Yes you would still need your heat sources. What it does is lets you plug your heat source into it then you program it to were you want your temps and it wont let it go over that temp. It also has a night time setting so it will do the night temp drop for you. If you had a fogger you can program it were you would want your humidity set and it would turn your fogger on once it drops below a certain point then shuts off again when it reaches were you set it at. The best way to describe it is it will act like the thermostat on your wall that controls your furnace. There is other ones that aren't as much that only control heat but to be honest I cant name a good one off the top of my head because I have always just used the Zoo Med Hygrotherms. Hopefully someone else sees this and they should be able to point to good one.