[DEPRECATED] Free Ecobee Suite, Version 1.2.*

Hi Barry!
Thanks for all the updates, I hadn’t updated in a while. I just pushed out to 1.2.7. I noticed a problem. The cooling setpoint is reporting as 1 degree higher than it is actually set to. Heating setpoint reports as normal.
84 reports as 85
87 reports as 88
76 reports as 77

The setpoint is actually reported as two different numbers, depending whether the unit is heating/cooling or idle.

When Idle, it reports the Temperature at which the call for heat/cool will be made, and while heating/cooling, it shows the temperature at which it will stop calling for heat/cool (i.e., the “target” temperature). This is signified by the text that is reported, as in:

… Idle … / Heating/Cooling
Heating at 67.5 / Heating to 68.0
Cooling at 74.0 / Cooling to 73.0

The latter number is what you have set as the target setpoint; the former is calculated using the heating/cooling Offset temperature that you have configured at the thermostat preferences (can’t be changed anywhere else). Note also that if you are displaying only a single digit, and you have the offsets at .5 degrees, you will see

Heating at 68 / Heating to 68
Cooling at 74 / Cooling to 73

Long winded way of saying “this is what it is intended to display.”

I’ll wager that your offsets are 0.5 degrees, and that you are displaying 0 decimal positions. You can check by setting the precision to 1 decimal point in Ecobee (Connect) / Preferences…

Does that make sense?

   Barry

Yup, you are exactly right. I switched to one decimal point and its displaying like you said it would. And on the thermostat display settings I see the heat and cool differential setting, which is at .5.
On the thermostat it is set to 78f heat 60f cool. Now after changing that setting on the device handler it is showing 78.5-59.5, which makes sense from the differential adjustment. I’m using the values in webcore to notify me to open/close house windows, so offsetting it by the value of heatDifferential and coolDifferential should work to give me the round numbers that I want.
Thanks!

One other question. How do I get the minimum fan runtime to reset on its own back to 0 after it increases to the maximum run per hour during the day? Thanks in advance. Ryan

Easiest way is to have fanMinOnTime set to 0 in your Night/Sleep profile. You can set that in the thermostat (I think), or use the Helper SmartApp to do so when your thermostat profile and/or SmartThings mode changes - just set min, max and delta all to 0.

Interesting idea. How would you suggest that the fanMinOnTime change based on temperature delta? Do you want it to run more when it’s a LOT hotter outside than in during the summer, or more when it’s cooler outside than inside (in the summer)?

I was thinking you would run it more of a minimim when its much hotter outside as it would take a bit more time to circulate it and you could also play with the max runtimes as well as the sensor difference tolerance depending for each helper control. This would then flip in winter. Thinking it could be more precise then setting scheduled sleep/home/away fan run times as the temps.obviously vary everyday and if the rules could drive it, that would really be efficient. Would.make it really flexible. Ryan

@storageanarchy. I noticed the label on my slide scale in the thermostat thing has a Celsius label ©. All the smart apps and DTH are up to date. I reauthorized in the Connect app.

That one comes to you courtesy of SmartThings, who for some reason thinks that even though they have had sliders for 3+ years, now would be a good time to change them (and break the UI of countless apps).

I will leave ok into this later this evening - I’m bored adding a flight here in a moment.

Sorry about that!

Thanks!
Barry

Not a problem, just pointing a hiccup that popped up. It doesn’t affect operation. :+1:

So, I guess I don’t understand your use case.

FanMinOnTime controls the HVAC fan (not the ventilator). As such, it basically only moves the air inside your house, filtering it (at least) and balancing temperatures across rooms (at best).

Although I don’t understand how the inside vs. outside temperature would have any effect for this, are you perhaps saying ‘hey, if it’s real hot outside (summer), so don’t circulate the inside air so much”. Or is it “hey, if it’s real nice outside, and I’ve opened a bunch of windows, so circulate the air more?”

I’m having a mental block trying to understand why you would want more/less fan circulation based on how much warmer/cooler it is outside.

Thanks!
Barry

The fan settings are across all profiles on the thermostat itself or the regular app so can’t have it change across profiles which is why I found what you’ve been working on. The helper option doesn’t have Delta = 0 as an option and I’m not sure I want the fan off 100% of the time during the sleep window. I think this kind of rolls in with the other enhancement thought that I had. I will detail it more in my other response…

Hi Barry,
Here is a weather example day that I found, that kind of mimics what I’m hoping to account for. I have my cool setting set to 77° and I have a two story home with a basement. Obviously second floor heats up first and the west side of my house is warmer overall when the sun’s out. Cold air in the basement recirculated keeps it much cooler overall if I use the fan to keep things balanced. Balanced also means we don’t trigger the delta as often. So the hope is we can make the fan setup much smarter to allow for this. Adding the internal/external temp delta I think would allow for quite a bit of flexibility in the settings…

Time Description Temp Feels Precip Humidity Wind
7:15 pm
Mon Mostly Clear 72° 72° 0% 52% SW 5 mph
8:00 pm
Mon Mostly Clear 70° 70° 0% 57% Calm
9:00 pm
Mon Mostly Clear 69° 69° 0% 60% Calm
10:00 pm
Mon Clear 68° 68° 0% 55% Calm
11:00 pm
Mon Clear 67° 67° 0% 50% NNE 6 mph
12:00 am
Tue Mostly Clear 66° 66° 0% 47% NE 6 mph
1:00 am
Tue Mostly Clear 66° 66° 0% 40% NE 7 mph
2:00 am
Tue Mostly Clear 65° 65° 0% 35% NE 7 mph
3:00 am
Tue Mostly Clear 64° 64° 0% 34% NNE 6 mph
4:00 am
Tue Clear 63° 63° 0% 33% NE 6 mph
5:00 am
Tue Clear 62° 62° 0% 34% NE 7 mph
6:00 am
Tue Clear 61° 60° 0% 39% NE 7 mph
7:00 am
Tue Sunny 60° 60° 0% 43% NE 6 mph
8:00 am
Tue Sunny 63° 63° 0% 39% NE 6 mph
9:00 am
Tue Sunny 69° 69° 0% 30% ENE 6 mph
10:00 am
Tue Sunny 76° 76° 0% 21% ENE 6 mph
11:00 am
Tue Sunny 80° 80° 0% 15% E 6 mph
12:00 pm
Tue Sunny 82° 82° 0% 12% SE 5 mph
1:00 pm
Tue Sunny 85° 85° 0% 14% SSW 6 mph
2:00 pm
Tue Sunny 88° 88° 0% 22% SW 7 mph
3:00 pm
Tue Sunny 83° 83° 0% 28% SW 9 mph
4:00 pm
Tue Sunny 78° 78° 0% 36% WSW 10 mph
5:00 pm
Tue Mostly Sunny 76° 76° 0% 40% WSW 10 mph
6:00 pm
Tue Sunny 72° 72° 0% 51% WSW 10 mph

Theoretical setting ideas.
Control setting #1, If external temp/internal temp delta is >5 and external temp is lower, run fan time min at 0, max 15 minutes, if sensor delta greater than 3 degrees. Otherwise it wouldn’t run. So this would apply from 715pm to sometime before 12am and then again after 6pm on Tuesday in the above example.
Control setting #2 If external temp/internal temp delta is >10 and external temp is lower, run fan time min at 0, max 10 min per hour, if sensor delta greater than 3 degrees. Otherwise it wouldn’t run. This would apply from 12am till just before 9am using the data from above
Control setting #3 If external temp/internal temp delta is -5/+5, run fan time min at 0 min/30 max per hour, if sensor delta greater than 3 degrees. Otherwise it wouldn’t run. This would apply from 10am to close to noon time.
Control setting #4 If external temp/internal temp delta is >5 and external temp is higher, run fan time min at 30 min per hour, max at 45, if sensor delta greater than 3 degrees. This would apply from noon to almost 2 pm and then again at 3-4pm
Control setting #5 If external temp/internal temp delta is >10 and external temp is higher, run fan time min at 45 min per hour, max at 55, if sensor delta greater than 3 degrees. This would apply from 2pm to 3pm.

The other thought to mention is the helper design keeps adding minutes each time it’s triggered unless you don’t let it by making the max/min the same. Currently I’ve had the min set at 0 and max at 30 with 5 min adjustments, and after the fan is triggered several times were at 30 minutes per hour until I manually change it back to 0, so basically it’s running for 30 when it doesn’t necessarily need to. I know you recommended the sleep setting adjustment to reset it to 0, but that doesn’t quite get us there. I think if the control settings above could happen, I think this would allow the logic to reset things each time and we wouldn’t be running for 30 minutes late at night, as the current control setting would have taken over already using the temps and reset the run times. Hopefully this makes sense I know this is pretty long. I really like what you guys have done so far, hopefully we can take it a little further. Ryan

Actually, it will indeed reduce the number of minutes, but only if the temperature delta gets below the threshold. If the gap never closes, indeed the fan will run at max minutes.

So basically, what you want is to change the min/max minutes based on the indoor/outdoor temperature delta:

out >5 but <10 cooler: 0min, 15 max
out >10 cooler: 0min, 10 max
out +/- 5 of in: 0min, 30max
out >5 but <10 hotter: 30min, 45max
out >10 hotter, 45min, 55max

For all cases, if delta temp is <= 3, then min0, max0; else use above values for min/max

I guess I just don’t understand why you don’t just want 0min, 55max. If the basement is cooler by more than 3 degrees, don’t you want to push as much of that cool air to the warm rooms as possible (and vice versa in the winter)? Why do you want different values based on outside temperature delta - isn’t your intent solely to balance inside temperatures throughout your house as much as possible, regardless of how hot/cold it is outside?

Although I truly doubt it will make any difference, would you be OK with an added option at the bottom of Smart Circulation that said:

  • “Only when outside temp at (oTemp) is between (oMin) and (oMax) (warmer/cooler) than average of the configured inside sensors”

You would then configure 5 individual instances of Smart Circulation:

  • oMin=+10, oMax=+99
  • oMin=+5, oMax=+9.9
  • oMin=-4.9, oMax=+4.9
  • oMin=-9.9, oMax=-5
  • oMin=–99, oMax= -10

Fixed in Ecobee Thermostat v1.2.11

1 Like

Barry, yes adding what you described would fit what I’m looking to do. I just think this adds so much flexibility to your tool. Another use could be to use the fan to balance as much as possible, but not necessarily ever meet the delta throughout the day and just let it run like the ecobee allows but with variable timing driven by the outside temps. When I first got the ecobee I ran the fan set for 15 or 20 or 30 minutes per hour and kept changing depending on the weather. Running it 55 minutes per hour max all day doesnt necessarily make sense if your going to hit that max early in the day and run it like that the rest of the day as your fan will never get you to the delta. However running it in smaller spurts will help the a/c running less is my though. My house balances much faster when the sun isnt heating up the couple rooms on the top floor which is what this will solve for me as I can set how long it should run at any point in the day in combination with your existing settings. This would also allow you to run the fan around the same time the a/c kicks in more. Again those hotter upstairs rooms will remain warmer once the a/c call is done, so re-circulating that a/c air can continue to cool things regardless of your away/sleep/home setting. I’m sure there are many more uses. Very flexible.

Tried installing this a few times now. Had everything all installed according to the directions, saw my three Ecobee 3s in Ecobee Connect (they all previously showed in Smart Things also) everything was good. I did this while at work figuring i’d play with it once I got home.

The other Ecobee apps within the suite V 1.2 when opened gave a blank screen. So I went back into My Smart Apps in the Smart Things API and everything I installed wasn’t there. Weird. The apps were on my phone but not in the API. Tried removing them in the Smart Things App with no luck.

Reinstalled them all once again, saw them on my phone with no luck using them again. Then, all 3 of my thermostats were unavailable in Smart Things. I restarted the app, my hub, all with no luck. Tried uninstalling the entire suite again. I have everything gone except ecobee Smart Room which when I try and delete it in the API I get:

This SmartApp can’t be deleted at this time because it is installed by one or more users

Plus, now, Smart Things can’t find my thermostats in Smart Things now. Whne I try to add them manually with the Add A Thing tab in Smart Things, it shows no thermostats. What should I try next? Thanks!!

  1. you may have an issue where you are installing into the wrong shard - search here in the community for info about that and how to ensure you are using the same shard that your hub runs in.

  2. you always need to remove smartapps and devices in the reverse order that you installed them. So, first the Helper smartapps, then the thermostat and sensor devices, and then finally Ecobee (Connect). You may have to do this in two shards, if applicable.

  3. if you still cannot delete everything from the mobile app, try in the IDE.

  4. if all else fails, contact SmartThings support for help in getting everything deleted.

  5. Finally, note that you do not install the devices or helper smartapps directly - the ONLY smartapp you run is Ecobee (Connect). It will create all the other devices and smartapps. If you don’t follow this, you can get into a similar situation where you can’t find or delete apps or devices.

Let me know if this helps resolve your problems.

  Barry

I noticed that I was going to 2 different API sites somehow.

https://graph.api.smartthings.com/ Does not show the Ecobee Connect

https://graph-na02-useast1.api.smartthings.com shows the Ecobee Connect that I can not delete.

Guess I’ll have to contact Smart Things to see if they can fix it.