I am coming from InControl HA and they had a high temperature forecast device that I used to decide whether or not I should turn on the heater in the morning.
Devices:
Thermostat
High Temperature Device (Reports high temp for the day)
Virtual device (switch)
Every day at 3 AM, the high for the day is checked. If it’s going to be a hot day (High for the day greater than 70F), turn the virtual device on. This disables the heater since all other scenes and checks require that this switch be off to use the heater.
If there is an easier way to do this, please let me know.
I would go with actual temp at your house instead of a guessing temp. Make more sense to be nice and warm in the morning instead of freezing because the high for the day is sometime around noon and have the heater off at 3AM. How about have a temp sensor in the house and when it reaches a set temperature. Change mode? This mode will disable the heater for all other apps.
Well up here in the Northwest, A/C isn’t needed. You can get away with letting a lot of cold air in overnight and in the morning then closing up the house to keep the heat out.
The temperature in the house only gets to about 62F so it’s really not that bad.
But on the colder summer days, you can heat the house up in the morning since it won’t get too hot later.
Ha, I lol’d. @keithcroshaw , I think you are my biggest fan and I really appreciate it. You’re doing a way better job of making people aware of the rule builder than I am.
BTW @JoeC you need some adds on there to make some revenue or something wink
I’m just happy that people get use out of it. Maybe someday though.
Thanks a lot for the help. I’ve got the rule builder installed. It seems pretty cool and is much more like the programming I am used to. One thing though… Where can I get the forecast high temperature value from to input into the “these conditions are met” field?
That’s a toughie… perhaps you can buy @JoeC a beer to integrate the weather tile and all of it’s capabilities.
I would probably read up on writing SmartApps and write one that toggles a “Virtual Switch” when the condition is met or not then use that in the rule builder.
@Pilotrose Forecast High / Low is not exposed by the default weather tile, but i had a slow day at work so check out ForecastHighLowTrigger.groovy. It awaits your Virtual Switch.
That’s awesome! Only issue is I have no idea how to get this code into a smartapp form on my device. I did some looking around and had no luck. Any pointers?
Well how about that… Someone had a tutorial just for folks like me
I’ve got it installed, thanks a lot. I’m going to test it out and see if it turns on my virtual device at 3:00 AM tomorrow.
I’ll let you know how that goes. Then the next step will be to probably use that rule creator to only allow the heat to be turned on IF it’s not going to be a hot day…
I can’t easily read Groovy code because I rely on a text to speech reader, but I see that @sidjohn1 said his trigger smartapp requires a virtual switch.
Just in case you need the FAQ on creating virtual switches as well, here it is:
You may have already figured that one out, a lot of people do, but for future readers we’ll include it just to cover all the bases.
[quote=“JDRoberts, post:13, topic:20566”]
I can’t easily read Groovy code because I rely on a text to speech reader, but I see that @sidjohn1 said his trigger smartapp requires a virtual switch.
[/quote] Naw… virtual or physical… the smart app doesn’t care. I wrote it to support as many use cases as possible.
[quote=“Pilotrose, post:12, topic:20566”]
I’ll let you know how that goes. Then the next step will be to probably use that rule creator to only allow the heat to be turned on IF it’s not going to be a hot day…
[/quote] No additional code should be needed with the smart app, if you want something turned on / off at a set time or when the forecast is updated (midnight) based off the forecasted hi’s / lows of the day that smartapp will get you there.
I configured your smartapp to turn on a virtual switch if the high for the day was over 70F. I had it set to do it at 3:00AM. For some reason this didn’t happen. I also set the smartapp to turn off the switch after 1,320 minutes so that it was in the off position the next time the app runs.
I’ll change the time around and do some more testing.
Edit: I just realized the app looks to see if the high is at or BELOW the set temperature. That is probably why it didn’t work. I will reconfigure the virtual switch to turn on if it is a cold day instead of a hot day and it should work.
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In regards to the additional code, I felt it was needed for what I intend to do. The hotday virtual switch is turned on by your app if it’s going to be a hot day. Then when the mode is changed to HOME, the thermostat is set to 70F for heat instead of 55F (night time and away setting). If the virtual hotday switch is on, the thermostat will remain at 55F and the heater will not turn on.
It will do both at or BELOW or at or Above, there is a toggle to change that.
[quote=“Pilotrose, post:15, topic:20566”]
In regards to the additional code, I felt it was needed for what I intend to do. The hotday virtual switch is turned on by your app if it’s going to be a hot day. Then when the mode is changed to HOME, the thermostat is set to 70F for heat instead of 55F (night time and away setting). If the virtual hotday switch is on, the thermostat will remain at 55F and the heater will not turn on.
[/quote]Unless i’m missing something it seams that it would be easier to skip the virtual switch and just go straight to the thermostat. i.e. if the forecast high is greater than 70, then set the thermostat mode to heat and set heat to 55.
Ahah I didn’t catch that the app could toggle between above or below. That’s great.
Well the application worked. It turned the virtual switch on.
I think your idea of skipping the virtual switch and adjusting the thermostat is perfect. Could you edit the application to allow a thermostat to be set?
Ideally, I would like the application to run anytime the MODE changes from any other mode to HOME. So when waking up (NIGHT > HOME) or coming back home (AWAY > HOME), the application would check the high for the day, then if it’s a cold day, it’d set the thermostat to 70F. If it’s a hot day, it’d set the thermostat to 55F.
I’d then keep the settings I have where activating AWAY or NIGHT mode sets the thermostat to 55F so the heater doesn’t turn on.
The one reason for keeping the virtual switch step would be if you wanted to trigger other non-smartthings events at the same time, for example using IFTTT.
[quote=“Pilotrose, post:17, topic:20566”]
I think your idea of skipping the virtual switch and adjusting the thermostat is perfect. Could you edit the application to allow a thermostat to be set?
[/quote]I was planning on adding thermostat anyway, cause then i would use it too. I’m just waiting for another slow day at work.
[quote=“Pilotrose, post:17, topic:20566”]
Ideally, I would like the application to run anytime the MODE changes from any other mode to HOME. So when waking up (NIGHT > HOME) or coming back home (AWAY > HOME), the application would check the high for the day, then if it’s a cold day, it’d set the thermostat to 70F. If it’s a hot day, it’d set the thermostat to 55F.
[/quote]While the app doesn’t use mode as a trigger, it is mode aware. The “Set for specific mode(s)” option at the bottom will limit the app to run only for that mode. if you want it to do different things in different modes, just run a separate copy and configure it uniquely for each mode. Same goes with most other smartapps.
Oh that’s great! I’m glad it’s something you could use too.
If mode change could be added as a trigger option instead of using time, that’d be amazing. Let me know! If not I may have to dive into some programming. 8)
