Ecobee current temperature to trigger ceiling fan

Configuration
1

Hi, it’s been a while since I’ve been on. I noticed that @rpitera has done a similar automation to what I want to do in this thread: Slow state updates from EcoBee

My variation is I want to turn on a ceiling fan when the upstairs temperature is 2 degrees higher than downstairs. I have an ecobee3 on the ground floor and a remote sensor upstairs. I’d like to get some feedback on this before I go through the expense of buying a zwave switch and the trouble of installing the ecobee component.

From what I’ve read on the Ecobee thermostat page a current_temperature attribute is available. Will there be two current temperatures available in my case? (one for upstairs remote sensor, one for downstairs ecobee thermostat)

I think I can work around the delay that’s been reported and just have the automation run until the temperature differential is 1 degree.

2

My sensors (and the thermostat) show as this for temp

Remote Sensor
sensor.guest_room_temperature
unit_of_measurement: °F friendly_name: Guest Room Temperature device_class: temperature
with what looks like a number value to me for the state

My thermostat has a sensor that looks exactly the same

I also have an ecobee 3

I’m not sure how often it updates, but its enough to turn a fan on and off

So the trigger would really just be a
When
upstairs sensor - downstairs sensor > 2

Or something generally like that.

I think a binary value template

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      upstairs_warm:
        value_template: "{{ states('sensor.guest_room_temperature') -  states('sensor.downstairs _temperature')| float > 2 }}"

I’ll say the actual format is probably wrong for the value. I’m still learing the exact format, but that pretty much it

1 Like
3

Thanks @ptdalen :+1: