Today, I sent out a new major version of my Zoned Heating/Cooling solutions to all my active contributors.
The new versions enable dynamic temp adjustments (+/- degrees) based on the thermostat’s setpoints for warmer/cooler zones in your home.
This feature is added to the long list of features of the smartapps, amongst others:
Ability to schedule the thermostat’s setpoints and to set some predefined vent levels in different rooms permanently or only for some schedules (ex. at Night) temporarily
Ability to control the vents based on all ST connected sensors: contact, motion, and presence sensors (using the ST hello modes and routines)
I bought 7 keen vents about a year ago. I never really used then much as I got out off the home automation scene for awhile due to smartthings having so many issues. I recently decided to set up my house again and went to replace the batteries in my vents and was shocked with what I found. 4 out of the 7 had either terrible battery corrosion and/or burn marks! 2 of the 4 were floor units and 2 were ceiling units. I used the Duracell batteries that were supplied with the vent. I replaced the batteries in all but only 2 of the 4 work at all anymore. To say I am highly disappointed would be an understatement. Not only that, but this could be a safety risk. Has anyone else had this issue? See the attached pictures below.
Hi, you should contact Keen Home support. Is it due to some cleaning detergent (from mopping the floors) getting into the vents?
On my side, I have 16 smart vents since the beta in 2015 (entering their 2nd year), and I haven’t had any issues with them. Batteries are all good (still at 50%).
It sounds like, according to keen support, that customers have been reporting this recently.@Stet1, sorry to hear this happened to you. Did you ever get your issues resolved? Keen support is blaming the batteries and tell me to contact Duracell. They are sending me new battery trays, but they want me to clean the corrosion in units themselves with alcohol and cotton swabs.
@yvesracine, do you live in a cold climate where the heater is used a lot? I live in the PNW so we use the heater quite a bit. I think this is an issue with the batteries maybe getting hot too much from the hot air coming through vents. And the two floor vents were in bedrooms that have carpet so no cleaning solution was used. And the the other two were in the ceilings so again no cleaning solution used.
another possibility is humidity. Any chance you have one of those humidity mister systems in your duct work? It senses when humidity is low and mists into the duct work to humidify the house. Maybe even just a room humidifier might create condensation.
No humidity mister to my knowledge. I have only owned the house a year or so though. I assume it would be pretty apparent if you have one of those installed?
Using isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs, I was able to get one of the vents working again. I cleaned up the corrosion. I haven’t tried the others yet. I was able to reset it and get it connected to the new hub. I will say the reset button is very inconveniently located. I cannot press it on the ones in the ceiling which means I have to uninstall them which is annoying. That should have been thought of more when designing.
Now I need an app that will close the vents in certain rooms when a certain temp is reached. I have a very pregnant wife who gets super hot right now and an infant room that runs cold so I am trying to control heating to their rooms.
I have CoRe installed, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work with the keen vents.
Hello, I am using the DTH and can get the vents to close, but then once closed I always get another alert that the vent is back open to 1 to 3% any way to get the vent to stay closed?
Hi @jasonrwise77, I’ve noticed this behavior with all my vents as well. If I set them to 75% a few minutes later it says 77%. I have no idea why, but the change isn’t a device handler issue, but something with the device. It’s adjusting by itself for some reason.
All I did was clean up the battery compartment and put new batteries in. I’ve had several issues with these things. Ive had several of these vents where the magnets are coming off and I have had a few where the plastic part of the frame is not connected to the rest of the vent. These things are cool but aren’t made all that well. Ive only had these for a year and they are already falling apart.
You are not the only one that has reported these issues. My upstairs vents are in the ceiling so I believe that they would be ok there but where I really need them the vents are on the floor. I am concerned that they will not hold up because my family is rough on everything!
There’s a ton of slop in the vent linkage, and the position sensor is a simple potentiometer attached to this linkage, so you sent a command for pct opening xyz, then the unit responds with where it actually ended up.
It’s never going to be that accurate or repeatable given the mechanicals and analog sensor involved.
