I was hoping someone would be willing to share their approach on how to manage a two zone, two story homes heating and A/C control. My initial attempt works, in that I can change modes and set points, but it does not do a really good job of maintaining a constant and uniform comfortable temperature in both zones on both levels of the house under specific conditions. Currently I schedule different temps for four time periods over the course of a day; Morning, Daytime, Evening and Sleeping. Each period has its own individual set points and the heating mode changes based on ambient outdoor temps. The problem I encounter living in Florida is that a day like today it gets very warm during the day. Both thermostats are in cooling mode maintaining a comfortable temp, BUT then in the evening the temps drop below the heat threshold and both zones switch to heat mode. The heat set points are well below the current room temps (so the heat does not come on) but the house remains way too warm (retained heat, setting sun, cooking, our presence). I am forced to override the automations to get the house cooler.
When its consistently either cool or warm my automations work well. Where i run into issues is when its warm during the day and cools way off at night. I know I could add a bunch of conditions or special exception automations, but I was hoping someone has tackled this before and there is a more simple and straightforward approach that I am just not seeing.
Footnote: I avoided using the actual thermostats current temps in fear of creating an infinite loop of heating leading to cooling leading to heating, ie the dog chasing its own tail.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.