My husband works with an hvac company that sells both the ranco and the johnson controls. We get the rancos for 55 and the johnson controls for 59. Just so everyone knows those are the wholesalers price. So i guess its not so bad to pay 79 wired from reptile basics. We do prefer the johnson controls A419 over the ranco only because if the probe goes bad you can replace the johnson controls and not the ranco's.