I picked up 5 of the CT-101-L thermostats from Lowe’s on clearance as well. They also have the GoControl on clearance around here for $20. I originally picked up 5 of those but liked the CT-101-L interface better plus the GoControl doesn’t report humidity so I returned them.
I have mine hooked up to the c-wire so updates are pretty quick. When paired initially when powered by battery only, the z-wave radio doesn’t stay on all the time and doesn’t act as a repeater. I believe it’s mentioned above somewhere that when powered by battery only, battery polling doesn’t occur as it would reduce battery life significantly to poll constantly. It’s best to power by c-wire and to pair by c-wire. If you paired by battery only and switch to c-wire, you have to network exclude and remove the device pairing then repair while attached to c-wire. This will keep the z-wave radio on all the time and act as a repeater.
So far, the only problem I’ve had with them was due to the SmartThings outage on 9/13 - 9/14. My custom programs couldn’t be transmitted to the thermostats at the configured time so the temps never changed. I haven’t had any problems since the outage was resolved. Also haven’t had any problems with the clock being set, also probably because of running on c-wire and not battery.
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RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
533
Nicely summarized, this was the post you were referring to above. These thermostats shine when on C-Wire. Alkaline batteries on the other hand tend to last about 2-4 months depending on usage and the mesh quality and should be within 30-50ft of another z-wave repeater device. There is an option battery save mode in DTH preferences page which reduces polling requests from the platform to save battery. Using 1.5v lithium batteries can double/triple that lifespan but you need to watch the battery dead reporting threshold which will be higher than that for Alkaline batteries. You can also check out the [RELEASE] Configurable Low Battery Warning/Notification/Monitor and Device Monitoring Alerts app which is tuned for creating configurable low battery rules.
For folks who don’t have a c-wire option on their the HVAC wiring, check our the Venstar add on which can create and extra wire/C-Wire by using your existing wiring.
Supports secure inclusion and encrypted communication for Z-Wave Plus thermostats
Battery saver option to extend battery life
Synchronizing SmartThings dead-band settings with thermostat (default is 1°)
Fix for ST Celsius scale bug
Patches for firmware bugs
CT-xxx incorrect date
CT-xxx auto switch over
CT-xxx state synchronization
Customize thermostat settings (CT-xxx and ZTS-xxx)
Temperature reporting threshold
Temperature swing threshold
Lock (partial/full) and unlock controls
Show fan state (running or off even when set to Auto mode)
Humidity
Battery
Clock
Heat/Cool temperature settings
Auto detect supported thermostat modes
Off
Auto
Heat
Cool
Emergency heat
Auto detect supported fan modes
Off
On
Auto
Circulate
Thermostat models tested:
CT-xxx Z-Wave
CT-xxx Z-Wave Plus
ZTS-1xx Z-Wave
ZTS-5xx Z-Wave
GoControl Z-Wave
Vivint Z-Wave
Lowes Z-Wave
Filtrete 3M Z-Wave
Honeywell Z-Wave
APX Z-Wave
It will only show C-Wire if the thermostat was paired with the hub in repeater mode (i.e. with the C-Wire connected) otherwise it shows the battery level.
I have an issue with my CT-100 Plus where when I first pair the thermostat to my hub, it shows:
supportedThermostatModes:
[heat, cool, auto, off]
After some time, however, it switches to this:
supportedThermostatModes:
[heat, cool, off]
Once that happens, I no longer have access to the auto thermostat mode… Is there anything I can do to address this? It’s been happening for a while but I didn’t realize I could post here for support.
Thanks in advance for your help!
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
539
That’s odd, your thermostat starts off reporting all 4 capabilities and then decides to report that it only supports 3.
Try these two things:
Use the latest DTH and click refresh
Reset your thermostat (without excluding it), remove the cover and with a pin press the reset button on the left top corner. Then click the refresh tile to reinitialize your thermostat
If that fails, try to exclude, reset and then re-pair using the latest DTH
Yes, interestingly enough, it’s only reporting the three capabilities but I can switch to Auto on the thermostat itself, but the thermostatMode is then reported as either cool or heat and auto is still not an option in supportedThermostatModes.
Resetting the thermostat worked in terms of getting auto back as an option. As an FYI, this worked in the past as well, but at some point the thermostat decides not to advertise that mode anymore. Anyway, I will keep an eye on it and let you know if it happens again. Thanks!
I installed the most up to date code for this and I am noticing some different behavior, not sure if it is “bad” or not, but different. When I used to refresh the device on the SmartThings app I would see that the date / time got pushed to the thermostat, that is no longer happening. Was this removed as a feature?
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
542
Definitely not working here on any of my three CT101s.
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
544
EDIT: I think you’re referring to not seeing it “log” that the clock is being set in the “Recently” tab. That Logging was removed to reduce clutter but I guess we’ll add it back in the next update to avoid confusion. Nevertheless the clock is still being set.
Original:
I would suggest resetting your thermostats and rebooting your hub. After hitting the reset button just tap refresh a few times to resync the thermostat settings.
The DTH sends out the clock synchronize command when you click Refresh. Mesh issues are typically the reason when things suddenly start acting up. Thermostats on the C-Wire, adding repeaters closer to them etc help with mitigating mesh degradation. You may have dig around to see what’s going on with the mesh, the clock synchronization code hasn’t changed.
Thanks. One question before I do that, any chance I can get a copy of the older code and just see what happens? I was previously using version 04.02.00.
I added my CT-200 Z-wave plus Vivint Element that was left here without a controller when I bought the house. I was able to discover the device when I factory reset it, but its not receiving any data from the thermostat (see photo). I have version 4.03.01 DTH and 5-2 Day thermostat smartapp. What am I doing wrong?
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
549
It shows the commands are being sent by the app but I don’t see any response from the thermostat. When you tap refresh you’ll see a bunch of things show up like current battery, humidity, setpoints, temperatures etc if the communication is working both ways.
Supports secure inclusion and encrypted communication for Z-Wave Plus thermostats
Battery saver option to extend battery life
Synchronizing SmartThings dead-band settings with thermostat (default is 1°)
Fix for ST Celsius scale bug
Patches for firmware bugs
CT-xxx incorrect date
CT-xxx auto switch over
CT-xxx state synchronization
CT-xxx non battery models
Customize thermostat settings (CT-xxx and ZTS-xxx)
Temperature reporting threshold
Temperature swing threshold
Lock (partial/full) and unlock controls
Show fan state (running or off even when set to Auto mode)
Humidity
Battery
Clock
Heat/Cool temperature settings
Auto detect supported thermostat modes
Off
Auto
Heat
Cool
Emergency heat
Auto detect supported fan modes
Off
On
Auto
Circulate
Thermostat models tested:
CT-xxx Z-Wave
CT-xxx Z-Wave Plus
ZTS-1xx Z-Wave
ZTS-5xx Z-Wave
GoControl Z-Wave
Vivint Z-Wave
Lowes Z-Wave
Filtrete 3M Z-Wave
Honeywell Z-Wave
APX Z-Wave
It will only show C-Wire if the thermostat was paired with the hub in repeater mode (i.e. with the C-Wire connected) otherwise it shows the battery level.
I noticed recently (the night of the switch from daylight savings time to standard time) that my CT-101 thermostat isn’t changing out of it overnight setting (heat setting change from 68 to 72). It also appears that the time on the thermostat hasn’t updated to reflect the new time of day. (It still shows as an hour ahead).
I use the 5-2 Smart app to set the schedule. It seems like something is amiss here, since an incorrect time setting shouldn’t cause the temp change to fail completely. If anything it should be happening an hour sooner than it should.
Any suggestions?
EDIT: I just tried updating the device handler to the version reference just above my post to see if it makes any difference.