Ecobee state for cooling or heating?

Configuration
1

Hi I’d like to add a card on my dashboard that tells me whether my Ecobee thermostat is actively cooling or heating. I’m not seeing that as an option in the Ecobee integration. Am I just missing it?

To be more specific, I’m looking for actual cooling or heating, not just fan state. The fan runs a certain amount of time per hour just to circulate air and knowing it’s state won’t tell me if the compressor or the furnace is running. I don’t see a fan state either actually. Thinking I must be missing where these are.

Thx in advance for pointing me in right direction.

2

It should show those when the unit calls for either, it is just above the temp setpoint, while the actual temp is below that. Show when the Fan shuts down, it should show Idle.

3

Thx, I’m relatively new to HA but think I need an entity (or something) that reads in the state of the thermostat. The below snap is all I see as available entities related to the thermostat.

Screenshot_20240910_061345_Home Assistant
Screenshot_20240910_061345_Home Assistant1080×2340 192 KB

The one that says “heat/cool” looked promising, but it just reports the mode of the thermostat. I have mine set to heat/cool meaning it will either heat or cool depending on what’s needed. This variable doesn’t change when the air conditioning kicks on. Is there summer other variable type I should look for (outside of entities)? The above doesn’t even include the set points of the thermostat which is weird.

4

Click on that entity. In the list of attributes there is an “equipment running” attribute. I can’t confirm right now because my HVAC doesn’t need to run, but I believe that will change to say “cool,fan” or “heat,fan” when it runs. Right now mine says “fan,ventilator” because that’s what is running. Otherwise if nothing is running it is just blank. Instead of reading an entity state, you need to read the attribute of the entity.

6

I created a template sensor to get that info from an attribute of the climate entity:

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- platform: template
  sensors:
    climate_thermostat_hvac_action:
      friendly_name: Climate Thermostat HVAC Action
      value_template:  "{{ state_attr('climate.thermostat', 'hvac_action') }}"
7

yes, that would be for an ecobee through homekit. Mine is still through the ecobee integration. Regardless, it’s the same result.

8

Thank you both! Looks like maybe the “attribute” is what I needed to look for. I see several in there that look like they might work (hvac_action and equipment_running).

Now I’ll see if I can figure out how to read that into a template sensor. I have not used YAML directly at all, so hopefully that can be done with the UI.