Window open, climate off

SmartLiving.Rocks · February 3, 2023, 7:27am

An answer would help more than you words!

Anyway here is a solution Shelly users can try the preset based automation used for AVM Thermostats.
Check this thread out:

Of curse the preset modes need to be adjusted to Shelly presets!

Patrick4 · February 6, 2023, 9:54pm

Thank you, I will definitely have a look at that solution. I think you figured out what I meant.

TRusselo · April 15, 2023, 3:35pm

wont work if the group includes a door? WTF?

WhimsySpoon · April 15, 2023, 3:57pm

I have a room with two doors and two windows. I’ve created a binary sensor group helper that’s exposed as a window and it works fine.

gohakn · April 29, 2023, 12:15pm

Is it possible to add the outside Temperature as an “switch” to make your blueprint taking this entity into account wheather the climate device should be turned off/on or not.?

Eg. when the outside Temp is 15 °C and the heating is set to 18 °C, there is no need to run the automation.

SmartLiving.Rocks · April 30, 2023, 11:47am

How about another automation that uses service: automation.turn_off or on based on the outside temperature to activate the blueprint’s automation?

You can also have a look here. There are more options to set including outside temperature but I have not tested it yet. Another Heating Control

kilopter · May 4, 2023, 8:54pm

HI… I can use a sensor (door sensor) in the device

there is any error from my part?

SmartLiving.Rocks · May 5, 2023, 8:53am

Hi,

there are several solutions for your situation.

Change the device class to window, as explained in this post:

Import this Blueprint manually by adding the following URL and import Blueprint in order to accept any binary sensor as a trigger:

https://github.com/SmartLiving-Rocks/Blueprint/blob/a038497bf2da4cc26622cbf7e4860e1f4adbde42/Any%20Binary%20Sensor%20open%20HAVC%20off

github.com

SmartLiving-Rocks/Blueprint/blob/a038497bf2da4cc26622cbf7e4860e1f4adbde42/Any Binary Sensor open HAVC off

blueprint:
  name: Window open, climate off after a defined time
  description: 'Climate device like heating and cooling devices (if active) are turned
    off and go back to the previous set stage after the windows is closed again. You can also define a time before the 
    climate device turns back to its previous state. Now it supports several heating modes and different vendors like Tado. The supported
    HAVC modes are: automatic, auto, heat, heat_cool and off. If you need more please
    let me know. Happy automating!'
  domain: automation
  input:
    window_entity:
      name: Window Sensor
      description: The window sensor that controls the climate entity. If you have
        more window sensors please make a group sensor.
      selector:
        entity:
          domain: binary_sensor
         # device_class: window
          multiple: false
    minimum_open_time:
      name: Miniumum open time

This file has been truncated. show original

Make a Group like @WhimsySpoon explained here:

christianj · June 30, 2023, 9:21pm

Hi! Great blueprint, exactly what I was looking for to get my tados into HA. Scrolled through the thread, but didn’t find a solution here for my issue: I would like to lock the tados in OFF state if the window is still open. Neither manual control nor control by tados app shall be possible with an open window. It would be sufficient to let them simply go back to off if the window was open and someone (or tado app) tried to turn them on. Is that possible with this blueprint? Thanks, Christian.

SmartLiving.Rocks · July 1, 2023, 8:48am

Hello, happy to help tado users as I find it fascinating that they do not have a reliable working window open detection but several millions of investment.

I definitely see your use case. But as I am not a tado user I need your help. Is there an option to “lock” the thermostat manually, e.g. via a service (Attribute) or via the Tado App?

I cannot see an option to lock the thermostat (here is a screenshot of another tado user)

But maybe that has changed, and you can provide me an updated picture of your climate entity from the developer tools page:

christianj · July 1, 2023, 3:58pm

Hi!
yes, the open-window detection from tado is a bit tricky and pretty unreliable, especially if the temperature difference between in- and outside is not so high. So we have to rely on support and help from guys like you thanks again for taking your time.
I have checked the attributes, they are the similar to the ones in your screenshot:

Tado has a feature called “child lock” which can be enabled in the app. But I think it wouldn’t be useful here (even if it was available as attribute), as it does not prevent a tado time schedule to kick in and heat up the room while the window is open. It only prevents manual operation on the hardware device.

So, what we need here is a sort of interlock when your blueprint automation is active (open window detected & tado not off) which checks the window status in case the thermostat is changing from off to anything else, and prevents the status to be changed or at least pulls it back to off.
I did a similar thing with some homekit automations in the past, but it was pretty uncomfortable and one of the main reasons I will be switching completely over to Home Assistant.

SmartLiving.Rocks · July 2, 2023, 7:42am

That is a good idea. At the same time you need to consider that Home Assistant needs to be the only main server that controls your heating. In order to work properly, any user must not use the tado app anymore - otherwise it causes very strange behavior, e.g. the “tado time schedule” you mentioned.

Yes, I think I understand the functionality you want to achieve. At the same time it is not possible running several apps parallel! I had that requirement in a home for disabled people. One of the residents was constantly changing the temperature at the thermostat. So I have used a Z-Wave thermostat where local control can be switched on or off by parameter. In addition to that I have also designed a LoveLace view with a conditional card that only showed the thermostat card (or the GitHub - nielsfaber/scheduler-card: HA Lovelace card for control of scheduler entities) if the window is closed. If the window is open a notification tells the user that the window is open and you need to close it to adjust the temperature.

If I understand you right, there is still no possibility to change the “child lock” attribute from Home Assistant.

Therefore, we need to get control over the user’s app and get rid of the tado app! Within Home Assistant everything can be programmed just the way you like it - assuming the right hardware is used and every member in your household agrees to use the Home Assistant App!

That is easy with an input boolean helper that is set if the Optional Opening/Closing action of the Blueprint is using a service to set the desired value of the helper.

At the moment, I do not think there is a way to stop the tado app of doing what it thinks is right - except switching the climate hardware. I cannot help you before you have helped and freed yourself from that nonsense tado cloud app and completely rely on 100% pure local control e.g. with Z-Wave or Zigbee Thermostats!

Thanks for the confirmation!

christianj · July 2, 2023, 9:24am

Great comprehensive and helpful reply, thanks for that.

Anyhow, the tado ecosystem has some advantages and features (e.g. distance based pre-heating, reliable location detection for home/away modes, quick start heating, easy and clean app) which I am sure can be achieved in HASS as well, but with some efforts.

Furthermore, I am using Apple HomeKit and the tado app since years together with my family, they are used to these ecosystems and apps and I am considering it a bit as a challenge to implement all new features / improvements in the background, without affecting the user experience of my family members, as I am pretty sure the acceptance for any new app would be equal to zero (besides the fact that a teenagers iPhone isn’t that easily accessible).
The seamless switch-over to HASS (I am coming from HomeBridge) is difficult enough, everybody is expecting Siri to work perfect (we are heavy Siri users for home control), so I have to transfer all sensors, actors, former HomeKit automations over to HASS one-by one. But before I am leaving HomeBridge and HomeKit (in terms of automations) I have to make sure, that my automations and functions can be achieved in HASS as well.

Could you advise if and how this could work to create the interlock together with your blueprint? I understand the additional open-action and close-action. But what exactly do I have to put in there? And how to create that helper?

SmartLiving.Rocks · July 4, 2023, 9:16am

Thanks. I wanted to point out that it covers more than this simple and useful blueprint can handle.

As the sensors that are used by the Tado App are the same as the Home Assistant App are using it is just a manner of effort, correct - but it is a byte more than just “some” Copying the Tado App with all its nice features and a clean design in Home Assistant would be 30-60h of work. Convincing your family to join the path of digital sovereignty is on another sheet of paper.

Solutions

Quick and dirty

Back to your initial problem: As lock the tados in OFF state is not possible, how do you think about the following idea:

If the window is open and somebody or something does any change on the heating system it would be set to off again.

You can check every minute to if the window is open and the tado state is not off then set it to off
Any trigger that is related to tado needs to meet the condition that the window is closed.

Building a completely Home Assistant related App alternative for Tado users

This one is much more work intensive, but the right way. Maybe there are tado users out there that have already built a tado inspired Lovelace interface with all its functions and nice views.

Both of the above-mentioned solutions are too tado specific and not part of this general Window open, climate off blueprint and need to be handled in another thread.

christianj · July 4, 2023, 11:35am

Thanks a lot. Did some research with HA’s possibilities and found a good solution:

create an input boolean helper (as per your suggestion)
created an automation: If (trigger) state change on tado device from OFF to anything with (condition) boolean helper = ON, then (action) set tado device back to OFF.
In your blueprint automation set Additonal
a) open action to Call Service: input boolean = ON
b) close action to Call Service: input boolen = OFF

Need to create this boolean helper and related automation per thermostat, but it seems to work perfectly

Or does this somehow interfere with your blueprint? Don’t think so, first trials show it really works good.

SmartLiving.Rocks · July 6, 2023, 9:11am

That’s a great solution! I do not think that there are any issues. But feel free to share your experience, either it is working or not.

Feel free to share your automation so that others can get inspired as well. Maybe someone can build a tado specific Blueprint out of it

beurdy · September 8, 2023, 3:46pm

Any chance you can modify this template to include multiple sensors (or-control) and multiple climates (and-control)?

SmartLiving.Rocks · September 12, 2023, 5:25am

Have you tried Groups yet?

sebathue · November 6, 2023, 3:10pm

I’m trying to create a scenario where either door or window in room 1 have to be closed and window in room 2 has to be closed for my Tado to be running.

I’ve set up one group for window and door of room 1 with “all entities” unchecked, which seems to work. I’ve then added a second group that includes the group for room 1 and the window for room 2 with “all entities” checked. But that one fails.

Is my second group resolving individual entites of my first group for its “all entities” check instead of just taking group 1’s status plus room 2 into consideration?

SmartLiving.Rocks · November 21, 2023, 10:58am

Actually, I do not understand under what condition the Blueprint should stop the heating process and on what condition it should start it again.

Anyway - I advise you to take a look on template sensor. You can define exactly under what circumstances the sensor shows open or closed.
After you have created the template sensor (with device class window) , you can use it in this blueprint.