this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
270 points (99.6% liked)
homeassistant
11833 readers
10 users here now
Home Assistant is 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. Available for free at home-assistant.io
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is why I hate depending on cloud services for my home automation. The last one on my shitlist is my thermostat. Just haven't gotten around to researching options yet.
Put some ~~windex~~ tasmota on it
Yeah, not this thermostat.
Bloody proprietary shit that, fortunately, another fella managed to write a reasonably well-featured HA add-on for. But it still goes via their cloud service, and the problem is it uses a proprietary protocol over 2 or 3 pair wire,. Additionally the evaporative A/C plugs directly into the heater unit, which handles C&C for both appliances.
I haven't ruled out having to separate the buggers out and control each individually. As long as I can find a thermostat that can handle them.
Ecobee has been absolutely amazing for me. I've used both the cloud API and and homekit integration with home assistant flawlessly. Note: homekit was a bit annoying to first set up, especially without an iPhone. As a bonus, I see my power company offering discounts and rebates on them all the time.
I have an ecobee 3 that I've been using for about 7 years now. It works reasonably well. But I didn't like that eco+ or whatever they called it that they rolled out to everyone a while back.
Is there a thermostat logic add-on for HA that would replace the ecobee? I know I could program it with scripts and such but it'd be nice if there was some kind of "smart thermostat" module that could use the temperature sensors from around the house and learn the characteristics of the HVAC (how long does it take to heat/cool for a given outside temperature, for example, and take that into account when hitting a programmed set point) and maybe even integrate multiple sources of heating or cooling. (We have a pellet stove for supplemental heat that the HA could fire up, for example.)
That sets off my spidey sense.
It shouldn’t. My electric company offers rebates and discounts on any approved smart thermostat, and my heat isn’t even through them. My Honeywell one ended up costing me $50 because of the rebate.
It’s a state-wide thing for participating utility providers, at lest here. They had about 20 models on the shared store (no markup as far as I could tell, but not really a deal either) or provided a list of models that would qualify which contained dozens upon dozens of models.
It’s not just that one single one that has rebates/discounts. That would be silly because those are some of the most expensive.
I hope you went investigating and found a good discount on a smart thermostat for yourself as well.
I ended up building one from relays and a DHT22 that I run from NodeRed.