I have bought hook line and sinker, into the Flair Vent ecosystem - for better or worse.
What I would like to do, is take my least needed vent (that I can live without for a while) and disassemble it - to figure out how to rewire it to use ESPHOME or some such home grown DIY mechanism to be able to simply open and close the vent directly (from within HA). Once I have that perfected I would like to be able to make the same modification to all of my flair vents. I know that will avoid my warranty but it is well worth it…
How do I start? Is there a better forum for this kind of work other than here? This should not be at all difficult as the only thing I want to be able to do is see the state of the vent, open it, close it or make it 50% open. Anything else already supplied by Flair I don’t really need (air pressure, etc.). Thoughts? It it would make it even more reliable (and maybe simpler to build) it doesn’t even have to be WiFI but could be hard wired - for power also (batteries not necessary) - ?
You should disassemble one carefully and share what the internals look like. The key things to identify are the motor type and the controller.
Also, do you know how it currently communicates with the hub or thermostat? If you have something like a Flipper Zero, you could monitor the signals and check it out.
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I have long thought about a system that heats (and cools) zones independently while all zones are supplied from one heater with one variable speed fan. This is not a trivial task. Just thinking about how to break it down into separate tasks is non-trivial.
The fan speed, in liters/sec, is the sum of all the requested fan speeds plus losses. The losses change with fan speed which would end up being a speed profile.
How does one determine the fan speed required for a zone depending the temperature differential and cooling or heating?
Now it would be cool (pun intended) to be able to control the heater/AC to output only what is needed as opposed to they way it’s usually done (turn on until set point achieved)
I actually envy your energy to take on such a project!
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Be thinking about your overall system design and how your vents will fit into it. To help you think about that, as @kite noted, figure out how to control your vents. Are they the type that are binary (open or close) or can you vary the opening.
If I have the experience you need but don’t have, I’ll be glad to help.
Just saw this. I did for one of them but did not share it. Everything is built with the most efficient least expensive way to produce the unit (well engineered in that respect) however, because of that it is all built into one circuit board with IC’s (other than the motor mechanism which is fully enclosed and glued into a plastic housing) which makes it nearly impossible for mostr people to decipher. So with that in mind, if I even do hack one it would be primarily just to replace the entire guts of the thing - unless I do figure out how to hack my way into monitoring the signal, however they have a feature in which they all just open if internet connectivity is lost, so I’d have to work around that as well…
Yes and that goes well beyond the ides of just automating the vents however! Also, since some vents are further away from the furnace than others, with ductwork that has splits etc., you’d have to take that air flow and temperature change latency of the air at that vent, into your calculations! Playing devil’s advocate here - doesn’t humidity or even air pollution alter the ability of the air to heat or cool more efficiently - also including altitude, and if you want to get crazy, some vents are not at the same altitude as others - also gravity for vents on different floors (vertical vents with air flowing up are different for those with air flowing downward)?
about the lack of interest in this post