I have an analog knob to set how much additional RH% my home needs and wanted to see if there was a digital humidistat replacement which plays nicely with HA. From there, I could manually kick it on with automations from knowing the humidity in the house.
Hello testuser,
There is one built into core. Basic but functional.
As far as measuring humidity there is a myriad of cheap sensors out there, some better than others, and all depend on the integrations you have running to decide which to get.
It’s like asking what brand of fuel to use in your vehicle.
But in general, I suggest getting a bunch of sensors and average them, your results will tend to be much more accurate.
I don’t really need a sensor, I am looking for a device that can physically replace the knob humidistat and be remotely controlled as being in a state of on/off via zigbee/wifi/etc with Home Assistant. Let me know if I am misunderstanding your suggestion.
Turn the device to the highest level or lock on and use a smart plug.
Eh, that’s not really how these work. But I appreciate you trying to help. This is wired off of the furnace and gets 24V. I’ll look for a smart relay, thanks for trying though.
I have a sonoff SV which is a wifi device with dry contacts to turn my furnace humidifer on and off.
It is 24ac
A basic humidistat has three parts: a sensor to measure humidity, a knob to set your desired humidity, and a relay (electric switch) that closes the circuit to turn on a humidifier device when humidity is low and open the circuit when the humidity back up. If your device is different than this, please elaborate.
I’ve never seen a standalone smart wall-mounted humidistat, perhaps because whole-home humidifiers are somewhat rare (although Honeywell makes a digital version, it is not “smart”). But HA can help you create the impression of a smart humidistat if you can provide it with all three smart component parts, e.g. a smart sensor, a smart relay, and a smart knob, preferably with display. The first two are easy to come across; the latter more unusual and might require some creativity, turning this into somewhat of a little project.
For example this Elegrp WiFi rotary dimmer has a knob and display that goes from 1 to 100% which could be used to choose a setpoint. HA automations can trigger on changes in the dimmer (which isn’t connected to a load) to adjust the generic hygrostat setpoint. When a nearby sensor (or several throughput the home) indicates more humidity is needed, HA sends a command to close a 24v WiFi relay colocated with the humidifier. There are also paddle dimmers with displays that might work; a more advanced option would be this M5Stack dial which runs customizable firmware to display whatever you want.
It’s a more involved solution (maybe), but you could look for a smart thermostat that can control a humidifier as well. I think the high end Ecobee thermostat, for instance, allows you to control a humidifier as well.
https://support.ecobee.com/s/articles/Configuring-Accessories-with-ecobee-thermostats
Assuming it would work, you’d have to get the 24V wiring to the same place as your thermostat, and that could be a chore depending on your house.