Greetings all. I’m trying to get a routine working where my AC triggers a smart switch to turn on when the AC state changes to “cooling”. Unfortunately, this has been pretty flaky. The routine doesnt consistently fire when the AC runs. Seems to fire randomly after the AC fan has already stopped for a while. I can check the state in ST, and it’ll say “cooling” even though the fan has already stopped. Almost as if its not polling often enough, maybe?
Is there some setting on the base Ecobee setup i need to change, or some other custom enhanced Ecobee device handler i need to use? Thanks.
Sp if i set my fan to Off, will my ecobee still run normally? Figured Off meant it wouldnt run…
To be frank, I don’t know the difference between. Fan Mode and Mode. All I know is that it works if fan mode is not set and mode is set to auto, it works.
I dont see where you can set the fan mode to Off. Its only Auto and ON. I’m obviously missing something.
I was trying to add thos screenshot too, but can only embed 1. My smartthings also only shows Auto and On. Is there somewhere else i need to be looking at?
Thanks for the help.
I don’t mess with any of those comfort settings or schedules in ecobee. I use smartthings entirely.
Hmmmm. Not sure if I’m prepared to not use the thermostat to set the temp and override schedules, etc. Sucks that i cant use the Routine capabilities that are made available.
@flgator was using a scene from the image in his post above.
Oh i see that now. But scenes dont allow if/then capability, correct? How do i get the functionality of my Routine to actually work reliably?
You can use a scene in a routine
Ok. So in my scenario, where i need to turn on a smart plug when the AC runs, how would putting a scene in a routine work any differently? Sorry for being such a pain.
You don’t always need to but it’s efficient if your going to use that same action multiple times. For example, Create a scene only for the turning on of the smart plug… nothing else in that scene. In the routine, the if statement would be whatever triggere the ac to come on… maybe the time, maybe Motion, maybe presence… whatever… then in the Then statement, you can add that scene.
Because I reuse scenes in different routines, I create one. Scene to be used multiple times. For example I have 2 AC units and I’m not always in that part of the house.
If everyone leaves the house, then run the scene Shut off AC in Master Bedroom.
If it’s 9am; then automatically Run the scene Shut off AC in Master Bedroom.
During 9:05am and 10:30pm, If motion detectors in the Master Bedroom don’t detect motion for 30 min, run the scene Shut off AC in the Master Bedroom.
You get the point… many routines use same scene. In the screenshot below I have both a couple of scenes and a direct plug action. If I used that direct plug action multiple times, I would have also created a scene for it.
Ok i get it. Reusable scenes even for the smallest of tasks. Makes sense. My issue is with completely bypassing the automation built into the ecobee and having to set up all the rules for when the AC runs.
Is there no way to reliably turn on a plug when smartthings sees that the AC fan is running as opposed to smartthings having to dictate when to do both?
So I might be missing some amazing automation in the ecobee system but personally I found smartthings much more usable than ecobee when I match them with other smart devices. The only thing I really have enabled in ecobee is “follow me” as it’s algorithm will use the sensors I have in all the rooms to determine occupancy and thus when a certain temperature is reached. That’s it though. For example…
Smartthings recognizes all of the ecobee sensors and I have them in each room along with non ecobee sensors. So I can set up a routine that watches for movement in the living room from an ecobee sensor, check if my family is away, and turn on specific lights or cameras, as well as send me a text that something screwy Is going on. Can’t do all that with ecobee that I’m aware.
I just find ecobee is a good smart device that I can control well with Smarthings and do more stuff. Is there some things in ecobee that I’m missing out on by doing that?
Wow. That setup you have sounds pretty amazing. I may add all that extra complexity some day but right now I’m just using the basic scheduling of set temperatures and built in presence sensors that the out of the box ecobee provides. As shown above, it also provides State to ST, and I was hoping to simply detect that reliably to turn on a smart plug.
Guess i need to rely more on programming the ecobee thru ST to bypass that functionality.
That means i need to get more sensors too.