Automating heating with Home Assistant
seanblanchfield.com
seanblanchfield.com
I live in a really old house where the furnace is on a two-wire control system (open=off, closed=on) so no possibility of working in good smart thermostat solution.
So I just patched in a "smart" relay on the furnace wires that let me close them in a software controlled way and use temp sensors to control it over hass. I also kept the old dumb* thermostat connected in parallel and just set it really low as a failsafe to prevent stuff like pipes freezing in case my bodge smart automation job crashes silently when I'm away or something.
*: Only marginally newer than the mercury-in-a-tilting-tube ones, the one I have uses bi-metallic coil with a magnet on the end to control a reed switch.
[0]: without having to run home assistant if possible
Dealing ~99% reliable smart bulbs and guests not understanding the fancy buttons is death by a thousand cuts. Even a 0.1% failure to respond will add up fast if you have multiple bulbs per fixture.
Eventually, I switched to using Lutron Caseta products as the base layer. Now my light switches will still act like light switches if the hub is down and all the remotes are dead. And the remotes don't need the hub online.
Ideally I'd see some generic rule-based system (maybe just WASM VM fed with some code and triggers?) that does just that - feeds code some data and pushes output to controllers, maybe with standarized methods to ask for historical/other sensor data, then have that just be a blob you can deploy on few devices, share a password and it would pick a master and keep rest in standby.
Then just have HA-like Web UI for configuration so the big fat of UI can run really wherever on anything, but the core that is needed for everything to actually work can sit on some cheap device in the closet.
It was upgraded with a rather new controller board at some point despite the machine being rather old, and is very unhappy about any extra loads on the heating control wire. In fact the controller supports all the things (even potentially controlling AC) but there are only 2 thermostat wires in the wall...
My current setup has the relay right next to the furnace, where there's plenty of mains lines to tap into for continuous power and this is fine since it doesn't measure anything and just gets commands from hass.
> I also kept the old dumb* thermostat connected in parallel and just set it low as a failsafe in case my utility wants to think I should freeze for my life choices
Home Assistant is an
> Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.
> Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) is a Plugin in Home Assistant that gives you the ability to download and update plugins that are on GitHub and are not in the Home Assistant standard repository.
My version supports both heating and hot water (important for system boilers in UK) but there's also a "just heating" version for combi-boilers.
The installation is really trivial, at least in UK where the programmer plate is pretty much standard in every house.
Even if you don't connect it to HA, the programmer/thermostat provided by Hive is so much better than the usual Drayton crap you see in UK.
Or hook it up to HA and send the on/off commands as you wish.
As for HA, there's really no dedicated service or add-on for Hive. But the generic thermostat service is good enough.
I combine the scheduled heating in Hive with "on-demand" through HA when needed.
It also connects with home assistant over Wi-Fi. Combined with my home-kit window AC unit, I have full control over scripting, with the thermostat able to operate independently if Home Assistant fails.
I replaced it with a T6 Pro, a thermostat which is by all other metrics a downgrade, but which has a single killer feature: Z-Wave. No phoning home, no janky embedded devices on my WiFi network, just a solid integration with Home Assistant that falls back to a regular thermostat if my HA server is down.
Seems like Honeywell is moving away from making Z-Wave versions of their products, because I think most consumers are generally content to tunnel their request through some shitty cloud thing every time they want to turn the heat up... but for those of us who are a little more ideologically rigid about keeping their stuff LAN-only, would definitely recommend grabbing a T6 Pro while they're out there.
WiFi isn’t necessary and can be turned off. Quite a few settings can only be set on the thermostat itself. It has an on-screen keyboard and by its appearance, I think it runs some version of android. :)
Also, modern boilers have digital control such as OpenTherm. They aren't just simple on/off devices, but instead vary their output based on the heat demand. The heating controller works out the temperature losses across the system, and gets the boiler to moderate the flow to match. This means that instead of turning on and off all the time, the boiler runs continuously at a low rate. More efficient with less wear and much tighter temperature control.
In theory, you could use aggregate heat demand from the Ally thermostats to control a modulating OpenTherm boiler.
https://inspectapedia.com/heat/Heat_Anticipator_Adustment.ph...
This Home Assistant project is great fun, and I highly recommend playing with HASS to anyone who likes to play around with and maintain these things.
But for anyone looking for an easier solution: Ditch the Nest and get an ecobee with remote sensors. Nest has remote sensors as well, but you can only pick one. ecobee will average across the sensors you choose. It also has a mode that can follow occupancy detection and prioritize rooms with movement, but that's not useful for a nursery with a sleeping baby like this.
That's exactly what I thought of when I read the issue because I did that myself and it works great. My Ecobees have multiple sensors and I have zero complaint about them. Fantastic integration with HA too. I love tracking the indoors humidity graph and have alerts on when I should use more moisturizer.
Unless you have controllable vents like this https://flair.co/pages/flair-google-nest-thermostat it probably won’t help much (as one of the comment says, this product isn’t well reviewed. I was just giving an example).
Cool idea, but I haven't seen someone deliver one I'd want to buy yet.
I wasn't following it then, but Google phased out earlier "works with nest".
Last year, the oauth for HA's nest addon broke. Supposedly they did work with Google folks to ensure a smooth transition. It works now.
But ultimately we use Nest with HA at Google's discretion. Part of the strength of HA is its ability to use cloud-free, local-only infrastructure, meaning it won't break on the whim of a megacorp.
Hopefully with Matter, we'll see more products that can work securely + locally. But IMHO, the tech just wasn't there before (at a price point that was cheap).
I too have lutron lights, but most of my other stuff is zwave.
Zwave doesn't have this issue, but it lacks market adoption. Likely due to cost, but I am not sure.
I will provide more details if asked, but the mobile app was awful due to the ecobee server API constantly failing to work properly and the UI not being in sync with reality. There has been times at 3am when I tried to turn a fan off, I simply could not due to API errors.
I'm back to nest and have written ecobee off as a suck cost.
A valid point but the way round this is to set the main thermostat to the highest temp you would ever want the house to be and have the schedule to 24 hours or just the primary heating hours of the day.
I say this so those in rented accommodation don’t think they miss out on this fun. You can swap TRVs out with no plumbing skills and you don’t need to worry about what primary thermostat you have.
The problem with running a call for heat to the boiler (nearly) full-time is that that will run the circulator pump for the zone and, if there's nowhere for that water to go (because all TRVs are closed and there's no "loopback" pipe), the circulator is going to draw a lot of power and eventually fail from being deadheaded.
It's common to leave a single radiator without TRV for that reason - typically the bathroom.
TRVs are often avoided in bathrooms since those rooms have another source of heating (bath/shower) that will screw up what it's trying to do. Also, some smart TRVs don't have sufficient IP rating for such a moist environment. That said, you could install one in a bathroom and people do. Not sure why though, maybe they get carried away with their smart setup.
There's nothing very smart about simply reporting they are too cold - is that really all Nest can do!?! I was under the impression that Tado, Drayton Wiser, etc handled this properly and would have solved the problem (albeit for lots more money).
I'd love to have a system where the furnace controller knew the actual and set temperatures for the various zones, and could throttle itself up and down to best meet the heating needs. Haven't seen one, though.
This does indeed require some fancy touchscreen super thermostat thing though, so that's probably the crux of this.
And that's where things start to, in a technical term, suck.
I added a forced air heat pump to my house two years ago. I already had a boiler and radiator heat, this added some duct work to the house that covers most of the rooms. The boiler has got to stay in for right now because it powers the water heater (indirect water heater). I'll probably replace that with a heat pump water heater next year once more of the rebates come online.
We got a reasonably high performance heat pump from Lennox. The price was fair - especially given the amount of work that needed to be done to add in duct work to my house. And, to be honest, it works great. At least on the mechanical front.
However, because it is a modulating heat pump it requires a communicating thermostat. I'm pretty sure this giant tablet thing mounted to my wall will die before the rest of the system. The software is buggy and laggy - sometimes not taking my finger presses and not saving changes to my schedule. It's ability to detect occupancy is hot garbage because it requires me to have the iComfort app installed and always give it access to my location.
And that's where stuff gets really awesome! The iOS app and the web site are such hot trash that every time I use it I feel like I need to write another negative review. There's actually two different versions of the devices that use two different apps - both called iComfort. I'm on the newer "fancier" one that can support multiple homes. But, about half the time the app never loads properly and when it does load it doesn't take setting changes most of the time. Meaning that you need to kill the app and try again.
Looking through the source code for the web page reveals why it might have these problems. The JavaScript has numerous syntax errors that browsers might just ignore, inconsistently named functions, no discernible style, and typos that make it obvious that it was outsourced to the lowest bidder.
Now, I thought I'd be okay because it has IFTTT integration. Nope. You can turn the thermostat off, but not on. You can change the temperature, but not activate a program. A worthless integration.
I'd love to find a way to just replace it with another Ecobee or a even better, something with a true local API.
tl;dr: Lennox S30, E30, M30 thermostats are not worth your money.
Feels like a system like this could use a way to pipe air from one room into another to achieve target temperatures. Should be way more energy efficient as 1st line of defense
I think this is important. The so-called smart thermostats have a very narrow optimization scope.
But for me it's very simple. I have 2 hours of free electricity per day. So these hours I run my plug-in radiator non stop :P pretty easy.
In fact I could do the same with a simple mechanical timer obviously.
My understanding is it's not great to shut down vents all the way since it increases the static pressure in the branch and the air is just going to try to find ways out. You also have to be careful with closing down too many registers as it can cause too much pressure on the furnace. Some furnaces will shut down in this case.
>> In my house, our nursery both cooled faster and heated faster than any other room in the house. The thermostat (a Nest) controlled the boiler from the living area, and would often turn off the boiler while the nursery was still chilly.
Nerd solution: integrated sensors. Smart home devices. Complex multi-zone heating. Issue never really goes away. Each time something is updated/bricked the entire system must be revisited. (See LLT tech tips videos about Linus's new house.) I'm still laughing at his hot LCD displays mounted directly below the thermostats in each room.
Actual solution: An electric space heater. Available at any Walmart for 25$. Built in thermostat. Problem solved.
Put an ESP32[0] in the space heater. Detect temperature, humidity, barometric pressure. Detect human presents, identify if it is human versus dog. Provide Zigbee communication to Home Assistant. Send alert if dangerously excessive electricity is used, and shut down power to device. Check external weather to make sure water pipes do not freeze when away, and keep heat sufficiently high to prevent freezing but optimize for lowest power usage. Check every 15 seconds. Write automation that knows when away, on vacation, or price of electricity is too high turning it off, on, or throttling to reduce consumption. Reduce grid usage, by heating during best solar panel power generation.
And, then you just began. This is how Home Assistant used. :)
Perfect mix for us. Not (much) to break in the automation.
And, it is fun.
I tried, I couldnt take it. Between doing things the most botched way possible and spending the most money possible (My 4 billion $$$$ home theater system clickbait) I couldnt take it anymore. Its a low form of scam / con when you use your home renovation as a tax writeoff and "content".
Christmas/holiday lights, mood lighting, under counter lighting, all that is controlled by automation.
Now, primary lighting for the room, there's a switch on the wall for that.
It is still adding one extra component that could fail, but it was at least immune to "controller died, nothing works" problem.
The cloud is always someone else's computer, the cloud always costs someone $, and over time, there will be less incentive to provide it.
As for the legality, when you take stuff that you bought for the company and later use it for personal things, you need to "pay" the company for it, you can't just write if off.
LTT is like 95% entertainment 5% actually somewhat informative.
In terms of the deduction, I doubt he’s committing actual tax fraud if for no other reason than he’s so public a figure.
I loved the idea of running my PC elsewhere in the house, so I looked up both the USB and Thunderbolt fiber solutions he recommended.
$800.
His previous one was flagged by anti-cheat due to it being VM-based.
The advantage of a fully local, self-contained system is that you can treat it as an appliance - you don't have to update or tinker with it continuously. There's no reason for it to update or brick itself.
A friend of mine still has a Home Assistant set up from now almost 3 years ago running with no updates or anything - it just acts like a PLC to manage some lights, switches and toggles heating on/off based on window sensors. Nobody has to mess with it and it just works in the background.
Do people want this? Maybe I want both warmth and fresh air in the room? And I foresee the day where the window sensor is faulty. I'm shivering in bed as I have an argument with my furnace about which one of us should be in charge of setting the temperature in my bedroom.
Hass just sends on/off commands to a self-contained thermostat in response to window sensor state change events. If it fails, you can still manually go to the thermostat and set it to whatever you want.
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/venstar/
I've not used it (I installed one because I wanted scheduling and liked that it had further possibilities and wasn't overly expensive).
For a more advanced use case I’ve recently set it up so that the thermostat logic is within HASS. An automation driven by a binary switch helper then switches the thermostat to a fixed hot or cold value for heat and AC. Then I can feed the HASS thermostat with whatever temperature sensor data I want, like an average of multiple sensors around the house. All this is totally optional though if you just want to control the thermostat from within HASS.
If there was a need for a UI I'd probably enable the HomeKit Bridge extension and let them control it via HomeKit (with only specific entities whitelisted) so that 1) they don't have to suffer through the eyesore that is Material Design and 2) don't get confused by a lot of the internal, read-only entities.
People have also built a variety of presence sensors for beds. With pressure sensors and such. Or if you have a Sleep Number bed, it also has presence detection. You could also do things like detecting phone is in the room and plugged in as a rough equivalent for presence of the person.
Maybe a heat pump is more efficient (about the same as gas, depending on climate) but needs more capital than $25.
That seems like a complex question to answer.
Electric heating is more efficient than gas heating (100% Vs. 95%), but electricity costs more than natural gas, taking out any benefit. But that isn't even what makes this complicated, if they're running their natural gas whole-home system to heat a single room, how does THAT compare to a more costly room heater?
Heat pumps are definitely more efficient (e.g. 300%) but cost $1K for a single mini-split, and installation costs/permitting is expensive. $5K isn't unrealistic for just one installed, maybe $2K~ DIY (assuming you can even pull the permit yourself for both electric and HVAC).
I caved and watched - as this triggered my interest. It was actually worse than I expected. They really have 'designed' the system to be broken, and they were just pretending they couldnt figure out how to make it work, and had been sat in a freezing house for weeks ... right?