Ecobee3 again

Cleaned up the thread. Please keep it collaborative.

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I have created a virtual switch and want to use it for IFTTT purposes as discussed earlier in this thread.
Switch on = At least one phone is home
Switch off = All phones are away from home

Is the best way to do this with ‘rule machine’? I could not find any standard presence related apps or switch apps that would allow me to do this.

I have a virtual switch created, which works in both directions i.e. I can control my thermostat by turning off (actually away) or on the virtual switch or if the status on thermostat changes, I sync that status back to switch. I am, however, not using IFTTT. I am just using Virtual switch and CoRE to achieve bi-directional control and sync.

In the CoRE, I have few pistons

  1. Turn off Virtual switch if every one leaves
  2. Turn on Virtual switch in first one arrives
  3. Set ecobee mode away when Virtual switch turns off
  4. Set ecobee mode home when Virtual switch turns on. (I would really like to do resume program here but could not figure out that using CoRE)
  5. If ecobee changes mode to Home, sync that to Virtual switch
  6. If ecobee changes mode to Away, sync that to virtual switch

Between 3,4,5 and 6 I had to make sure I was not creating circular triggers but putting conditions like if the virtual switch is not on turn on etc.

How are you setting the ecobee mode to Away/Home ? are you using the stock app or a custom app for the ecobee ?
thanks

I am using the open source app for ST and ecobee integration.

@BatraD,

If you want to take full advantage of the ecobee APIs and have a reliable solution for something as critical as heating/cooling your home, then you need My Ecobee device.

  • Sure, there is other options, but when you pay more than $200 for a smart thermostat, don’t you want to take full advantage of its HA capabilities? You’ve already paid for a “smarter” thermostat than a z-wave or a zigbee thermostat, don’t you want to have more HA capabilities and more reliability than a “dumb” thermostat when connected to a platform such as ST?

  • Don’t you want also to have a reliable solution for a smarter “smart away” and use all your ST connected sensors to achieve a better “follow me” features?

  • Don’t you want to avoid reconnecting your thermostat to ST several times a month? My Ecobee device has this unique design that avoids state variables as much as possible for more reliability in critical times. As an example, you don’t want to wake up in the middle of a winter night without heat… Most of my smartapps have been designed to use the ecobee scheduling as much as possible to work around any ST scheduling failures.

  • When you have smart vents combined with a smart thermostat, don’t you want also to create physical zones at different times of the day according to your requirements? My Ecobee device will work out of the box with my zoned heating/cooling solutions. My zoned heating/cooling solutions have been designed to be reliable under all ST conditions.

  • Your time is money, don’t you want to stop thinkering with IFTTT and other artifacts to trigger the home/away methods? By doing so, you’re complexifying your architecture by increasing the chain of command and you end up with much more risks of failure (IFTTT–>ST–>ecobee instead of just ST–>ecobee)…

  • Don’t you want also to get comfort tips according to your own indoor/outdoor conditions? My Ecobee device is capable of detecting and showing you the trends (with a graph) in terms of runtime stats vs. your setpoints and the outdoor temp.

My Ecobee device is the smartest thermostat under ST. It took hundreds of hours of coding and testing to achieve this level of features and reliability.

In brief, it is the most comprehensive and evolutive solution for ecobee for a few bucks.

If you’re not willing to contribute a few bucks, then, yes, there are other solutions for LESS reliability and much less features.

Here is the ecosystem of smartapps available that will work with MyEcobee device out of the box:

My Ecobee device is available for download at my store:

http://www.ecomatiqhomes/store

For more details, and user feedback about My Ecobee device, refer to this thread:

Regards.

@yvesracine dont get me wrong. I have nothing against paying for an app. I own over 200+ mobile apps on Apple and Google platforms

What i have an issue is with is paying for timely maint upgrades ($3/month, ongoing), which negate the savings i would achieve with using your app to put the thermostat in away mode when i leave and the auto away kicking in after 1-2 hours using the native smartapp.

@batrad, actually you don’t need to pay for support if you are able to create/configure/update the custom code that I created.

As you may know, all my custom devices and smartapps are documented at the ST community wiki with some specific sections for configuration & troubleshooting.

http://Thingsthataresmart.wiki
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=My_Ecobee_Device

Most of my contributors don’t use my support services, and that’s fine. However, if they have some specific custom requirements, then I will ask them to contribute to some support packages as support can take a lot of my time given the different HVAC configurations out there.

P. S. And for code updates, I ask them to contribute positively to my thread, that’s it. There is no hidden charges.

Regards.

@yvesracine thanks for the clarification… that does make the $20 onetime charge easier to justify…

My ecobee Device has a lot of features for the $20 contribution. And, I can vouch that the code has been never more stable and resilient to the ST platform’s specific issues (scheduling, timeouts, rate limiting, etc)…

It took me a lot of time & efforts to achieve this level of reliability. The kind of Reliability that you won’t be able to find with even the ST Stock ecobee device.

Regards

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@StrykerSKS I installed your SmartApp a few days ago and everything appeared to be working. But now I am getting some consistent errors:

5:30:57 PM: error refreshAuthToken() - HttpResponseException occured. Exception info: groovyx.net.http.HttpResponseException: Bad Request StatusCode: 400

and I’m seeing this one sometimes:

5:29:27 PM: error pollEcobeeAPI() HttpResponseException occured. Exception info: groovyx.net.http.HttpResponseException: Internal Server Error StatusCode: 500

Please advise.

This may be related to the platform issues that were going on yesterday (http://status.smartthings.com/). I had the same thing happen to me. The APIs haven’t changed, so shouldn’t be anything on the apps. I had the same issue and had to force a new login in the Connect app to clear it as even the API warning didn’t trigger in the app.

Hi, MyEcobee device has not been affected at all by any platform issues.

I supervise and monitor many customer sites all over the USA and Canada (as some of my contributors prefer to pay for support) and none of them have been affected by any ST or ecobee issues. Some of them have up to 6 ecobee thermostats in a single location and even more ecobee remote sensors and they have not experienced any exceptions or disconnects.

You may want to look into My DTH implementation for more reliability (especially in the winter).

Regards.

P.S. After many months of work, I’ve managed to build many mechanisms to avoid disconnects and timeouts…My Ecobee device is more resilient ( to any ST platform issues) than even the ST stock ecobee device.

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And then there’s this

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I love it when someone pushes their paid app so hard. “My app will clean the kitchen sink.”

@StrykerSKS’s app is still going strong for me. I notice occasional blips in the authentication, but since it automatically fixes itself, I don’t believe it is an app issue.

If it’s not a problem for you to re-login every month, that’s fine…

Others may want more robust options.

Nice try. I didn’t say I re-login every month. I said occasional blips but if automatically fixes itself.

That’s not what my contributors say to me when they switch to MyEcobee device.

Anyway, you’re still stuck at v0.9 while MyEcobee device is at v5.6.9 with much more features (and continually improving)…

The open-source code has not really changed since February…

Enjoy your ecobee solution!

I think this thread has run its course.

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