I just installed a thermostat I can control through HA (Remeha eTwist), and the next thing I’d like to do is make it ‘smarter’ by turning down the temperature when no-on is home. I had a Nest in a different house once that did this, and it worked really well.
For a base automation, I am thinking something like:
when everyone is away for > 1hr, change the temperature to 15
whenever someone comes home, change it back to the automatic schedule
(I’ll wait one hour to make sure the house doesn’t cool down when someone is just running a quick errand).
I am wondering what kind of rules and tweaks people out there might be using to make this work really well?
(3D printers are a game-changer for this sort of thing )
I use a Generic Thermostat in the front end, and make use of the preset_modes: none for standard use (19°C), sleep for overnight (17°C) and away (16°C) when the house is unoccupied. My overnight schedule is three input_datetime fields: different “day” times for weekdays and weekends and the “night” time at the end of the day.
Presence detection is via the occupants’ phones. If everyone drops off the wifi, the house switches to away mode; and if I’m the only one in working from home, it does the same until the early afternoon as my small study stays quite warm on its own with me and the monitors heating it up.
I only leave it three minutes before switching modes: if someone’s running a quick errand, the house won’t cool down that quickly. I do need to build in front door detection so I don’t run the heating whilst we’re bringing the shopping in from the car, for example.
I don’t have any physical controls available except for the UI running on a tablet in the kitchen. This setup has been running fine for over two years now and rarely needs any intervention or thought.
fairly similar setup here…when we all drop from the router for 15 minutes, HA sets the thermostat to 12 having recorded the previous set temperature, then when any of us come home it sets the thermostat to the previous set level.
Good point @Troon about the front door and shopping, will have to tweak mine to account for that I think and add a delay in restarting the heating if the door is open
)