Keen Smart Home Vents

Devices & Integrations
123

Hi @apropo73, the difference is that the smartapp can control the vents to direct more heat/cool airlflow to the rooms that need it most. It does create the “zones” by opening/closing the vents during a schedule run (within some safeguards).

Also, my smartapp does the ecobee3’s “follow me” feature with any ST connected sensors (not only the proprietary ecobee sensors).

Your experience with my smartapp does not reflect what I’ve tested at my home: I have a single ecobee thermostat and many vents and temp/motion sensors, and it does the job pretty well.

Please read carefully the wiki: the smartapp features, its configuration and how to troubleshoot the schedule and setpoints as everything is described in details.

Regards.

124

Thanks Yves,

I probably have failed to configure it properly. I will try to follow your recommendations. Also, in case it won’t work for me, I’ll be glad to contribute to the further development of your smartapp in exchange for your kind help.

Thank you again!

Rony

125

No problem, BTW, the smartapp will adjust the vents only when your HVAC is not idle (i.e. cooling or heating or your fan is running) or when a new schedule is applied. So, don’t expect your vents to be adjusted all the time!

126

@NateKeenHome @yvesracine
I’ve been trying to puzzle out the readings from the pressure sensors.
It would appear that the pressure sensor has been implemented as an absolute gauge.

If the intent of this sensor was to show duct pressure in relation to ambient, shouldn’t the pressure sensor have been implemented as a differential gauge with one port behind the damper and the other ahead of it?
I’m seriously confused, as the sensor is currently reporting, it is of no value whatsoever in determining static duct pressure.

Help me understand this.

1 Like
127

Hi @Mike_Maxwell,

Here is an excerpt from a conversation I had with the engineer in charge of the device handler code on the topic of pressure:

----- October 4th -----

engineer:

The pressure is measured as an absolute barometric pressure at each device
To give meaning to that value, you need the values from the rest of the system, as well as information like barometric pressure in the area due to weather, altitude, etc.
So that’s something that our analytics platform is going to be using, but honestly, using it in SmartThings in a SmartApp may prove difficult
A number that get’s thrown around a lot in HVAC circles is 0.5 inches of water for the maximum static pressure of a system
Which (according to a wolfram alpha serach just now), is 125 Pascals

----- October 5th -----
yracine [9:48 AM]

Just trying to relate the 125 Pa to the measure I get from the vents: I usually get around 102312 Pa or 102.312 kPa which is close to the normal barometric measure of 101.325 kPa at 20 degrees Celsius (NIST) . Should I then subtract the NIST standard measure from the smart Vent’s pressure to compare the difference with the 125 Pa? This doesn’t seem to compute well as I see a difference of around 987 Pa which is well above 125 Pa…

engineer [9:50 AM]
No, like I said, absolute barometric pressure will change with weather and altitude
So it may be hard to use that value in SmartThings because it needs outside data to be useful

yracine [10:49 AM]
I can get outdoor data from my weather station… So, what should I do to translate the 125 Pa and the measure at the vents to something meaningful?

engineer [11:34 AM]
Honestly, I’m not sure you’re going to be able to… You can try subtracting barometric pressure outside from the vent pressure, but even then the number is going to be dependent on altitude (as in, floor vs ceiling vs second story, etc)

As well as inherent offsets in the sensors themselves

It would require baseline readings while the system is on vs off, as well as how closing the vents affects the pressure in that part of the system

We’ve got a lot of data science and analytics going into this, and it’s part of the reason we ended up building our own system instead of just relying on SmartThings

The short version of it is, just make sure you don’t close all the vents in one zone

And for common safety problems the temperature sensor may be what you should be paying attention to
Especially as we get into winter, as a furnace that’s burning too hot is a thing that happens and is easily detectable
I’d have to dig them up but I can get you common temperature values for the air stream coming from the heat exchanger

Regards.

128

Not replying to you @yvesracine, more to the engineer, but measuring barometric pressure seems quite silly. 0.5"w.c. - 1.5" w.c. is a common range for HVAC, with residential being on the lower side. The thing is, that has nothing to do with barometric pressure. I’m completely baffled as to why they are measuring barometric pressure. Maybe the sensor is cheaper I guess, but the way @Mike_Maxwell explains it is the natural, accepted way of dealing with duct pressure. Specifically, placing one end before and after the damper.

Also, altitude in terms of 10-12’ (first floor vs second floor) doesn’t really effect barometric pressure, so I’m puzzled with that reasoning as well. At least not to any degree a cheap sensor in a smart vent will be able to discern.

I guess I’ll just assume they have a plan I don’t understand yet, which is completely fair too.

129

Seems to me that they chose a simple sensor, implemented it in a simple way, and have not yet developed the math/code to finalize it.

This actually sounds like a fun project, because all the inputs are known:

It’s a “calibration”. Take the actual measurements, adjust all by the altitude and current ambient air pressure (however both are constant, you could ignore them if you wanted), then calibrate them all to an average by having the user ensure the system is off, and zero them all to a mean. Then track the difference between the results as the true pressures and do something with it based on what the number means to the system.

BTW, this isn’t even all factors, the vents themselves may only be able to build so much pressure, in certain systems with so much capability etc. etc. There is a lot of work and a lot of fun to be had here (speaking as an engineer).

130

I have one word for this hardware implementation, LAME
Engineer admits the absolute value is of no worth without a reference.
I seriously do not understand why they used a single port pressure sensor…
How much more could a differential sensor cost over single ported one, and it would have solved all these problems that don’t need to exist.
if 125Pa is the max recommended static pressure, how the heck are you supposed track changes against that when the devices them selves have a variance of 50Pa or more?

I have second floor vents that are reporting higher pressures than the first floor vents for the same time intervals…

131

@apropo73,@BatraD

I understand that the ScheduleTstatZones is a bit complex to configure due to the many features.

I’ve created another version of the smartapp, which should be simpler for your use case:

Please look at following:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=ScheduleRoomTempControl

It will only control the smart vents based on your zone & schedule ‘cooling’ and ‘heating’ thresholds, nothing more (no fan mode or temp adjustements)

Let me know how it works for you!

And, please support the developer!
Regards.

2 Likes
132

BTW, I made some changes to the smart vent device handler’s code
in order to refresh the temp and pressure values less often (every 5-10 minutes
instead of every minute).

Thanks for this, my vents were sending reports every 10 seconds. With your device type it has cut it down to 5 minutes for temperature and 5 minutes for pressure. I don’t understand why it is sending them separately. Maybe it doesn’t matter but wouldn’t it be 2x efficient if the radio only woke up once to send temperature and pressure? Is there any way to change that part of the configuration?

133

no, not to my knowledge…

134

Hi Yves,

Thank you so much for all your efforts! I really appreciate it!
I’ve tried this app and I still struggle to understand the logic of the app. Let me explain my confusion. When configuring different zones I being asked to set cool and heat temperature. To my understanding the setpoints for heating and cooling are thresholds that define desirable range of temperature in the given zone. Let’s say I want it to be between 70 and 76 degrees, which means if the temperature drops under 70 degrees the smartapp will set the vent in this room to open position beyond the minimum level (which is set to 25%). The same for cooling. So,in fact, one should expect the vent to be at minimum opening level as long as the zone temperature is in the defined range. In my case it’s perfectly opposite - if the current temperature in the specific zone is lower than the heat setpoint the app closes the vent. So I should go really low, like 60 degrees, to keep the vent open.
Another confusion that hit me is the relationship between the setpoints I define for each zone and schedules in which the specific zone is included. To add to my confusion there are another two parameters to set which are ecobee program (which has its own cooling/heating setpoints which differ from the zones or schedule ones) and Mode)
Could you elaborate a bit more in depth about all these parameters?

Thank you!

135

Hi @ apropo73,

  • The desired cool temp and desired heat temp thresholds for a zone are not part of a range. They are 2 distinct thresholds: one for cooling and another one for heating (just like thermostat setpoints).

If the HVAC mode is cooling, then as soon as the current temperature inside a zone (which can be composed of 1 to many rooms) reaches the desired cool temp threshold (not in real time, but close enough), then the smartapp will (partially) close the vents (Let’s say below or equal to 70 degrees).

In the same vein, if the your HVAC mode is heating, when the current temperature inside a zone reaches the desired heat temp threshold (above or equal to 76 degrees), then the smartapp will close the vents.

Otherwise, it will open the vents.

I’ve tested it at my place with all the vents I have and it works as described.

  • The Schedule’s setpoints or ecobee climate (if you set the ecobee climate, then you do not need to specify any setpoints) are used to set the thermostat to specific setpoints during the week according to your own schedule (ex. Mornings, Evenings, Weekdays, Weekends, etc.).

This could replace your existing HA script for setting your thermostat setpoints. If you do no want to use that feature, then just set the following parameter to ‘true’ on the 1st page:

	section("Do not set the thermostat setpoints in schedules [optional, default=The thermostat setpoints are set]") {
		input (name:"noSetpointsFlag", title: "Do not set the thermostat setpoints?", type:"bool",required:false)
	}

I added that feature, because it may be useful for a ST user to control the thermostat setpoints AND the vents in the same smartapp.

  • Modes are ST hello modes that you can use to control when your schedules are run. Some schedules could then run only when you’re Away or at Night mode according to ST.

EDIT: I changed the parameters’ label to be clearer in the latest version of the smartapp.

Again,you can find all the configuration details at the ST community wiki:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=ScheduleRoomTempControl

Regards.

136

Hi Yves,

Thank you for the detailed explanation! So basically the zone thresholds values for cooling and heating work at opposite way compared to thermostat thresholds (or schedule thresholds at your smartapp). The program keeps vents open when heating as long as temperatures reach the the higher value (76 degrees from the example above) and 76 should be set at heating threshold not at the cooling one. Did I get you right?
Another question is how to use the option “Do not set the thermostat setpoint in schedules” - if the option is off would it apply cooling and heating setpoints from my ecobee3 to schedules (68 for heating and 75 for cooling in my case) regardless what setpoints are at every and each schedule? If it’s on so the setpoints I wish to set at every different schedule will be applied and override those from the ecobee climate schedules?

Thanks

137

@apropo73

Here are the answers to your questions:

  1. Yes, like I said earlier the thresholds are used to open /close the vents, and, depending
    on your HVAC mode, the smartapp will use the right one (cooling or heating).

  2. If you answer no (or false) to ‘Do not set the thermostat setpoint in schedules’, then it will not
    set your thermostat setpoints.

You’d need to define your ecobee setpoints at the ecobee portal as the smartapp will not override your ecobee
setpoints…

If you say ‘yes’, it will apply the thermostat`s setpoints defined within the smartapp and override your climates/programs set at the ecobee portal. BTW, this will create a ‘hold’ at your ecobee thermostat.

Regards.

138

I’ve got an older house with taller, baseboard style vents. Is there a version of the Keen Smart Home Vents that will fit these?

WP_20151121_09_53_23_Pro.jpg1920×1080 315 KB

139

It doesn’t work unfortunately as expected. the vents never open more than 35% while the rooms remain underheated, the vents keep adjusting every few minutes - opening and closing without any visible reason. complete mess. I’ve tried any possible combinations of settings but everything is operating erratically. any suggestions?

140

@apropo73,

I’m sorry to hear that it does not work as expected … It works pretty well at my place!

Well, if you need more support, I’d be happy to help you for a consulting fee.

Otherwise, please make sure to follow the instructions under:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=ScheduleRoomTempControl

Regards.

P.S. The latest version at github would open the smart vents at 25% or 100%, never in-between…

EDIT: The only reason why the smartapp would leave your vent open at 35% is that you have only 1 vent in your zone and it is about to close it (and do not want to put too much pressure in your vents).

In my house, I have a minimum of 2 vents per room, so they partially close at 25%, not 35%.

EDIT2: If you want to not implement any safeguards and fully close your vents, please look at the wiki for use case no 3 under the configuration section. The latest version at my github will allow you to bypass any safeguards…

1 Like
141

on the topic of Keen Smart Vents, I’ve tried to pair five additional vents today, and none paired. Yet, I have 16 that I paired a couple weeks ago. I went over to My Device Types and tried to take a look at the Keen Dev via the template and noticed that the Template looks like:

Aeon Home Energy Meter

sure enough the content seems to be all about KWh and other such non-vent related stuff. Not sure if that could be causing issues.

142

Hello, If you have any issue with the default template for the Keen Home Smart Vents, just use
my custom device type which corrects the too frequent refresh rate of the pressure & temp sensors and the open/close icons.

See

Regards.