Versatile Thermostat never start of stop the thermostat unless for opening window detection.
It is a human decision to turn on/off heating. This to avoid an auto start of heating when you don’t want it.
Great integration Jean-Marc, I set it (and the scheduler) up last week and used it over the weekend and it largely worked as expected! I’ve been looking for a way to simplify my hvac management automations, and this looks like a keeper, will allow me to retire a dozen+ node red automations. Thank you for providing to the community!
I wanted to share my lessons learned as an American using Versatile Thermostat with an American-style central hvac system (Nest smart thermostat with central AC and central gas furnace). As the documentation is written with an eye towards European-style heating systems (what the heck is a ‘TRV’ and why is AC an after-thought??), I had to do some trial-and-error to get it configured to work as desired, and wanted to share some pointers with Americans looking at this to simplify their HVAC automations.
First, level setting my situation. I have a single Nest thermostat integrated into HA, I have window sensors on all my windows, and I have a pretty solid presence detection setup. I had a page of node-red automations that:
- turned off/on my hvac when any window is opened/all windows are closed,
- set my hvac target temps to higher/lower when my house is occupied or vacant
- set my hvac target temps to higher/lower temps at night when we’re sleeping (we prefer a colder house when sleeping).
Versatile Thermostat (with the Scheduler integration) does all of these things for me.
Note: These comments assume you already installed Versatile and the Scheduler companion and their cards via HACS.
First, for those with central HVAC controlled through a smart thermostat like Nest or Ecobee, its important to select the “thermostat over climate” option when you add the new VT integration.
In the ‘Main Attributes’ screen, you really just need to provide a name (your choice) and the room temperature. You can use your Nest/Ecobee’s temperature entity. Ignore/use default for the Last Seen Room Temperature, Cycle Duration, and Device Power (I don’t believe they’re relevant to central HVAC systems). I left the 3 checkboxes as their default. ‘Enable control by central entity’ box checked and the other two (use additional central main config, used by central boiler) unchecked. I don’t know what any of those 3 actually do, or if they’re relevant to central hvacs.
On the 2nd main attribute screen, provide a sensor that tracks the outdoor temperature. This is just from your local weather integration (or if you have an outdoor temperature sensor in your HA). I use PirateWeather for my local weather. I don’t think this is used by VT-over-climate, but it’s a required field so feed it something. For the Min and Max temperature allowed, enter the absolute min/max temperatures you’d ever want to set your target temps to (it accepts Fahrenheit just fine). I have pets that are home alone, so I put 64 and 78 in here. If you are fine with hotter/colder extremes, put them in there. For Temperature Step, just put 1 (most smart thermostats on Fahrenheit only go to the single digit unlike our European friends with their tenth of a Celsius precision).
For Features: I use Window Detection and Presence Detection and unchecked motion and power management. I didn’t want motion to be considered (I’m not always moving in front of my Nest), and I don’t know what power management does.
For Underlyings: This is where you actually point the VT integration to your Nest/Ecobee/whatever smart thermostat. Just select your ‘climate.nest’ or whatever in the 1st underlying climate and leave the rest blank. (Presumably if you have multiple thermostats, you’d add them here, but I have no experience with that). Select “AC Mode”. I kept the next 4 inputs as default (“no auto-regulation”, “0.5” reg threshold, “5” reg min period, “high” auto fan mode). I checked the “use internal temperature of the underlying”. Don’t know what it does, but seemed harmless and maybe it would simplify stuff as my Nest provides its own temp sensor.
For Presets: No clue what this does, I unchecked it . I think i tried checking it once and didn’t see any difference. VT has Comfort, Boost, and Eco presets which I’ll talk to at the end of this post.
For Window Detection: Give it your input_boolean that is on when any window is open, and off when all windows are closed (I had already created one for my node-red automations, a simple template sensor that turns on/off based on the state of my group.all_windows that I built around all my window sensors). Uncheck the ‘use central window config’ (again, no clue what this does). On the 2nd Window Detection screen, set your time delay for how long a window has to be open for VT to turn off hvac (I set mine to 10 seconds for when I wanna open a window to let a bug out without power cycling my hvac). Action should default to turn off which is correct.
For Presence Detection, leave the ‘use central presence temp’ unchecked. No clue what it does. On the 2nd page, provide your ‘presence detected’ input_boolean (similar to windows above, just create a template sensor based on all of your residents home/away status).
For Advanced parameters, ignore it, doesn’t seem relevant to centrally-controlled HVAC systems.
At this point, the final line should read ‘all done’, click that and it’ll create and save.
Setting up your temperature targets:
Now pull up the integration/device page for your VT and you’ll see a list of “Controls” entities like Boost, Boost ac, Boost ac Away, Boost away, Comfort, Comfort ac, Comfort away, etc. The key here is to understand that you have three ‘presets’ (Boost (rocket ship), Comfort (couch), and Eco (leaf)) and then 4 target temperatures for each preset. So Comfort is your heater target temp for when you’re home and in comfort mode. Comfort ac is your AC’s target temp for when you’re home and in comfort mode. Comfort away is your heater’s target mode when you’re away (likely lower than your when-at-home temp), and Comfort ac away is your AC’s target mode when you’re away (likely higher than your when-at-home AC target). Then the same 4 target temp options for Boost and Eco presets which you can use or ignore as you want.
For example, my Comfort AC is 72, and my Comfort AC Away is 78. This means when VT determines I’m home, it’ll set my Nest to 72/Cooling. When VT determines I’m away, it’ll set my Nest to 78/Cooling. Similar concept for setting my heat with Comfort (70) and Comfort Away (64).
You cannot change the name or icons, so you’ll just have to choose a preset for a particular situation. Personally, I use ‘Comfort’ for my normal, during the day temp ranges. I use ‘Boost’ for sleeping when I want it colder, and I don’t use ‘Eco’ at all.
VT will auto-switch between, say, Comfort and Comfort away when you have your hvac set to Heat and you leave/return. Or it will auto-switch between Comfort ac and Comfort ac away when you have your hvac set to Cooling and you leave/return.
Basically, this is where you set your target temperatures for the various permutations of home/away, sleep/daytime.
I ignore Frost cause it’s not relevant to my home, but I assume you could set both to the minimum temp range you specified.
That’s the basics. Now you should have a thermostat that sets higher/lower temps based on your presence, and turns on/off based if your windows open/close.
Setting up your Schedules (to change between presets at set times)
The next is setting up the Scheduler integration helper to change between presets. I have mine setup to go to ‘boost’ mode at 10pm, and then back to ‘comfort’ at 530am because that’s when I generally go to sleep and wake up and I have the boost temps set lower cause I like to sleep in a cold room.
That’s way too much info, but hopefully this helps someone with US-style central HVAC that is struggling to understand which configuration items are relevant/needed.
Nice report ! Thank you for this.
I hope you install the last releases which fixes some issue with °K unit.
I’ve been using Versatile Thermostat over two Zwave Thermostats for a couple of months now with great success.
But recently I noticed that after a while the thermostat card may be showing no presets (all grey). In this situation, it also does not respond to occupancy changing by changing temperature set point, however the green occupancy icon does toggle correctly.
But reloading the Versatile Thermostat integration will immediately return it to normal operation.
Not seeing anything unusual in the logs, and not sure where to look further?
Any ideas?
Is VTherm able to handle an AC for cooling, combined with a TRV for heating?
I have added both as underlying devices, but I can only switch between Off and Heat in the VTherm climate entity. Do I have to configure anything to get a Cool or Auto Mode?
Ok, I just saw that it works when I add the AC as first underlying device and the TRV on second. Then I can switch between modes, but what I still don’t get: how can I display AC max and heating min temperature in a sort of hysteresis like shown here: New thermostat card - #13 by sholdee
Hello @fitz247 ,
The only possibiilty is that someone or a automation or something like that is setting the setpoint temperature. That turns the VTherm to manual (no preset).
You have to use two VTherm for doing that. You should not add an only AC and only Heating device in the same VTherm.
Understood. What would then be the preferred way of combining both into the same thermostat UI?
No idea because it is not possible with Vtherm and other thermostat don’t support (as far as I know) multiple device in the same thermostat.
Thanks for responding. It remains a mystery. I’ve recreated a new thermostat and will watch that!
So-I’ve recreated all the components, and re-included the thermostat with a different ID. So I’m confident of no forgotten automations etc. Same problem occurs - system is falling into manual mode. I’m using a schedule to change modes several times a day, and a virtual presence sensor to set back each mode temperature when appropriate.
From what I can observe (but not replicate with complete consistency), there are occasions where the Remotec ZTS-500US z-wave thermostat will momentarily report a previous set point after a set point change, before a second or so later correcting itself. There are also reports of this as potentially a home assistant z-wave issue (Climate setpoint glitches to unrelated number when changing setpoint · Issue #63849 · home-assistant/core · GitHub) - closed unresolved. Either way, most use-cases wouldn’t be impacted by this momentary aberration…
This of course appears to Versatile Thermostat like a manual change, and knocks the thermostat out of its automatic mode (so stuck in either the occupied or not occupied set point until the next scheduled mode change).
So in the absence of a way of having Versatile Thermostat ignore a momentary set point change, looks like I will need to dispense with relying on the presence feature for this thermostat. Oddly I have a second identical thermostat which is much more stable…presence setdowns are working fine.
I am having the problem that for AC mode, Vtherm does not use the AC-presets, but the heating presets.
For example: Boost AC 22.0°C, Boost 30°C, AC mode on
When changing to the Boost Preset, the target temp is set to 30°C.
I have filed an issue on github, maybe this can be looked into.
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I’ve been closely watching Versatile thermostat trying to debug issues with it switching to manual mode (as above), which has entailed closely watching the underlying thermostat in ZWaveJSUI.
I’ve picked up that the operating state (‘heating being applied right now’) icon is not reliably updating in the Versatile Thermostat card. The standard thermostat card, however, does accurately reflect the heating-active status. Page refresh doesn’t help. Looking at the states of the versatile thermostat climate device, I see the value “is_device_active:” appears to be aligned with the card icon, and is often incorrect.
Is this a known bug?
I’ve just recently upgraded my Versatile Thermostat after ~8 months, and now there’s a new config setting I don’t understand. Does anyone happen to know what this is for, what it does, what one should enter here? The description of the form doesn’t really explain it. What is a last seen room temperature datetime sensor? Thanks!
Bonjour Jean Marc, merci beaucoup pour ton travail sur le thermostat !
Sorry if I missed the information. I don’t find why all the presets defined in an AC unit are not available in the thermostat. ex: boost and boost clim. I’ve only boost.
Thanks a lot
boost_clim is the preset when the VTherm is in Cool mode (AC).
Hello, just discovered this integration and I love it. Last winter I used just the scheduler with my thermostats but now this is all another level.
I have five thermostat in the house, I set up a central unit and five thermo over climate in the integration.
My two questions:
- what the flag "use the temperature of the underlying does?
- how can I set a change of preset when I leave work? Is written in the GitHub page
You will note in this example, the use of an input_boolean named force_presence which allows you to force the sensor toTrueand thus force the VTherm which uses it with active presence. This allows, for example, to force pre-heating of the home when leaving work, or when a person not natively recognized in HA is present.
Tha’s what I do not get.
Said that, great work!
Hello @Frapp ,
"use the temperature of the underlying
Is your underlying internal temperature is so bad, that even a strong regulation of VTherm is not enough, you can try to check this option. Then VTherm will compensate the difference between internal temp of device and the real external temp. Then VTherm will force a high temperature to force the device to heat.
force_presence
This is a helper of type input_boolean. It is set to true when I leave work (based on proximity calculation). It is integrated in the “home_occupied” template which is used as presence sensor for the VTherm. Then the VTherm turns to Comfort when I leave work.
Hi thanks for the answer.
Sorry I’m dumb, I use Thermo over climate, just to clarify:
when you say underlying internal temperature you mean the temperature the thermostat reads, am I right?
If so, I didn’t get: if the option is checked VTherm uses the tempererature read by the thermostat underlying, so if is not checked which temperature VTherm will use?
About the force_presence helper: i need to set this helper manually, right? Then automate it and when is set to true VTherm will recognize this as “at home” and trigger the “at home” presets
Thanks a lot!