A lot of Tucson houses that people call “the furnace” are heat pumps. The outdoor unit heats and cools. Electric strips, if they exist, are backup. A smart thermostat that was installed with a conventional-furnace profile will do one of two wasteful things. It may never run the compressor in heat and lean on strips, or it may stage auxiliary heat on mild evenings when the compressor would have been enough. The menu item is not cosmetic. Heat pump versus conventional, and the lockout or balance point for auxiliary heat, is the setup. We are not going to name a brand or walk through a specific app.
Schedules cause the other half of the calls. A cooling schedule that holds 85 degrees, a geofence that thinks the house is empty, or a “smart away” copied from a different climate will sit there while someone is on the couch. Look for the word Hold, the word Schedule, and whether Aux or Emergency is lit. Emergency Heat as a mode, and why it is not a seasonal plan, is Emergency Heat. Blank screens, wrong mode, and batteries are thermostat problems. Steam on a cool morning is still defrost, not a Wi-Fi fault.
Whether the house should have been a heat pump at all is heat pump versus furnace. Changing the thermostat does not change the fuel. If the outdoor unit is cooling-only and a gas furnace is in the closet, the stat needs the conventional setting, and forcing a heat-pump profile onto it will call for equipment you do not have.
Rebates are whatever Tucson Electric Power prints, not whatever a thermostat box implies. On tep.com/rebates as read October 15, 2026, a smart thermostat did not show a dollar amount. Do not invent one, and do not treat any utility rebate as an income-tax benefit. Equipment amounts that were listed that day, and the participating-contractor rule, are repeated only on TEP rebates. Sabino Creek is not on the approved-contractor finder and does not sell thermostats.
We do not log into your account or perform the install. A referral may be shared with an independent contractor. The price is theirs.
Choose Not sure or No heat. Say heat pump or gas furnace, what the display shows, and whether a schedule is holding a setpoint you did not ask for. ZIP required. The form is a request for a follow-up, not remote control of the stat.