So I got myself some Keen smart vents, and there seems to be several ways to integrate it with SmartThings, so I’m hoping to get an unofficial poll to see how people are integrating these devices.
So far I see 3 options:
Option 1: Integrate via the “Smart Vent Manager” SmartApp by Yvesracine.
Option 2: Integrate via the “Ecobee Suite” SmartApp by Sandood (I have an Ecobee 4 being managed by this already).
Option 3: Integrate via the “Rooms Manager” Smartapp by Bangali.
I’m leaning towards Rooms Manager as I recently incorporated it into my home, and it has drastically improved things, but I have a feeling that integrating it either with the themostart or with a “dedicated app” via the Smart Vent Manager may be a better play.
All 3 seem like decent options, but I wanted to get a take on what folks who may already have these integrated are doing
If you just need some basic control of your vents (ex. just close/open the vents at 100%), then your 3 options are fine, but if
you want to have HVAC safeguards (to avoid damaging your HVAC by closing too many smart vents at the same time) ,
you want to orchestrate your vents in order to reach your thermostat’s setpoints based on the concepts of rooms/zones/schedules. The concept of zones is important if you want to implement some zoning algorithm (ex. direct more airflow towards the upstairs bedrooms at night),
you want to control your home via virtual zone devices (under Things) for easier control of your vents in a zone (1 to many rooms),
you want to schedule your zoned rooms based on your ecobee’s climate settings (Home, Away, Sleep, any custom ones)
=> then a tighter integration using My ecobee device would be much better.
The best app for the ecobee is ecobeeSetZoneWithSchedule (available at my store) which has many features to control smart vents (and many other features for controlling the ecobee thermostat). For more details, refer to the ST community wiki:
So if I’m understanding your website correctly, there’s a $20 dollar fee for the “My Ecobee Device”, and another $15 for the ecobeeSetZoneWithSchedule or I can purchase the “My Ecobee Bundle for Smarthings” for 30 is that correct?
I was testing out your complimentary smart vent manager yesterday and seem to have an issue. I am using an ecobee 4 with with 6 remote sensors and keen vents attached to each of those sensors for temp control.
Here are my two issues
when a call for heat or cool is initiated either by myself through the ecobee official app or by the ecobee itself vents that should be open and other ones that should close don’t unless I open smart things classic and go into the manager and change the temps and then back again.
When a temperature is reached in a zone and that specific zone may actually be the one sole one used by my ecobee to determine overall temperature the vents either in that room or any other room that reaches temp close well before the hvac is issued a command to turn off so my hvac unit runs for sometimes 6 more minutes with all the vents closed.
What I don’t understand is for example bedroom 1 remote sensor is used as the only temperature sensor used for setpoint of the whole system is when the temperature is reached in that room donthe smart vents close and then the unit keep running and running. Shouldn’t the vents close when the call for cool or heat stops
The smartapp was commissioned by Keen Home and, as such, the specs were given to me by Keen Home. They wanted me to implement the following main logic:
/* Logic from Keen Home
IF roomSensor > targetTemp && ventSensor > (roomSensor + 5): # a vent sensor showing a temperature that is 5 degrees Fahrenheit above the room temperature usually means that the system is heating
THEN vent.close()
ELSEIF roomSensor < targetTemp && ventSensor < (roomSensor - 5): # a vent sensor showing a temperature that is 5 degrees Fahrenheit below the room temperature usually means that the system is cooling.
THEN vent.close()
ELSE # if any other state, the system is either moving the room temp in the right direction or the system is off
THEN vent.open()
*/
So, the smartapp will not necessarily follow the thermostat’s setpoints at a given time and it’s not always synchronized with the thermostat’s call for heat or cool.
If you want more advanced features, and you want the vents to proportionally open based on your thermostat’s setpoints, then I’d recommend my paid smartapps.
You can find the description of the paid smartapps here:
Among the many advanced features, you can better orchestrate your thermostat’s setpoints and your smart vents based on the concepts of rooms/zones/schedules.
Regards.
P.S. The logic coming from Keen Home is also described at the top of the Smart Vent Manager thread under the features section:
I bought a couple of apps of yours today. Scheduled room, the ecobee controller and the scheduled zone. Here is the problem. If I set let’s say bedroom 1 to 74 degrees heat and bedroom 2 to 74 degrees heat each using different sensors for the temperature readings and bedroom 2 closes when it’s reached and bedroom 1 runs for a couple of minutes till its reached and then that bedrooms keen vents close my system is still pumping out heat for a couple of more minutes. Then when it goes to restart after being off the vents should be open in both those rooms because the temperature is below set point they stay closed and my heat pump runs for a long time before they open.
It seems the vents are getting the actual temperature from the ecobee sensors much faster than the ecobee thermostat does. This happens using anyone of the apps.
If the smartapp is not configured properly or your thermostat/ temp sensors are not compliant with the SmartThings standard capabilities, you may encounter some issues as indicated in the prerequisites. I don’t know anything about your house or your set up, so it’s hard for me to help you.
If you have followed all the prerequisites and you think that your thermostat / temp sensors are compliant to all ST capabilities, send me some logs at services@maisonsecomatiq.com. I cannot help you without logs. You need to set up detailed logging and filter the logs for the smartapp in the IDE.
I believe I found the issue. The official keen app for iOS measures the temperature in tenths. Inside the keen iOS app each room sensor does not show the degrees in 10ths. It shows it in tenths where it shows the reported temperature of whichever sensors or sensors you are using at the targeted temp.
For instance today I have bedroom 1 remote sensor set as the whole house targeted temp. Once that remote sensor hit 74 degrees the vents which were also set to 74 stayed open and the system continued to run. I noticed that in the target temp section of the keen iOS app the temp was actually being reported as 73.5. It then went to 73.7 and so on. The vents stayed open and the system continued to run until the target temp of 74.0 was reached