My current thermostat relies on an external API to remotely control the gas/heat-pump/humidifier system.
I’m looking for something to swap it out with that I can interact with directly.
I don’t even know where to begin looking… Thoughts?
What is your HVAC system? Model name of the indoor, outdoor?
Has these information we can know what to do next.
I’m always on the lookout for a totally local “smart” thermostat. Unfortunately I haven’t had much luck. I’d be interested to hear what others have found.
My current “smart” thermostats (from Honeywell) work totally locally, in that I can set them manually and they can control the system and run their schedules without any cloud connection.
However, to do any remote control I have to go through the manufacturer’s cloud. I can use their app, their web site or, through HA, their API. And it all works pretty well. It just irritates me that they’ve injected their cloud into the stack as another point of failure. If their site is down (as it has been a few times) or my internet connection is down, HA can’t control the thermostats sitting right in the same network.
The good part about this arrangement is, if HA is down, I still have access to remotely control my thermostats, as long as my home internet connection is good.
Another thing I’ve found is that these thermostats are “smarter” than just a simple control which turns the heat or AC on or off at some set threshold. It actually figures out, based on experience with my system at various outside temperatures, how to turn the system on and off before the threshold is reached. My home stays a steady temperature, not spiking up and down between two limits. The thermostat has settings to tell it what type of system it’s controlling, so it runs cycle times for the most efficient durations based on that.
Finally, these are off-the-shelf thermostats from a reliable company which is likely to be around and supporting them for a long time.
So far, those benefits outweigh my frustration at not having totally local control. I’d love to be proven wrong, an find some 'stats out there which do all this locally, reliably and at a reasonable cost.
You can control an Ecobee thermostat locally via the HomeKit Device integration.
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Good point on the Ecobee. I tend to avoid anything associated with the Apple ecosystem, so I sort of forget this. But it is apparently true that you can run the HomeKit integration totally locally for (most) Ecobee smart thermostats.
Honeywell T6