Centralite thermostat installation

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1

I have a centralite 3157100 thermostat. I have joined to my ZigBee network. Question is can it work without the heating system wiring? It doesn't want to program

2

Just like "dumb" thermostats, smart thermostats must be connected to your HVAC system to control heating & cooling. You can send commands to the Centralite via Hubitat, but unless it's connected to your HVAC system, the Centralite can't control anything.

There should be a set of instructions in the box w/the thermostat, or available online, that shows how to connect it to your system. It's usually recommended that you turn off your HVAC system at the breaker before disconnecting/reconnecting thermostats.

If you're not familiar or comfortable w/connecting thermostats you can have a local HVAC company come in to take care of it.

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3

Hmmm. I thought I could use it without the connection to the heating system ( in this case closing a connection to a relay to run a hot water pump. I wanted a manual (at the thermostat) and remote from hubitat

4

If you don't want to control your HVAC settings (e.g., cooling/heating) then you don't need to connect it to your HVAC.

Can you describe what you are trying to do in more detail? That will make it easier to help you enable that. E.g., I want the hot water pump to run whenever the temperature in the house is less than X degrees.

Also, do you already have a Z-Wave or Zigbee smart relay connected to the water pump, e.g., something like this:

5

Sure, here's what I have now. I have a Hubduino that has a ds1820 and a relay. I have a virtual thermostat that monitors the DS1820 and controls the relay. The relay will start a pump and also fire up the boiler using a Taco SR503 Relay box, when the thermostat calls for heat. I want to introduce the real thermostat so that in the room where this is all going down I can go to it and adjust the heat along with being able to do it from the Hubitat Dashboard.

6

As long as any device you want to get info from, or control, is connected to the hub, then you can do what you want to do, which seems to be adjusting your heating set points in the room on the thermostat, or remotely via the hub, but not connecting the thermostat directly to your HVAC.

If you get lucky and the Centralite thermostat can add use external temperature sensors natively, then you could set up the Centralite (add it to HE, but don't connect it physically to HVAC). Then add the ds1820 to the Centralite as it's primary temperature source, and set up rules that change your virtual thermostat when you change your Centralite thermostat.

If you can't easily integrate the ds1820 into the Centralite thermostat as its temperature source, then I think you'll need to use the Hubitat Thermostat Controller app to assign external temperature sensors (you can use as many as you want that are connected to HE, and assign them relative weights) to a physical thermostat. Below is a write up of how to do that, that @aaiyar shared with me:

Here’s what you need:

  1. A Hubitat-controlled thermostat (Thermostat-1) that controls your HVAC and is added to the Thermostat Controller app along with the temperature sensor(s) of your choice
  • This would be your existing virtual thermostat
  1. A Hubitat-controlled thermostat (Thermostat-2) that does NOT control your HVAC, and is placed in a location convenient for you.
  • This is your physical thermostat
  1. The HE Thermostat Controller app

Steps:

  1. Setup Thermostat Controller to control Thermostat-1 (your existing virtual thermostat) and add in the ds1820 temperature sensor into the Thermostat Controller app as the temperature device. This allows the Thermostat Controller app to control your virtual thermostat based on the temps in the ds1820. Doing so will create a second virtual thermostat, a Thermostat Controller Device that can be adjusted via automations and its device page on Hubitat. Importantly, Hubitat does not dramatically change the temperature on this virtual device. Thermostat controller only does so on Thermostat-1.
  2. Setup Automation such that any temperature change on Thermostat-2 (your physical thermostat not connected to HVAC) are mirrored to the virtual Thermostat Controller Device.

Now, when you need to adjust the set points, adjust your physical thermostat (Thermostat-2). HE will then adjust the Thermostat Controller virtual thermostat, which will in turn control your existing virtual thermostat (Thermostat-1).

Sounds a little complicated, but that that should work - you'll have the current temps from ds1820 on the Centralite, and be able to control the virtual thermostat from the Centralite. @aaiyar suggested this approach to me for a similar requirement where I wanted to use external temperature sensors and give my wife a way to control our HVAC remotely from the actual thermostat connected to HVAC.

7

Thanks Dan. I'll have to read that a couple of times before I will wrap my head around it. I found out that the SR503 had 3zones with 3 thermostat inputs, complete with 24vac, common and heat input. The centralite has connections for those

8

I was able to contact Taco the maker of the SR503 and I was able to directly connect the Centralite to it. I can control the SR503 and thus the heat with the Centralite from in front of the thermostat and with a Hubitat and a HA dashboard. So it all worked out I can control the baseboard heat in my room locally and remotely.

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