how it ran the prior day. I've looked at the ecobee and the Honeywell T9. I believe the ecobee gives a report but am unsure that the T9 does. I want a simple WiFi thermostat with a remote temperature puck. I don't know if ecobee is reliable or which corporation runs it. Certainly not Google. Does anyone know about ecobee or Honeywell T9 run reports?