Infrared Floor Temp Sensor

Hardware
1

I have water based underfloor heating system in my house. There are no floor sensors installed, and no way of installing them either.

The problem then is since my floors are concrete with stone on top, when the room temp is OK, the floor has stored too much energy, and keeps radiating for hours after heating stopped. So the room is to hot after heating, and too cold before heating. The solution in the beginning was open a window or 10 when it’s too hot, and close when cold and wait a few hours for heat…

Then I got Fibaro, and just timed the floor pump, 3 hours at night, 1 hour after work and that did make things more stable. Now 10 years later with everything moved to Home Assistant, I started wanting to fix the problem.

Any tips on a room thermostat/temp sensor that can see the floor temp with preferably Z-Wave or Zigbee? I guess infrared is my only option. Like this one?
ELEKTRA IRcontrol Thermostat, Programmable Infrared Heating Controller (samm.com)

I have no need to set the room temp on the wall, only get the floor temp to be able to control heating in Home Assistant.

2 Likes
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@Cirion did you manage to find one?

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I am also looking for a contact temperature sensor (want to measure floor and walls).
So far I see suggestions like this: arduino - Contact temperature sensor - Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

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@Cirion Did you find some solution, please?

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No, I have not found the solution yet.

6

Here is something you might want to try: Roth Touchline® SL from www.roth-finland.fi

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Seems to be an old topic that pops up in my feed here. But since I have the exact same setup, and had the exact same issue a few years back, I guess sharing my solution can only benefit those having the same problem now or in the future.

I ended up using an M5Stack Atom Lite together with an M5Stack NCIR sensor. Both are mounted about 30cm / 10" or whatever from the floor where the sensor “looks” down onto the floor. After installing ESPHome on the Atom, I have now a reliable temperature reading of the floor. The temperature isn’t 100% correct (variables such as color, reflection, material might influence a certain offset), but on it’s own is a stable data point that can be used to regulate a thermostat with.

Like stated before, I have this solution for many years now and I just control my heating as setting the desired floor temperature. This more or less reflects in the room temperature anyway.

A benefit is that in winter when you open up the doors briefly to get some fresh air in, the floor doesn’t cool down fast. So the heating doesn’t immediately kick in. When you close the door, the thermal mass of the floor gets the space up to temperature very fast anyway.