Keen Smart Vents

I see there is a community driver.

  1. Do you need a Flair Puck for each room, or can existing temperature sensors in Hubitat do the job?
  2. do you need the Flair hub, or can Hubitat takes its place?

We should take this conversation to the Flair thread, but briefly:

  • you need a Flair hub
  • they have a new Bridge that can integrate many more vents and span rooms (and you don't need any pucks if you have a Bridge)
  • the puck is designed for a "room", but it can span a small area in my experience

Also Bridges can use ethernet whereas I believe pucks are wifi only.

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The AA battery swap-out seems to be working. I replaced a Keen Home 4x10 vent's battery compartment with 3x 2 AA battery holders, and a Keen Home 6x12 vent's battery compartment with 4x 2 AA battery holders, wired in parallel. I am using EBL AA Li-Ion USB 3300mWh batteries.

A few updates.

All of the EBL AA Li-Ion USB 3300mWh batteries in Keen Home Smart Vents in my rental property are working for a good long while, except one device which has 4x 2 AA battery packs. That one device (6x12 size) died after about two weeks. I checked the EBL batteries and they are still at 1.50V--no drained or dead cells. When I re-connected the batteries without recharging them, the vent reconnected.

I viewed this Dubious Engineering video on AA Li-Ion battery noise and suspected that maybe the 1MHz noise coming from the eight EBL battery buck converters densely packed right on top of the Keen Home circuit board might be interfering with the Zigbee radio. I replaced the EBL batteries with Kratax 3500mWh ones. So far it has been three weeks and that particular vent has been continuously connected.

I am computer illiterate, but even I was able to remove my vents from the crappy Keen hub and pair them with the Hubitat 7. Even better is I was then able to incorporate the vents into Alexa which made scheduling an absolute breeze.

Now, I can simply say Alexa watch a movie, and all the vents position accordingly.

At bedtime, certain vents open and others close.

It’s now a β€œdream” setup (after years of frustration!)

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For what is is worth, I have 6 Keen vents in my basement. Like others, the battery pack inserts corrode, so I removed one vent, removed the battery pack insert and the battery pack holder. I used the exact same 16550 Lithium battery holder and JST connector as above (remember to reverse the colors when connecting them because the Keen vent JST connector is backwards from the red/black color code.

I 3D printed a piece that would fit in the place of the battery pack holder - it uses the same 2 bolts that the battery pack holder used, and I added place for the 16550 Lithium batter holder to mount (I used velcro for this case, but you can insert a bolt instead.)

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Photos of 3D printed plate and installed vent:



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weird ive had one for going on 4-5 years .. no corrosion.. wonder if for some people there is too much humidity in the actual vent for the design specs of this device to handle.

Our corrosion is from the Alkaline batteries - it is only in the battery box, not the vent side contacts - definitely an issue from leaking Duracell batteries ...

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ya i use energizer lithiums

So far I have upgraded 5 vents with Nitecore 18650 3400mah batteries - the energizer lithiums are good because they don't leak, but they are fairly expensive - do they last a lot longer in the Keen vents?

Depends how often u use the vent i only havr mine since its uo high over my net rack. I.onlynuse it maybr.4-5 times a yr..i.do.get regular temp reports.. battery last over a yr.

Problem: I don't appear to be getting any changes in Pressure.

Background: I found that my daughter's vent had dozens of stuffies in front of the vent. Room wasn't cooling. Room has it's own virtual thermostat. Because the cooling temp wouldn't reach, the uncontrollable rooms became excessively cool. The vent wasn't "obstructed" as determined by the vent itself, because, well, it wasn't.

I thought I would incorporate some logic that would look at increase in pressure, taking into account the number of vents open and its effect on pressure, and send me a message if an open vent had a pressure higher than baseline expected pressure. However, when I tried to observe the pressure difference on opened and closed vents, I'm not seeing any changes -- 100586. Each vent has a different number, but doesn't appear to vary.

What am I missing?

stock drivers didnt do pressure that is why i modified my own driver for it.. it is on package manager

I am using your drivers. Is there some setting or trick with pressure?

Backstory (and testimonial?): I researched community drivers BEFORE I even bought my first Keen vent, bought one, then gave feedback, you fixed some stuff back in dec 2022, gave me enough confidence and eventually bought 8 more! If they had made square ceiling vents, I would have bought 4 of those, too. So my wallet curses you, uh, I mean my wife and I thank you to no end! Endless complaints of temperature extremes have dropped to nearly zero = WAF 100, thanks to your driver. :man_bowing:t4:

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Not that i know off. Mine report every 10 minutes or so when ac/heat is on.

Maybe you need a zigbee extender in the room. It us inside a big metal chute/box.

True, the metal chute doesn't help anything. The hub itself is just a few feet away. I'll play with moving the other repeaters around. Maybe I need to be more patient for changes in pressure values coming through. I'll keep testing.

Where can I get a trim kit for 6x14? The website has them available but when it gets to the cart, it's 12x12 in.

Thanks!

eBay has these come up sometimes.
I have a regular search for Keen Vent, but it clashes with some sneaker brand too.

Thanks!