Looking for a suggestion on what the most reliable solution might be for this setup:
I have 12 garage doors at a small business with ST multipurpose sensors on them setup as garage door mode. I want the following to happen:
If all garage door sensors are closed then set ecobee thermostat to a program i named “doors closed”. If any sensor shows open, change ecobee thermostat to program “doors open”. Doors open wont run the heat so much and save $$. One challenge i could see is the doors are often open only for a short period of time before closing. That could mean multiple triggers/lots of runs?
Not sure if it’s best but would be a easy piston to setup. Also with webcore you can set an action to occur if a contact stays open for some preset amount of time. That should take care of it running multiple times too quickly.
I built out a working pistion:
If all of X, Y, Z sensors are state closed
then set thermostat 1, 2 and 3 to mode “doors closed”
else set thermostat 1, 2 and 3 to mode “doors open”
This works most of the time but i’m finding that the piston is likely running (for example setting the thermostats to doors open) but the door is quickly closed and a run is missed - then all sensors are closed but the trigger is missed and the thermostats are in “doors open” with all doors closed.
Perhaps as you said the better thing to do is to add something to the logic for the doors being open for a longer period? What might that look like?
@RBoy
I dont want to disable HVAC completely but want to change program mode so there’s a little heat on in the garage if doors are left open. Which one of your above apps would you recommend in that case?
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
7
Actually the way it operates is that it doesn’t turn off the HVAC but instead if sets it to a low/high setpoint so as to save energy but not it it freeze or burn up. You can find more details about how it operates on Both the respective topics.
If all of X, Y, Z sensors are state closed
then set thermostat 1, 2 and 3 to mode “doors closed”
If any of X, Y, Z sensors stay open for 10 minutes(adjust as you see fit)
then set thermostat 1, 2 and 3 to mode “doors open”
wait 10 minutes.
Personally I would think it best to not send thermostat changes too often.
[edit] Something else that might be good is to set a virtual switch which you could use to know which of the two states you are currently in, door open or close. Then use that to determine if you need to resend the Ecobee setup. If the doors stay closed for long periods of time you would be sending the door close command to the Ecobee constantly.
With the DTH I use for the Ecobee you can read back which program is currently running , but I had issues with that in a few pistons that I tried and found it to unreliable.
Piston 1:
If all of X, Y, Z sensors are state closed
then set thermostat 1, 2 and 3 to mode “doors closed”
Piston 2:
If any of X, Y, Z sensors stay open for 10 minutes(adjust as you see fit)
then set thermostat 1, 2 and 3 to mode “doors open”
wait 10 minutes.
When i try as one piston only the 2nd condition (if sensors open for X minutes) is the subscribed event. The other event (all closed) may not fire?
I would just do one piston. I do think adding something to determine if the thermostat is already set for the mode you want would be a good idea.
If all of X, Y, Z sensors are state closed AND thermostat not set to “doors closed”
Either a virtual switch or a variable. You should probably take these questions over to the Webcore forum. I am no expert and there may be something the experts will understand better than I do.