I have a motorized damper in a duct that is normally closed when it has no power. It is plugged into a zwave smart plug connected to Smartthings called “Damper Plug”. I want the damper to open when the ecobee temperature sensor in that room is above 80F and when my AC is actually blowing cool air through my main duct line (positive pressure). I also want the damper to open when the ecobee temperature sensor in that room is below 50F and when my heat is actually blowing warm air through my main duct line (positive pressure). I do not want the damper to be open when no air is blowing through my duct.
When I try something like this it doesn’t work…
If -Room1 Temp Humidity Sensor is equal to or above 80F
and -EcobeeTherm Downstairs Mode is Cool
Then -Damper plug on
and - Send me a notification
This doesn’t work. It’s almost as if the Ecobee thermostat doesn’t trigger when the AC is blowing cool air.
What and I doing wrong? Could someone help with the automation to get the damper to open and close when I need it too?
Thanks! I tried it using state as well but it still didn’t work. For some reason, the Ecobee isn’t triggering the automation when it starts to blow heat or AC. My automations looks exactly like yours but with different names of equipment. I’ve tried it using mode and state and neither works. Any ideas?
I use Honeywell thermostats and not Ecobee, so this may not be it but it’s something to check.
With my Honeywells, I found that ST was not polling the thermostat very expeditiously. So I’m wondering ST is not receiving the data for which you are trying to trigger on in a timely manner. So the reason that the automation isn’t triggering is because ST hasn’t yet received the data from the thermostat.
In my case, thermostat temps weren’t being refreshed. So I set an automation to “refresh” the thermostat based upon regular occurrences like motion sensor tripping, location changing, etc to keep the thermostat data in ST fresh.
I don’t know if the Ecobee supports “refresh”, but if it does it’s worth a shot running that regularly to see if that helps your automation.
@Bry Yes, that is the issue. Above is the link to my question, some time ago, to SmartThings member, and his response was that they are pulling data every 6 minutes
Interesting. This may vary by brand or thermostat model. I found that I was lucky if my Honeywell thermostats updated every four hours. So the OP should just watch to see if the data is updated and then worry about the trigger part.
