Help choosing infrared heating for use with HA

Hardware
1

Hello

I would like some advice on purchasing infrared heating, which is suitable to control via Home Assistant, or how do you do this, do you use a central thermostat, or do you add each panel to HA separately. It seems best to me that I can control them individually but also automate them.
Energy use integration in HA energy panel would also be nice.

Do you know which brand types are suitable for HA?

I am from the Netherlands.

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2

For my situation I’m thinking of getting a panel from Quality Heating and connecting it to a Shelly Plug. I already have Tado thermostats in my room so I’ll use that to measure the temperature, and since I use a hue bulb as a nightlight that’ll (together with thermostat) determine if the infrared panel is allowed to get power.

Hope this helps. It’s a theoretical setup for now, but I’ll start ordering the parts soon…

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3

But with that setup you can not controll the panel’s temp or automations based on time?
Shelly plug is for monitoring the power/turn on/off?

4

Shelly plug is both for monitoring power usage (I’m curious what the running cost is) and for turning it on/off. That way I can use automations, timers and schedules to control the Shelly plug/the IR panel

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5

Hi folks,
do you mind stating the overall solution you ended up with?
:slight_smile:

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6

I’m thinking about an infrared panel as well. Does anybody use infrared panels with HA? Which panels do you use and with which integration?

7

I ended up with a Z-wave power plug to turn them On or Off

8

Hi, I’m also interested in the topic - choosing the infrared heater right now and would like to be able to manage the power intensity via HA. Not sure if there’s anything available…

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9

Here is what we ended up going with.

Bedroom:
600watt panel from https://www.infraroodverwarmingstore.nl
Controlled on/off and monitored by a Shelly Plug S - All Products - Products - Shelly
Configured as a Generic Thermostat - Home Assistant using another temperature (& motion) sensor I had in the room.

Bathroom:
Two 700(ish) watt panels (a mirror and a white ceiling panel) from Herschel Select XLS (less expensive) line: Herschel Select XLS - hoogwaardige infraroodpanelen
Controlled & wired to Herschel IQ Thermostat. Specifically this one, although any IQ Thermostat will do T-MKS Bedrade Thermostaat voor eenvoudige bediening van Herschel kachels
Connected via the Smart Life app, and pulled into Home Assistant via the Tuya Integration.
TODO: add Shelly 2 PM for energy monitoring

Hope this helps, links are to Dutch sites, but of course you choose what works and is available to you. Herschel makes some really high quality products, that are great as permanent installations, but starting cheaper with a Shelly Plug and an inexpensive panel is a good gateway drug in the IR world.

@teodoro.lio IR panels are an on/off type of heat, you power them, it takes a couple minutes to get up to 100 celsius (or whatever your panels are rated for) and then they start radiating heat to the room, once the room is warm you (or probably your thermostat) cuts the power to the unit. As far as I know there aren’t any panels available with a variable output.

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10

Hi

Do you maybe have an example of how you made a ‘thermostat’ function of an temperature sensor?

(or maybe send me a pm (also dutch)) :slight_smile:

11

Sure thing, here is my IR panel thermostat configuration.

Make sure you add in your smart plug or whatever you use to control the panel as heater. And also add in whatever measures the temperature as target_sensor.

climate:
  - platform: generic_thermostat
    name: Baby Room IR Thermostat
    heater: switch.baby_room_ir_panel_smart_plug
    target_sensor: sensor.baby_room_temperature
    max_temp: 25
    keep_alive:
      minutes: 5
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Thanks!
If you do it like this, can you still put the heating on manual via the plug without interference of the thermostat function?

13

Well you could but you shouldn’t. You see the IR panel will keep dumping heat into the room for as long as it is plugged in. That’s why you want a thermostat function so it shuts off once the room temperature reaches a comfortable level.

But you can turn the thermostat on/off or 20 degrees/10 degrees for example.
I use it in combination with a mm wave sensor to see if there is anyone in the room. (Otherwise there is no need to actively heat it).

14

Hi,
i decided to give a go with

  1. Kesser Infrared Panels. Solid hardware, works and heats as designed. They are based on the Tuya integration and sofar i managed to add them to the Developer Tuya, yet in HA they show read only, but work in progress. Otherwise, using SmartLife app I can control the panels, reading and setting temperatures or simply turning off/on. It includes a thermostat but I’d not really use it to control the room temperature, because it will always show the Panel ambient temp which is not representative for the room itself. It includes as well a remote control, which comes in very handy.
  2. For temp control I am currently setting up the Sonoff SNZB-02D together with Sonoff Bridge Pro. Here i have some issues connecting them, but work in progress.
    I’ll post an update when I get them to work together.
    Cheers,V
15

Hi, found this topic as I was looking for something similar.

I have added your code in my configuration.yaml and edited of course for my devices. However, what should I do next? I’m kind of new to this, sorry.

Can I now find this name (Baby Room IR Thermostat) somewhere? Should I switch in on in some way? Does it become a switch somewhere?

I short, I don’t know what my next step should be after adding this code. I have rebooted HA after I added it.