I see there is a community driver.
- Do you need a Flair Puck for each room, or can existing temperature sensors in Hubitat do the job?
- 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.
1 Like
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 “dream” setup (after years of frustration!)
2 Likes
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.)
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 ...
1 Like
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.
