Versatile thermostat - Wheres does one get the required education to get it working?

Third party integrations
1

Im trying to use Versatile thermostat with my Sonoff TRVB and a external temp sensor, but dear god, its so complex to setup in the simplest way possible.

I’ve added my Sonoff TRVB through Z2M and added the Versatile thermostat integration. I try to follow the documentation from github, but tbh i find it very convoluted and not easy to read. When i then wish to add a thermostat i leave everything default beside:

Main attributes: Name, indoor room temp sensor, exterior temp sensor.
Underlyings: Sonoff TRVB from Z2M selected. Self-regulation set to “Direct control of valve”. No auto-fan
Valve regulation config: Create a helper for “Opening degree entities” - What even is this? Is it talking about degrees as in celcius or degrees as how much the valve is pushed in? Not that it changes anything… see further down

The thermostat is created and behaves totally unexpected. Shown temperature is 21.5c … Setting the temp on the thermostat to 16c and it opens up fully. “Heating” is shown even though i set the thermostat temp to the lowest possible = 7c and the thermostat is closed.

What am i doing wrong? Is it really necessary to go into complex tpi calculations etc. to get the thermostat to work with an external temp sensor?

I tried better thermostat too, and while that worked for a week the thermostat suddenly became “Unavailable” out of nowhere. I tried to reinstall better thermostat from scratch etc. but couldn’t get it to work.

2

I also had the versatile thermostate. homeassistant now has helper for this. Pretty simple and work.

3

I also tried VT, but i concluded (as you) that it’s too complicated for my needs - too many functions i don’t need and/or understand, since in my case TRV is only either fully open of fully closed, so i only need open, close and external temperature sensor function. So i ended up with HA’s built-in thermostat (as Freemi suggested) and simple automation.
I guess that VT is built for more complex things than simple on/off valve…

btw… there’s a blueprint for this valve to include external temperature sensor HERE.

4

I am seeing the same issue where it seems so convoluted and in the end it seems to do so little. I can’t find the benefit of doing such valve regulation because the heating ends up always on as soon as the temperature falls.

Is there any decent guides in setting up automation with basic smart functions? Because I feel VT you does worse job than my most basic automation that didn’t even had external temp sensors