I’ve had Keen vents and am moving to Flair but I was wondering what you might think of using HVAC motorized dampers connected to smart plugs (or relays) which would then simply turn on or off depending on the temperature of individual rooms, which would be triggered by readings from either Ecobee sensors or other devices that report temps.
I’m wondering if you think this is possible, possibly better or worse than the smart vents, how reliable this could be, and if a simple basic rule or RM (or if there’s a simple app) can handle this.
My house is difficult to run any additional wiring to another thermostat and besides having room by room control would be much better.
I’m not an expert on HVAC electrical but I see that typically most installers would use a control board connected to the dampers but they’re rather expensive. On the other hand, having a bunch of individual dampers connected to individual smart plugs plugged into a power strip (or perhaps a smart power strip) could work. My other thought would be some type of powered smart relay board for simple on/off operations which would then split off to the different motors but I’m getting out of my league here.
EDIT: I have an Ecobee thermostat. Would there be a way to poll the Ecobee temperature occasionally and then send it to a basic rule or RM to control individual dampers (ie. If temperature is set to 70 on Ecobee and corresponding room sensor to duct motor detects temperature is less than 70, open duct motor)?
Could this relay work for this purpose (4 motorized ducts) and any issues connecting with HE? It appears to be powered by a USB charging block and cable versus having a bunch of plugs plugged into a messy power strip:
https://www.amazon.com/MHCOZY-Self-Lock-Momentary-Interlock-Controller/dp/B08M3B1TZW/ref=sr_1_4?crid=21FD4KTZ3Z09D&keywords=Smart%2Brelay%2Bboard&qid=1701445871&s=hi&sprefix=smart%2Brelay%2Bboard%2Ctools%2C81&sr=1-4&th=1
Here’s a damper with a plug-in transformer that I just saw. Perhaps if using the relay above, the plugin transformer isn’t even necessary?:
https://www.amazon.com/Suncourt-normally-closed-adjustable-damper/dp/B078NX8P81/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1M59FHK8D047I&keywords=Transformer%2Bdamper&qid=1701446161&s=hi&sprefix=transformer%2Bdamper%2Ctools%2C83&sr=1-2&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.17d9e15d-4e43-4581-b373-0e5c1a776d5d&th=1
Closing down individual vents will affect the way the system was designed to function and will throw off the balanced of the system. More then likely efficiency will drop by doing this. You need the HVAC ducting to be zoned properly with dampers and these zones sized to allow the proper airflow/pressure through the system. My house has 5 zones, each with its own Ecobee T-stat. But the system was designed this way and even if one zone is calling there is enough vents in that zone to properly handle the pressure. Or you need a damper setup to dump air into another zone to relieve some of the pressure. Otherwise you are going to stress the blower motor.
I would also use proper zone controllers if you plan on adding dampers. I actually replaced my zone controllers because the original ones were not compatible with smart thermostats. It may be a little more expensive, but is a much more reliable solution. Installing the controller was fairly easy once you read through some of the docs.
This is the equipment I used. The motorized dampers they have are well made. The controllers have a lot of nice features and you can team up a bunch of zones controller together.
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Thanks for the reply. Yes I’m well aware of the impact of closing all the vents would have on a system. There are a few vents in the house which are regular vents and are always open, and my Flair along with the Keen are supposedly set by the manufacturer to never allow all vents to close at the same time. I use a separate HE app to control the Keen vents and most are set to never fully close beyond 5%.
My whole TLDR post was just a curious way to see if there’s a less expensive solution. A lot of these controllers, especially the “smart” ones become fairly expensive.
