Honeywell HZ311 TrueZONE Panel

My old unit lasted exactly 16 years. Bought the exact same unit for simplicity. Plug and play. Note: you do have to press pretty hard to insert the wires.

Great controller.

Although the price is a bit higher than on other websites, the delivery speed is very fast, which is suitable for urgent needs.

I'm using this for a manually zoned system. Will upgrade with zone dampers in the future, but will need to install a bypass damper and duct first. Controller allows me to manually close vents on first floor and then use a second thermostat upstairs, and vice versa. Some air deliberately leaks to first floor so it doesn't get too cold, nor the static pressure too high. Same with second floor. When I want to heat just the first floor, I set 2nd flr thermo to about 60 and close one or two vents, and I set the 1st flr thermo to 72 and open all the 1st flr vents. Might seem like a hassle, but I am not living in any of the first floor space. In short, easy to install. Don't forget a DATS. If no DATS is connected, the purge LED will blink. Note with two thermostats, whichever has the high temp setting will be the one that runs the furnace. With all vents open, eight thermo can call for heat, but it gets a bit warmer in the the other zone.

This review is for the HZ311 since Amazon seems to group different models together in reviews. I bought this panel as a replacement for a Total Zone 4 that was going bad. The HZ311 is a significant upgrade to the older total zone boards. Since I only have 2 zones with 2 dampers each and a single stage gas furnace, this panel was the right one for me. It can actually handle 3 zones if needed. The design is much smaller and more modern than the older one with all circuitry hidden. The swap out was extremely easy as there are no dip switches or jumpers that have to be set for install. All you need to do is hook up the correct wires to the correct terminals and you are done. The terminals are simple push in type requiring no screwdriver and each terminal has two little holes in it that allow two wires to be hooked up to one terminal if needed. I needed this since I run 2 dampers per zone in parallel. Just make sure you verify that the wires are fully inserted into the terminals. There's a little resistance that makes it seem like it may be fully inserted, but then one more little push and you can tell it's now in and locked. I've had this installed for about a week now and so far, so good. I would highly recommend this panel if you need to upgrade yours or to change out an older, failing one like I had.