Many thanks Sir. This will help a lot as I develop my own system. Having relied on a Smart Thermostat for several years and an automatic setback thermostat for the 25 years prior to that, adopting a totally dumb thermostat is feels a little scary. So far it hasn't been as smooth as I would have liked but your RM example and pointers will make it much easier. Many thanks again.
1 Like
I haven't done any direct programming of the Thermostat yet. I will do that to make sure I have a reasonable minimum and maximum for both heat and cool.
1 Like
I was just about to suggest that as an added bit of insurance, just on the slim chance some crazy values get sent to it.
1 Like
Was that ever answered definitively if Pearl supports the Auto mode? According to what I've read in other places, it does not. It still looks like the same model that they are selling now, two years later.
Really good info in this thread on the swing value impacts, as I'm also looking at choices between Centralite, GoControl, and Honeywell.
I would not recommend the Centralite pearl. When the temp gets too low, it reports a temp of like 200 degrees to the Hubitat, and it won't turn on. I put one in my garage and it was worthless, even after rma'ing it twice.
Imagine that you leave on vacation and your power goes out... Your furnace might not turn back on if the temp dropped too far. Centralite was completely unhelpful on this issue.
This is the one I use. There were some issues initially, but it has been rock-solid using the Zen Thermostat driver. It costs more, and you may be able to find it less expensive elsewhere. Some sites had it at an even higher price though.
I am wanting to replace my Ecobee 5 with a decent stat as I HATE the cloud integration!
What app do you use to control your Zen? I need similar functionality for home/away switching using geofencing, but want to get away from cloud control of the Ecobees.
Does the Zen display heat/cool/fan modes? How about time?
I know it is not a programmable stat and relies on the hub for total control, but wanted to know about mode indications.
What temp sensors do you use? What is their update rate? The reason I ask is if the update rate is long, there will be under/overshoot of the control.
I have an Ecobee 5 with 5 remote sensors doing the control, and with their long update rate I see fairly large temperature swings when my system is operating.
I am considering the Zen/Centralite/GoControl/Honeywell T6 as replacements.
What driver has these additional capabilities?
No App All control is handle via Hubitat (and moreso recently NodeRed)
Temp sensors update each one of 38 is every 5 minutes.
The thermostats duties are merely just a switch on the wall that gets ALL it's commands from the hub. It does nothing else.
I use zigbee Konke Temperature/Humidity sensors. The update frequency is decent - they report temperature very 10 minutes; however the event log only contains changed temperatures. Here are the event logs from two of my 12 sensors:
I don't see a lot of over or undershoot - the more sensors one has, the less likely this is to occur.
I strongly recommend the GoControl over the Honeywell T6. I have had both.
Although I just use the built-in Generic Z-Wave Plus Thermostat driver.
1 Like
1 Like
Thank you for the info!
I ordered a Go Control and a Centralite Pearl so that I can play around with them and decide which one I like the best.
THEN I will dump my 5-Ecobee 4's and 1-Ecobee 5, both with remote sensors (old and new style), to try and recover some of my investment back.
I did like them at first, but with the constant Ecobee server problems, long lag in response, long lag of temp sensor updates, and no local control, they have lost their glamor!
we'll see how these new ones work with Hubitat before I dump them though.
They can be controlled locally via Home Assistant.
But then I have to use the Apple ecosystem, which I do NOT want to do.
Plus the Ecobee remote sensors update at a very slow rate for temperature control.
What I may end up doing is use several combo motion/temp/humidity sensors as remote sensors, OR use a Fibaro smart implant (6 temp sensors max) and place the probes in different locations and do averaging that way.
I have the sensors and the implant now just waiting to be used.
I think someone has written a driver for the implant that enables calibration of the sensors also.
One thing that has been annoying the crap out of me is WHY use a thermostat at all, when temp sensors, averaging app (Bravenel), thermostat app, and a Zooz multirelay (3 dry contacts to interface to my HVAC).
Then a tablet can have a dashboard tile with all that info AND control of the HVAC!
That would be more work, but all the thermostat is doing is interfacing hubitat to the HVAC controls.... not much different than a multirelay.
I did try the Ecobee Suite app, and it had alot of nice features, but due to Ecobee's server problems and the response time, it was bringing my hub to a halt or at least REALLY slowing things down.... ALOT!
This was driving me NUTS because I couldn't find the problem.... UNTIL... I dumped the ES suite... PROBLEM SOLVED!
It was too bad because the app had alot of nice features, but was crippled by Ecobee's poor server performance... not all the time but too much for me.
No, you don't need any Apple devices for this. Home Assistant has a component called "Homekit Controller", which will directly pair with your ecobee. You don't need any Apple devices to use Homekit Controller or an ecobee paired with Home Assistant using this method.
You can also export the ecobee climate device from Home Assistant to Hubitat using Home Assistant Device Bridge.
So in theory, one could use any zigbee/z-wave sensors paired to Hubitat (or Home Assistant) to control an ecobee that is paired locally to Home Assistant using the Homekit Controller component.
NOW you have peaked my interest!!!! LOCAL CONTROL!!!! YEAH!!
I do have a computer that is always on (windows 10) for my security cameras (BlueIris), so Home assistant can live on that machine as well.
I am going to DEFINITELY do this!
I thought that Home assistant was an apple only thing, but i am confusing this with Homekit for apple... sorry.
