So instead of spending money on the ecobee sensors (and keep my ol lady happy), I was thinking of a way to kinda emulate them during certain modes. Is my logic correct and should I be doing anything differently, or is there a more efficient way to do it? Seems like it’s pretty straight forward and simple. Not changing thermostat modes. Just the set points.
Here’s what I would do: stick a sensor you want to use for this purpose next to your ecobee, and track it’s temp readings for awhile. If you find that with a full battery it’s consistent enough, then certainly you could use it.
Funny you mention that. I actually did that exact process, except used an ecobee Sensor I deemed to be the most accurate.
I’m confused. You put the Ecobee sensor next to your Ecobee or next to the other sensor?
I’m confused why you are changing the heating setpoint on your thermostat based on the temp in the room? If you are finding that some parts of the house are cold, then just raise the temp of the Thermostat when those parts of the house are occupied. Why do you need to take a temp measurement? You know it’s going to be cold. Just do it based off of motion and make your life lot easier.
I used the one ecobee Sensor I have as the baseline senor and adjust my other sensors to match that.
Since the thermostat isn’t in the bedrooms, and each room heats/cools differently, I use the sensors to adjust the thermostat and heat/cool based on their readings when we are asleep.
So when we are asleep motion wouldn’t really be relevant.
Then you could just do it based on the mode you are in. What I am saying is that if the bedrooms are colder, they are always going to be the same amount colder, so why do you need the temp sensors? I think you’re just complicating things. You are only making one decision point to increase the heat at. If you know you need to increase the heat when you’re sleeping , go ahead and do that.
You could clean your piston up if you used an elseif instead of an else with a nested if.
That’s not necessarily the case. On a very windy 15 degree day, my upstairs bedroom temperatures drop more than on a less windy 35 degree day. And that’s with good new insulation/sealing and correctly installed double-pane windows… the pistons I’ve built account for this. Nunkistein is trying to do the same thing.
Your logic is flawed. It’s way more that’s goes into the logic than what your piston represents. The remote sensors are also using occupancy (motion) to determine if the temp in that location matters. It is also using averages for overall house temp.
You might find it way more convenient to just use @yvesracine integration as his set of suites will allow you to use any sensors to mirror the function of the Ecobee remote sensors.
Me personally, the beauty of the specialty features such as Smart Home/Away and Follow Me is where the Ecobee really shines. The more remote sensors you have (Can be non Ecobee) the better. You will gain valuable knowledge and will be able to better adjust your registers to even out the temps between spaces.
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I get what you’re saying. This is just for when we are sleeping. So motion isn’t relevant. I also get it takes an average or all available temps, but I don’t want that. I want the temps just in those 2 rooms. If this was something that I would be utilizing 24/7 I absolutely would approach it in a different way. But since that isn’t case I don’t see the need to complicate what seems to be working.
I’ve also looked into what he is has written and decided to pass on it all. Seems to be a good set of smart apps. But don’t plan on getting anything he has to offer currently.
Occupancy is very relevant because with the different modes, you can/should define which sensors are being used for temp averaging.
So in your example, you would setup the Sleep mode to include the sensors in just those two rooms. It will maintain an average temperature of those two rooms. But if one of the rooms were unoccupied, then it would only use the sensor in the occupied space and disregard the other(s). This is the “Follow Me” feature.
Furthermore, even when you set it up initially, your settings will still be overrided as it pertains to occupancy. For example, you set Away Mode at 8am in the morning, but today you didn’t go anywhere, it would know that and set the temperature to Home Mode. Likewise, if you have it set up for Home Mode and you leave, it will know that and set the mode to Away. This is the “Smart Home/Away” feature.
To each its own but again, the Ecobee without the remote sensors isn’t going to provide you with that much more functionality as a regular Therm with Scheduling. The remote sensors is where the “magic” happens. You can achieve the “magic” without buying the more expensive Ecobee sensors but you will need to reduplicate the logic. Not an easy task if you are not familiar with coding or have a good understanding of the logic and/or webCoRE.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand keeping it simple. I do not use the custom apps only the DTH. I will say that after two years of playing with all of this, I went back to using just the Ecobee’s sensors and the built in logic. Overall, I have noticed significant savings and the Follow Me and Smart Home/Away features were key which needs remotes sensors to function correctly
YMMV but I found it best to set it and forget it. This would include all Modes…Including SmartThings allows you even more integration such as if a window is open then turn off system.
Honestly once summer hits I’ll probably incorporate a piston that duplicates the remote sensor function. We have been in this house all of 4 months, and since it’s a new build I’m still “learning” it’s HVAC characteristics. Also 75% of the time I will just be utilizing one sensor (Master Bedroom) for thermostat control at night. My 7 year old goes to school at his moms in SLC and is only here (Nashville) during breaks from school and summer. So What ’ve noticed is his room usually has a drastic temp difference compared to ours at night. Which that in itself will be something I’ll have looked at a later time. Just trying to do something that will work while he is here for Christmas break.
Back on the occupancy side. Do you use Webcore to do this? I would say in a scale of 1-10 my Webcore knowledge and ability is around about a 5. If I’m feeling frisky call it 5.5. Lol. It’s not something I’ve really sat and thought out as of yet so I can’t comment on if I have the ability or not. If you do have a piston mind sharing?
I have about 4 pistons that I have tried over the last two years to produce cost savings. As I have already stated, I have went back to the using the built in Ecobee settings as I believe that they produce very diserable results.
Maybe after you have experimented, you can report your findings.
Good luck.