I’ve been putting off getting a new thermostat (used to have a ct100 at old house and loved it). What is everyone using these days for direct control from HA? I don’t want to worry about cloud services going down/changing like what just happened to all the Nest Users but Also don’t want to pay $130+ for a zwave thermostat.
Maybe i just gotta stop being cheap and buy one.
This is what Im using. Found one locally NIB for ~$40!
With zwave check if you have a C wire providing power to the thermostat. The interface with HA on battery wasn’t to my liking. If you have a modern furnace check if it supports a c-wire hookup. Mine did and just wasn’t used, a quick wiring adjustment and I had power to my thermostat.
The only decent option I found was radiothermstat (I use the wifi variant). I needed two (dual zoned) so I didn’t want anything to expensive. They work, but they aren’t that pretty and are slow to respond sometimes to remote access. I keep thinking I’m going to build my own controller on an ESP32 some day that can handle the advanced logic I’d like to see to coordinate between the dual zones and use a local MQTT API with tablets running HASS as the front end.
HestiaPi Touch: An open source, smart thermostat for controlling HVAC and water systems.
Have you used the HestiaPi? This looks like exactly what I am looking for. I use an OpenSprinkler irrigation system and I am looking for something similar.
Tado is great, and since 0.93 (or 0.92 if you had followed the special steps) it is possible to have them run locally through the homekit controller (NOT the Homekit component, they are different things, so you DON’T need an Apple device for this at all).
Works locally and via the cloud. Been using this since november, and they are great, easy to install and setup. Batteries last pretty long.
Here’s a DIY approach using esp8266 and mqtt. I use HA’s generic thermostat along with xiaomi temp sensors to control the zones in my house.
Trane XR524 zwave
If considering DIY, it is great but for those in cold climate areas beware how you implement it…you don’t want your furnace to be off when you are out of town the temps are freezing and server goes down
Exactly, it took me a few days of testing to fine tune mine until I was comfortable running it full time. Going on 2 years now. I left my existing “dumb” thermostats attached and just set them all to 60 as a fail safe. Don’t want to end up with frozen pipes!
I’ve just talked to their support and they claim that without connecting to their cloud, you can’t even do basic schedules.
Trust me they can be fully operated without a cloud connection! However if you want to use the tado app then no you can’t without an internet connection. You would also be dependent on their servers.
However if you add them to Home Assistant with the homekit controller you can use them without an internet/cloud connection and you could do all the basic scheduling through Home Assistant (the same is true for using it with Homekit itself).
You don’t need an Apple for this!!! (If you don’t know the difference between the Homekit component and the Homekit controller I will suggest looking this up as the Homekit Controller has nothing to do with Apple!).
I hope this helps, I have been using Tado for over a year now without an internet/cloud connection!
Can you describe your full setup? The Tado V3 starter pack is on sale and it looks interesting, I just don’t want to connect to their cloud. What functionality remains when you don’t? Schedules? Zoning? Remote access?
When not using the cloud all that works is:
Turn on/off
heat until set temperature
There will be no device tracking, no open door/window support no geofencing etc. However all of this can be easily done within home assistant. So if you already have a device tracker you can use that. You could create schedules in the form of automations.
Like I said none of the functions in the tado app will work without the cloud. But seeing that you use Home Assistant you could do all with that.
If you know how to make an automation, I am sure you’ll be able to create a schedule with that.
If you still have questions do not hesitate to ask them.
I mainly care about zoning and scheduling. Is there a local API that can be tapped into for the Tado?
Can you be more specific about your setup? what you mean by the homekit controller? is that part of home assistant or something that has to be configured inside the tado app?
I don’t mind controlling the thermostat via app from the cloud, but I want to be able to schedule/automate the thermostat and/or heater thermostatic valves directly from home assistant without relying on an internet connection
Homekit controller is something within Home Assistant. It actually acts more or less like a Homekit Hub (e.g. Apple TV) would. It just makes it possible to connect Homekit compatible devices to Home Assistant. Basically what this means is, if you see products with Homekit compatibility (you can see this easily as homekit devices have a 8-digit code on their products xxx-xx-xxx) they can be added to HA.
It has nothing to do with Apple in the way of “do I need an iphone or ipad?” Because for the controller you don’t need Apple products. The controller just emulates a homekit hub.
Do not confuse it with the Homekit component which does need Apple devices. But you won’t be needing that for this!
I have three Honeywell WiFi thermostats. I hated them at first, for all the reasons you give, and because I generally hate cloud-based stuff anyway. But I’ve come around to the idea of using both the Honeywell cloud (via the app or web page), as well as HA, to control them. You might find this works for you, too.
First, these thermostats don’t need the internet at all. You can even program the schedule right on the thermostat, although the app makes it much easier. And it’s easy to change the temperature right at the thermostat. An internet connection lets you use the app and web site, also. But even without the internet, the schedule still runs and the controls on the thermostat still work.
The HA integration brings some of that functionality to HA, too. In the case of my Honeywells, you can’t actually change the schedule from HA. But you can change the temperature or change the mode (heat/cool/off/fan.) Which is pretty much all I ever do anyway.
So I’m finding the cloud isn’t much of a hassle, and it gives me a second way to remotely access my thermostats if HA were to fail when I’m away from home. And even if both the internet connection and HA fail, the thermostats just keep following their schedule without any input.
These thermostats have been very reliable for over a year now, through a number of internet outages and power failures.
I had a Nest, it’s been decommissioned and replaced with one of these. Cheap, simple, no real interface but has a local web ui, local rest api and mqtt server over wifi. Utterly rock solid.
Mine’s wired directly to the boiler for both power and call to heat. Comes with a little thermal probe so it works as a standalone thermostat, but really wants to be hooked up to a HA installation using a Generic Thermostat to do all the zoning, temperature averaging and presence detection stuff.
Why not ESP32, relay and cheap sensor via Home Assistant ?
Cant go cheaper than that.
Better way is some Xiaomi BT sensor, looks better, hide rest (esp and relay).