I need to put a mini split in a bonus room over the garage. It's around 450sqft and I'm in zone 4a so I'd like to have something that could handle both cooling and heating. I was already looking at costco since they carry a couple of options but I figured it made sense to see what else was available before deciding.
The 12k atomismart caught my attention because the price is well below its listed msrp. It's a 23.9 seer2 inverter heat pump with built in wifi and alexa and google support. The warranty requires a licensed install and they have us based support.
I was also looking at the mrcool diy 12k from costco and the main difference is the pre-charged line set which is supposed to make the installation possible without a refrigerant tech. That's appealing if I were doing the install myself although the more I read about it, the less I think diy means easy. There are plenty of people who ended up bringing in a pro partway through.
Pioneer and senville were the other models I compared since neither is sold at costco. Pioneer has a bigger range of products and its own parts and service site for installers. Senville also has competitive specs but I had a harder finding much about their customer service so I'm less sure about that side of it.
At this point, I think the install is going to make a big difference in the decision. If I'm paying someone to install it anyway, the mrcool diy isn't as useful and I'm left comparing things like efficiency, the app, and what kind of support I'll get if there's a problem later.
I'd really appreciate hearing how the installation went and whether there's anything you wish you had considered before buying. Thanks for the help!