Thank you both. I will try that.
1 Like
Hello,
I am relatively new to smart home world. I do have the Smart Things Hub, and have connected WeMo Devices for lights , that was my first purchase. After buying a Schlage programmable door lock and a Ring Doorbell I got the Smart Things hub to use The RBoy LUM program which is amazing. All was going well so I bought and we installed the Ring Alarm system, foolishly I assumed because I was able to connect the Ring doorbell and trigger lights off motion I could do the same with all Ring products. Anyhow, I was thinking that I could then turn off heat and AC when doors and or windows were left opened for more than a few minutes. Unfortunately, I have been unable to connect the Ring Alarm system to the Smart Things Hub. Without being able to connect the whole alarm system is there any app, or suggested way to do this? We will have renters for the summer, and I dread the AC bill when doors and windows are left open and the AC is cranked up and left running only to chill the great outdoors. Appreciate any and all suggestions!
Maybe you’ll be interested in using this Artificial Intelligence that I have been working on for years. It has become quite powerful and stable. Let me know how it works for you!
Hey guys!
This app seems to be exactly what I need to automatically manage my heat pump system. The only thing is that I need “Emergency Heat” mode to set when the temp is below the heat pumps efficient range.
Any ideas?
Not that you don’t need to be able to turn on emergency heat but…
The heat pump system should turn on the auxiliary heat without your intervention when it gets too cold for pumping heat.
Emergency heat control is for … emergencies …
https://www.bobsredtrucks.com/blog/what-is-emergency-heat/
“Most people think that when it gets very cold outside, it is necessary to turn their Emergency Heat setting on, but this is not true. If your heating system is working properly, the Emergency Heat setting will turn on automatically if the outdoor temperature is too cold for the primary source of heat to work alone. The only time someone should manually turn on the Emergency Heat setting is if there is a problem with your heat pump. For instance, if there is physical damage to the outdoor unit or if a heat pump continues to freeze up or short out.”
I assumed this as well, until my electric bill tripled and my basement was wet from the frozen then thawed heat pump. It was the HVAC repair guy who informed us that we want to run our system on Emergency Heat in the winter.
Interesting. That’s the opposite of what my HVAC guys said. What he said agrees with the article I linked. While you’ll need the Aux Heat to come on, using emergency heat cuts off the heat pump entirely and isn’t good for it
We’re in a home that was completed mid-2018 in south central Texas so we don’t get long stretches below what the heat pump can handle. I always check the thermostats when it gets down into the 20s and they show that Aux Heat is on.
We do get long stretches… I’m in ND, and it was -20 this morning… anyway, I’m guessing that since our Aux heat is propane and completely independent of the Heat Pump system that’s why ours is set up differently? We’re still learning about it as we bought the house in the summer, and no one gave us the crash course…
Thanks for the heads up, we’ll definitely investigate further!
I’m sorry for you! I spent a good chunk of my younger years in ND, Minot, Bismarck, and college in Grand Forks. Still have a lot of relatives up there. We moved to Texas almost 40 years ago.
I would definitely look into your Aux/Emergency heat. Mine is electric and part of the whole Carrier system. So a gas or propane unit might work differently.
We’re in Mandan, good move getting out!
1 Like
Is the app turning your thermostat off but not back on? I may have the solution, my issue was not the app, but a user error which I think others had as I read through this thread.
All I cared about was turning my thermostat off when a door was opened then back on when it closed. I already have a smart thermostat which at this time is as smart as I want my HVAC controls to be except it is right next to a deck door which gets left open from time to time causing issues (I know bad spot for a thermostat but a wall was removed creating this situation). So when I opened the app I went right to the thermostat and doors menu, I looked at the other menus but didn’t change anything. By only making changes to thermostat and door menu this the app will turn the thermostat off, but it will not turn it back on. The problem is the app turns the thermostat back on based on the director settings. It needs these settings to know what to tell the thermostat to do when the door is closed.
In my case I was thinking my thermostat already has temperature set points, I didn’t want to confuse things with additional setpoints in this app. This was my mistake as that is not exactly what this range is. If you want to rely on your thermostats settings and have this app just turn it back on. Set it to auto for every range. For example I selected 0 for the low temp to set to auto, 100 for the high temp to set to auto and and anything in between set to auto. This means when the door is shut the app will see the thermostat is within a range where it will set the thermostat to auto and will then revert to the heat setpoint and cool setpoint for your thermostat.
Side note I think this was not mentioned above a few times as it should be obvious and not need explained but dense people like myself might overlook this 
I’m pretty new to SmartThings and was able to bring most of my “Things” to work.
So I was searching for a SmartApp that brings some logic to my heating system (some TRVs in combination with contact sensors) and so I found this thread where I want to place some questions as I’m not able to get this SmartApp working with my devices.
-
Is this the “Thermostat Mode Director” here the same app that is available in de ST App Marketplace in the new app? I think so, but my app is in german language, so maybe I translated it wrong.
-
I want to try the app starting with the door/window feature, but I’m not able to select a thermostat. The app tells me that there are no thermostats available. I have at least three devices that support the Thermostat capability. So I would expect them to be listed in the app? Are there further criterias that must be fulfilled that the thermostats will show up? Additional info: all thermostats I’m using run only with custom DTHs.
-
As I found in the capabilities reference the Thermostat capability has been marked as deprecated. Will the app consider this in future? If so, how? Cause writing my own DTH (which might be possible for some other devices) I don’t want to use deprecated capabilities anymore to avoid later rework of my DTHs.
Love this but it doesn’t see the new Nest integrations, any chance of an update?
Since Smarthings forced the new version of their app this code no longer recognizes my Honeywell RTH9580WF1005GG thermostat. How do I fix to include? I can still operate the thermostat via Smarthings but it shows ‘No Device’ when I try to update Thermostat Mode Director. I love this app – it’s amazing and so frustrating that I can’t get it to work now. Help!
