I have a Honeywell TZ Zwave setup and working in my shop. When I arrive HA (2024.8.2) sets the temperature to 72, when I leave it sets the 80. The thermostats temperature is set correctly and the AC comes on to cool things down.
I am now looking forward to this fall and winter when I want the heat to come instead of the air. I do not see any way to directly modify the “mode” through the zwave objects available in HA. I read somewhere that setting the “auto changeover” value to enabled and setting the Maximum Heat Temp and Minimum Cool Temp values lets the thermostat control the mode automatically.
I’m having trouble conceptualizing how the Maximum Heat Temp and Minimum Cool Temp represent and work together with the set temperature to switch between heating and cooling.
You use the actions provided by the Climate integration to control the thermostat.
You can set the HVAC mode and temperature range individually, or use the set_temperature service to set both temperatures and mode at the same time.
I don’t think the “auto changeover” mode is implemented correctly in HA. In Z-Wave this mode uses a single target temperature setpoint (Auto Changeover 0xA) and the thermostat automatically runs heating and cooling to reach the target. This is more like the “auto” HVAC mode in HA. Instead, HA maps auto changever to it’s “heat_cool” mode which requires a range of temperatures. If your device actually supports “Auto changeover” and not “Auto”, you might find this mode does not work, and if so you could create a GitHub issue.
Most (?) thermostats support the auto mode instead, which is also mapped to HA as “heat/cool”. You set a target range of low and high temperatures and the thermostat will keep the temperature from exceeding the range, but it doesn’t try to keep it at a single temperature value. In Z-Wave, this mode also uses two separate low and high endpoints.
I don’t know what you’re referring to when you say “Maximum Heat Temp and Minimum Cool Temp”, as these are not terms used in HA. Maybe these are device specific and are limiters on the operating range?
Instead of auto or auto changeover you could just set the mode to heat and use it the same way as you do cool.
You can post the contents of the Device diagnostic data file if you want more details on how it operates.
The entity is normally hidden, you will have to enable it, once the entity "Auto Changeover: is enable you can turn it on via the configuration menu in device manager.
This is exactly what it says it is. The maximum temp you can set the heat, the minimum temp you can set the cooling. If you set cooling minimum to 71, you can’t lower it to 70, if you set the maximum temp for heat to 80, you can’t raise it to 81. Again this is an hidden\disable entity, you have to enable it first, then configure it in the device configuration in the device settings.
These are limits, not controls. Hard stops. You will have to work with the limits you set, not sure if you want use this in any kind of automation.
I have autochangeover on, but it is rarely used as I’m in Florida and there never really a day that the AC cooling is not on. But I did test 1 of my 4 units when configuring this, it works as Honeywell describes. If you set the temp to 74, it will keep it at 74 by autochangeover for the heat or AC to get to that level. For example, if your setting is 74 and the temp is 76, the AC will come on. If the temp is 65 the heater will come on.
Setting your unit to 80 with autochangeover on will be a problem as the unit will heat the location to 80. I recommend turning off the unit instead of setting it to 80. Or whatever you feel is necessary.
Sounds like my best solution might just be to avoid auto change over and just change the mode on the thermostat manually. When I’m not here during the summer, I don’t care how hot it gets in here but it would be nice to keep it reasonable so I picked 80. Same idea in the winter. When I’m not here, I don’t care if it goes down to 40, but I don’t want it below that or our products will freeze. I set those temperatures through automations and that works fine. Guess I’ll just go back to deciding if we need heat or cooling the old fashioned way and have to touch the thermostat. bummer. LOL Thanks
Yup, leave the automation to HA. There some very nice automation you can run to get the same desired effect.