Support for Velbus Home Automation

DDG · December 26, 2022, 2:29pm

A Velbus thermostat in HA is not needed and it will not solve the many errors you have.
If you use the temperature of your modules in another application, then I do not understand how it can work without having an address assigned for the temperature channel.
Here is an example of one of my modules configuration in Velbuslink:

It has 2 addresses 17 and 18 where 18 is the address for the temp channel. If this ‘18’ is not there, then the Velbus integration will also not create a channel for it and any temperature messages passing on the bus coming from this module will cause an error in the log (Don’t know if temp messages can be send out on the bus if no address is assigned for it). In case you do not have an address for the temperature channel, then its best that you do this in Velbuslink.

The fact that you get so many errors in the logs is not the intention and other people are working on the integration to catch errors like this but this is still under development.

1aranzant · December 27, 2022, 2:51pm

Here is how my temperature modules look like:

I was not the one to design the software, I have no clue how they have done it, but it does retrieve the temp for every switch.

How can I add an address for the temperature channel in VelbusLink?

DDG · December 27, 2022, 7:20pm

In Velbuslink click/select a module then press F3 or right click and select change address from the context menu.
In my case it looks like this:

In your case you can’t use contiguous addresses because your modules are one next to the other in the address range. Not sure if you can use non-contiguous addresses, but you can try to select an empty address.

Just out of curiosity, what custom software do you use ?

MDAR · December 27, 2022, 10:54pm

FYI
Current temp is sent out on the module’s base address.

Thermostat “button events” like heater / boost / pump etc are sent out on the thermostat sub address.

Velbuslink really doesn’t care which sub address is used.

I can’t speak for HomeAssistant

(OpenRemote, openHAB & Control4 don’t care which is used)

DDG · December 28, 2022, 9:00am

Thanks for that info Stuart.

@1aranzant : I did a test on my system. I removed the thermostat address from one module and I get the same error as you in the logs. That means that you can resolve your log problem by assigning all thermostat addresses unfortunately. Later, you can remove all these unwanted thermostats in HA.
I noticed that a module will respond to a temperature request even if the thermostat address is not assigned. The temperature channel is also removed in Velbuslink when the thermostat address is removed, and this is why the HA Velbus integration generates this error.
Thanks for reporting this issue, it will help to improve the Velbus integration.

@Cereal2nd : I’ll create an issue for this in velbusaio.

github.com/Cereal2nd/velbus-aio

Error on temperature request when no thermostat address is assigned to a module

opened 09:20AM - 28 Dec 22 UTC

DannyDeGaspari

When no address is assigned to the thermostat of a module, an error will be gene…rated on the response (0xE6) of a temperature request (0xE5). This means that the temperature channel (which is channel number 10 in most cases) must always be available. See https://community.home-assistant.io/t/support-for-velbus-home-automation/7914/342?u=ddg When sub addresses are missing the cleanup of channels are handled not properly either, see comments here: https://github.com/Cereal2nd/velbus-aio/blob/d9835a9edb49d21d17d44aa00f3afc428055b2d7/velbusaio/module.py#L168 @Cereal2nd , I'll look into this myself if thats ok (when I have time) ?

1aranzant · December 28, 2022, 3:26pm

The software is made by a Belgian company called Trigrr: Trigrr - Building Operating System

Thanks again for the help!

MDAR · December 28, 2022, 9:53pm

I’d be very interested to know how you are getting on with that.

I’ve got a meeting planned with them in the new year.

Geert_Verbist · December 28, 2022, 10:11pm

I believe it was called Bezonia.

MDAR · December 28, 2022, 10:37pm

Hey Geert

Yeah, Trigrr bought Bezonia a few years ago.

I thought it was a big commercial building control platform.

Apparently, Bezonia chose to only apply base addresses to Velbus modules and do all the logic centrally.

(One of the questions I’ll be asking…)

Geert_Verbist · December 29, 2022, 7:30am

Hey Stuart. Long time no see sir. If you want info on Bezonia. Let me know. The guys who built it. I know them……

RCZ · January 3, 2023, 10:28am

Hi everyone,

I wanted to do the below automation; but what is the best way to send a direct % to a VMB4DC? The “automation” part only allows dim up or down but does not specify a percentage

In essence - I want to set the DIM value to 100% during the day and to 20% during the night - based on the VMBPIRO Dark Channel output… and the trigger for the light to go on

and any word on the Thermostat Mode (Heating/Cooling?)

DDG · January 3, 2023, 12:41pm

Use ‘Turn on’, then you will have a brightness setting:

RCZ · January 4, 2023, 8:58am

I see in the source code for the thermostats (climate) that we do not expose the thermostat cooling mode at all,

Is there a quick guide on programming (editting this? ) … Happy to test out some changes…

    _channel: VelbusTemp
    _attr_supported_features = (
        ClimateEntityFeature.TARGET_TEMPERATURE | ClimateEntityFeature.PRESET_MODE
    )
    _attr_temperature_unit = UnitOfTemperature.CELSIUS
    _attr_hvac_mode = HVACMode.HEAT
    **_attr_hvac_modes = [HVACMode.HEAT]**
    _attr_preset_modes = list(PRESET_MODES)

Where I think that could be: (as per hass_nibe/climate.py at master · elupus/hass_nibe · GitHub)

    _channel: VelbusTemp
    _attr_supported_features = (
        ClimateEntityFeature.TARGET_TEMPERATURE | ClimateEntityFeature.PRESET_MODE
    )
    _attr_temperature_unit = UnitOfTemperature.CELSIUS
    _attr_hvac_mode = HVACMode.HEAT
   **_attr_hvac_modes = [HVACMode.HEAT, HVACMode.COOL]**
    _attr_preset_modes = list(PRESET_MODES)

Cereal2nd · January 4, 2023, 5:20pm

This will be fixed in 2023.2

RCZ · January 16, 2023, 5:05am

the port on my Velbus Server has changed - how can I easily change the port in the HomeAssistant / Velbus configuration?

Cereal2nd · January 16, 2023, 8:20am

below ar the steps:

stop hass
go to the config folder
find the .storage dir the config_entries file
in this file search for velbus and udpate the connection string
restart hass

RCZ · January 16, 2023, 1:08pm

thanks!.. just for the ones that want to do this, make sure to do it from a direct SSH console - not the web interface SSH add-on ( )

and on HA OS, you need to go to cd ./config/.storage

1aranzant · January 23, 2023, 9:41am

Hello Danny, I just tried your fix, i.e. adding a thermostat adress to a module (I know sorry it’s almost been a month…) and saddly it does not solve my issue.

(I also tried with contiguous adresses, e.g. A6 and A7)

Even with a Thermostat adress assigned, the following error still appears every 10 seconds

Note: I only get that error when selecting “Periodically (every 10sec) request values of unfolded modules”.

Furthermore, it also does not add a temperature sensor/reading entity in home assistant…

PS: I “reload” the velbus integration in HA and restart after every change, I do not need to delete it and add it again… right?

DDG · January 23, 2023, 3:10pm

You also need to clear the Velbus cache when changing/adding addresses.

stop the HA service
clear the velbuscache folder in home-assistant/config/.storage
restart the HA service (Velbus startup will take long because the cache needs to be rebuild)

1aranzant · January 23, 2023, 7:19pm

It was indeed as simple as that ! just needed to clear the velbuscache with HA stopped.
thanks a lot for your help.