Oh, I was hoping that it’d actually turn it on and off without the vacation mode thing. I’m electric, so I don’t have an easy way to tell.
@copyninja Do you recall what isEnabled actually did?
First of all thanks to @copyninja for the first iteration and to @Justin_Huff for updating the smart app.
I have a electric water heater. The on/off button in the SmartThings SmartApp enables/disables the water heater within the Rheem EcoNet app.
As far as vacation mode goes the literature is pretty vague on what is going on. It just says the temperature is lowered to save money. My guess is that it is enabling energy saving mode and setting the water temp to 120 degrees.
Two things that would be great is if the water heater would show up as a water sensor so that it could be integrated with Smart Home for leak notifications. Additionally having the ability to change the modes would be useful (maybe this is already done) so that you could switch between “Performance” and “Energy Savings” mode within SmartThings. If that was enabled then I think we could mock Vacation mode.
Yup, this are both good ideas.
Too bad Rheem wasn’t more clear on this rather than having all of these options that probably all just boil down to temperature:)
Of course the day I run all new conduit and re-wire my furnace so it can work with an Ecobee3 I come back to find out there’s at least SOME progress being made on the EcoNet stuff. Ah well, the Ecobee is leaps and bounds more capable and has many more smart-home style features so… I think the hours spent running new wire aren’t wasted.
For those that are thinking about doing the same as me in lieu of waiting on development with Rheem’s API (and the great work it appears Justin_Huff is doing) there’s two things to keep in mind. First, you’ll know longer have a “communicating thermostat”, the EcoNet Thermostat is able to run diagnostics and spot potential issues/trouble before it becomes catastrophic. This is a great feature, but again the wifi module supplied worked half-heartedly (and the humidifier stopped working after I installed it… never was able to figure out why the hell that happened, it works now with the Ecobee) and they weren’t doing much to improve it.
Second thing to keep in mind, if you re-wire you EcoNet furnace up to a non-communicating thermostat there’s a chance your warranty will be voided. In my case, the technician who installed it passed away 6 months ago… so while I’m sure I could get warranty support it would be a royal PITA. I’ll take my chances.
The communicating thermostat did more than diagnostics, it had some pretty slick features, and to many people going from that to an Ecobee is ludicrous (especially considering the hours of dirty, sweaty, hand mangling work it took), but if you want to integrate it into a home automation system, as it stands, this is your only route. I’m going to hang on to the Econet stat for a bit since they don’t seem to be fetching much over $100 on fleabay and if the tides change in the next 6 months-year I’ll give it another shot.
Thanks for all the hard work on this! I just installed it and it seems to be working great. One question: Is there a way to set the mode in addition to temp? I have the heat pump water heater and it doesn’t work very well when the temp in my garage drops below 40 degrees. It would be great if I could set it to “Electric-Only” when the temp drops…
Anyway, thanks again for all your work on this.
Awesome! Thanks for this!
Any plans to add access to the leak sensor?
I’d like that as well.
I was going to suggest offering to donate to the current dev, but then I recalled his earlier response to my offer to donate…
This brings something else to mind…
Has anybody ever offered or organized a ‘Donation Bounty’ for getting a particular type of Device Handler or SmartApp created on the forum? I guess I should search to see if that’s a thing here at all or not…
I just noticed this thread…
Hi All!
Can anyone post some picks of the UI for Rheem on SmartThings?
Thanks!
Do you mean the UI of the native Android app from Rheem, or the Device Handler for the water heater here in this thread?
Device handler ios/android interface… in things view, expanded view, settings view.
Thanks!
Unless somebody else gets to it first, I’ll post some screenshots sometime today when I get a chance.
Yep, that was me. As I stated in one of these Rheem threads I actually gave up trying to work with it and ran new conduit and wired up an Ecobee3 instead. So… the reward is off the table for getting the HVAC portion working (I’ve since sold the thermostat and wifi module to offset some of the Ecobee costs).
A communicating thermostat like Econet totally jives with home automation but Rheem’s execution and total lack of integration development/support made it very frustrating. They’re so close to having a killer setup, it only requires 4 wires, gives feedback/diagnostic info and has way more control vs a standard relay style thermostat… maybe in a few years it’s something I’ll look into coming back to.
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Nice! Thanks so much! So excited!
Logan
@Justin_Huff thank you for updating the EcoNet app to use the new APIs. I am working on getting an approved account with Rheem now to look into their offering, but do you know if there are additional capabilities exposed by the API? Such as troubleshooting, error notifications, or other sensors? The Screen on the actual water heater has some good sensor data that would be useful to have available.
Hi folks
You are doing a fantastic job. I installed the app and I am successfully able to see the status and able to control the on/off behavior of the water heater.
What I wanted to try is however a bit more complex. I just installed a hot water recirculation pump and in order to avoid recirculating water when not needed, I hooked this up to a controllable outlet and I turn this off at night and when nobody is home over the day.
I want to do something similar with the Rheem, but instead of turning it on/off, I would like to control the modes. I have a hybrid electric with a heat pump (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-Performance-Performance-Platinum-Hybrid-Electric-50-Gal-Water-Heater-Featuring-High-Efficiency-Mobile-Alerts-and-10-Year-Warranty-XE50T10HD50U0/300620237) and through the official Rheems app I can change from hybrid electric to use only the heat pump (which consumes way less). I attach a screenshot from the app with the different modes below.
My question is simple, is there anyone who already tried to get access to the mode controls through smartthings? I can try to also do it myself, but I never worked on developing an extension for smartthings, so I would need someone to direct me towards the right resources.
Thanks a lot
Nadir
In looking at the EcoNet API, there does not seem to be any way to read useful info such as the current tank temp. If you look at the API documentation here under the EquipmentAttributesController, a “GetWaterHeaterTemp” call is what we would need for this, but I am not seeing it:
http://io.myrheem.com/#EquipmentAttributesController
Without this feature, I will probably not buy the WiFi module for my 80-gallon Hybrid Rheem water heater.
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Thanks for this bit of research.
This reminds me of something I’ve wondered about…
What is the best/easy method for checking on and verifying what temp the water is actually getting up to in a water heater?
I know I could let the faucet run for a minute, and put a thermometer under the running water stream, but is that it, or are there more sophisticated methods?
I assume with that method, there is some sort of equation I’d have to use to adjust for the distance from heater to faucet, and for whether the pipes have insulation or not, etc.