I’ve been thinking for a little while now about automating the turning on of the exhaust fan and light in my master bath (both for turning on and off).
So what would be the best sensor that has both humidity and temperature that I could stick up in a corner inside of my shower. It shouldn’t get any direct water where I’m thinking but would obviously get a lot of moisture from the shower.
Thoughts?
Personally, I use the wireless tags because of the following reasons:
1-Small form factor (discrete)
2-Precise (especially if you choose the 13-bit version)
3-Long range
4-Excellent battery life
5-Good ST integration
http://wirelesstag.net/specs.html
The only drawback is that they require an Ethernet Tag manager (yet another hub).
Regards.
Thanks Yves.
I’d really like to avoid another HUB, even at the expense of the other factors you put in.
Would prefer Z-Wave but would settle for Zigbee if it ends up being a better option.
I have no experience with them, but the Aeon MultiSensor 6 looks good, if expensive. http://aeotec.com/z-wave-sensor
I’m thinking about one for the same reasons. Turn on the fan if humid, turn on the light if motion.
I tried one of those in the bathroom. Made my daughters feel weird. Looks like a camera so they didnt approve especially when they have friends over all the time.
that being said what are you wanting to do? For automatically turning on the fans I use a water sensor in my drain.
This would be for my own Master Bathroom, so the only one that could complain would be me and the wife, so not too worried about that.
Wanting to automatically turn on the fan when the humidity rises (e.g. the shower is on) and also turn on the lights.
And if I get real fancy I might add a colored light bulb and use that to change colors when the temp in the shower gets to a comfortable level to let me know I can get in without being cold. :o)
my solution
Iris motion sensor, because its small
and for the water
http://www.lowes.com/pd_422362-45367-TST01-1___?productId=4740940&pl=1&Ntt=iris
I tried several and what I found was there was too much lag time between when the humidity sensor picked up the high humidity level and turned on the fan so the bathroom fogged up way too much. Doing what I did as soon as water goes down the drain the fan comes on. I set it to run the fan while the motion sensor keeps the light on then 2 extra minutes to clear the room fully. Never have a fog issue any more
No easy way for me to get that sensor into my drain. Ground floor, concrete slab, fully tiled floor.
I don’t have a fog issue even if I don’t turn the fan on at all but don’t want that much humidity in the air to cause other problems.
Might try to the Iris sensor since I have some here and see if I can come up with a way to do it based on just motion and temperature.
Like the idea of the Aeon from above as well, especially with the recessed mounting kit, so might pick one of those up if I can get it used as a return as a good price perhaps.
I have the smartsense temp/humidity sensor in a room it works as well as any for what it is
Not sure if this would work, but what about detecting the shower differently. If your shower has an access panel to get to the pipes, put a vibration sensor (Multipurpose Sensor - ZigBee) on the pipe. If it’s vibrating, then water’s flowing.
A motion sensor set with a static run time is much easier to deal with, having tried both solutions.
Lowes makes a dinky motion that corner mounts nicely, it’s zigbee though.
The other nice thing with the motion, being that you can also use it keep from shutting the bath lights off when you’re in the shower…
No access to the pipes. Actually has three different shower heads on three different walls.
I used a combo of the Fibaro Door/window sensor and a DS18B20 to do this.
Basically I have the DS18B20 taped to the pipe, between the shower head and wall. I use rule machine to turn on the fan when the temp rises above 90 deg and off when it falls below.
I use an iris motion sensor. No humidity but I just have the fans come on five minutes after the mutton detects me in the shower. Works great. No problem so far.
I’ll add that my wife likes to house it down because it flashes green at her in the shower. Don’t ask, she’s Irish. Nobody knows why she does anything. Lol
Brave man…
If you have a separate shower light than you turn on when taking a shower, you could automatically turn on the fan when it turns in and off 10 or so minutes after that light turns off. I use a similar approach with my circulation pump where it turns in and off along with shower light.
This solution just requires a Zwave on/off switch for your shower light and of course one for your fan too.
I use this combination for my stove monitoring. The only problem is that it does not report temp consistenly.
If there were a way to force it to report at least every five minutes or so. Can handler be adjusted?