have read through the thread and very interested in the percentage control.
I find the airtouch4 does a pretty average job of keeping our offices at the correct temperature and would prefer to try and automate it through HA.
I have been using this integration for a few months now to log temperatures and settings, but currently need to manually check what the airtouch4 is doing with the air baffles to try and balance the temps across the rooms; lots of the time it appears to be making insane choices; but would like to log it over time.
Does my additional vote about wanting the feature help to get it into the main integration, or should I be looking at trying using the custom install of the branch?
Controlling dampers directly works fine, no branch required. I think you need one zone using ITC rather than dampers otherwise it turns the outdoor unit off but I havenāt played with that much. Instead I typically run ITC but have automations change a zone to damper, change the damper percentage, then switch straight back to ITC
Before I start writing my own code, has anyone looked at controlling the fan speed based on zone count & damper positions??
My Daikin (thats connected to my airtouch) only has 3 fans speeds but no auto mode. So short of installing preasure sensors in the duct work and monitoring it properly, I was thinking you could estimate it well enough based on the number of zones running (given each zone/duct will have maximum airflow it can support) and the damper position restricting the airflowā¦
Why do you want to do that? What problem are you trying to solve?
I never use auto fan or auto mode. My automations change the fan speed based on how many zones the automation turns on. Generally we use medium, overnight we use low, on rare occasions we manually select high if itās really cold.
Because all the rooms have itcās in them, my kids have the ability to turn rooms on or off, so the system needs to adapt to that.
Or if Iām trying to cool the house down, I might have a lot of zones on and the fan high to start cooling, but then as the rooms cool down the dampers will start to close, so the fan speed needs to be reduced.
But in either case donāt want to have to rely on myself monitoring the zone states and adjusting the fan speed.
You could probably write a template that monitors total damper open percentage, which doesnāt include the spill zone, and based on that use a switch / case type statement. I havenāt tried that though, I just leave it on medium most of the time.
I personally solved this by creating two template sensors in configuration.yaml. The first sensors tracks the cumulative percentage of all dampers that are set to on and the second sensor counts all the number of dampers that are set to on. Youāll need to enter your own list of dampers in the variables selected_dampers_cumulative and selected_dampers_cumulative .
I prefer using the cumulative damper percentage to determine the fan speed, as you might not want to have the fan set to high if all dampers are open but only set to 5% each. Or maybe you do want the fan set to high in case only two dampers are open but at 100%.
Youāll then need to find the thresholds at which cumulative damper percentage you want to switch the fan mode between low, medium, and high. E.g. lets say a cumulative damper percentage of 120% should result in a medium fan speed. This would mean that the fan speed would be set to medium in case 2 fans are set to 60% or 4 fans set to 30%. This also works in case the dampers donāt have the same value, e.g. 50% and 70% will still result in the required threshold of 120%.
Iām not sure if this works for you as Iām not using any ITC sensors so things might be a bit different. FYI, the distinction between āopenā and āactiveā dampers is being made, as it is possible for a damper to be set to 80% without actually being on. You donāt want these counted in the cumulative damper percentage. Additionally, in case you have two separate HVAC units in your house you could make a third and fourth template sensor which monitor the dampers attached to the second HVAC.
template:
- sensor:
- name: "Cumulative Damper Percentage"
unit_of_measurement: "%"
state: >
{% set selected_dampers_cumulative = ['fan.damper_1', 'fan.damper_2','fan.damper_3','fan.damper_4'] %}
{{ states | selectattr('entity_id','in',selected_dampers_cumulative) | selectattr('state','eq','on') | map(attribute='attributes.percentage') |map('int') |sum }}
- sensor:
name: "Number of Active Dampers"
state: >
{% set selected_dampers_active = ['fan.damper_1', 'fan.damper_2','fan.damper_3','fan.damper_4'] %}
{{ states | selectattr('entity_id','in',selected_dampers_active) | selectattr('state','eq','on') | list | count }}
I started with your config, and tweaked it slightly to dynamically find the available dampers. And I had to also fudge one of the zones as there is 3 vents off the one damper. But basically the same logic still applies.
Iām just trying to confirm what the airflow is supposed to be per fan speed before I enable the automation (the AC spec sheet only gives me the max airflow).
Not at all since my Airtouch tablet / console was replaced under warranty with an Airtouch5 tablet. Itās still an Airtouch4 not a 5, changing the screen doesnāt change that.
Well, Polyaire very kindly sent me a replacement console, labelled 657254. Itās the same one listed here:
but I notice itās one digit before what probably is the latest AirTouch 5 console listed here:
It was pretty easy to swap over from AirTouch 4. Itās a bit different because the RJ12 socket isnāt fixed to the back of the tablet, instead itās fixed to the wall plate and its exposed contacts touch exposed pins on the back of the tablet.
Thereās a removable sticker on the front of the console that warns you to follow the steps it gives you for setting the console up for the first time.
So far no more āConnection error in receiverā error messages with Home Assistant!
Thanks @tomwaldnz for the tip, and big thanks to Polyaire for such good support.
I notice that there is Actron installation instructions in that installer manual.
I am in the process of building and Actron is the supplied ac unit. We use Actron at my work in the desert and they work well. Was torn between replacing the Actron with another ac brand or using the Actron equivalent.
I canāt see info about the Actron que system on their website anymore so maybe there isnāt an Actron equivalent anymore.
Has anyone set up the bypass feature, which is instead of spill? Iām getting pretty tired of spill, Iām considering adding on a bypass damper if itās not too expensive.
In the HA logs. I have configured HA to send email alerts with errors so I get them emailed to me.
You would need to set up a ānotify.emailā action for this to work. I followed a tutorial ages ago, I forget exactly how I did it, but my config is below
alias: Notification System Log All
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: system_log_event
condition: []
action:
- service: notify.email
data:
title: HA log entry made
message: "{{ trigger.event.data.message[0] }}"
mode: single
Hmm, just got the first such error in 24 hours. I went to switch a damper on in HA and it didnāt respond the first time; error reported; second tap of the damper button worked.
I donāt think the odd error is a huge issue. I donāt recall getting the error at all recently though. You could try using 5GHz WiFi in case itās something basic like a WiFi issue.
Itās still happening regularly then? Thatās annoying. I set up monitoring on my computer using PRTG to basically ping various WiFi devices regularly and graph it. That gave me some useful information and led me to the conclusion my tablet was faulty. I just checked my logs and Iām not getting the error message at all.
Have you tried 5GHz WiFi? Or setting a different WiFi channel on your router?
They were pretty good.