NEW] Control Flair Vents with Hubitat - Free Open Source App and Driver

ljbotero · November 17, 2024, 12:25pm

Glad to hear you got the vents and bridge. Enjoy testing the integration—I hope it works out well for you!

pomonabill220 · November 17, 2024, 8:15pm

Thank you!
The vents are supposed to be here Monday and I will bench test them before installing them since I have ceiling vents.
Not a real big job, but just to make sure BEFORE install.

I'll let you know how things workout

pomonabill220 · November 18, 2024, 9:36pm

Received my vents and bridge today (Monday)!
They seem to be well made and the frames and louvers are METAL not plastic!!! Impressive!
Signed up for the secret and client ID and NOW have to WAIT 1-2 DAYS for a response....
oh well...

Wanted to try them out and can't even control them with the Android app without a stat!
Frustrating!

pomonabill220 · November 18, 2024, 9:45pm

Got my id and secret!!!! FAST!
Also was able to test them with the web interface, so all is good now!

Next is to start using your app!

pomonabill220 · November 20, 2024, 1:21am

@ljbotero (sorry if you have already seen this, but I forgot to add the tag for you)..

A few more questions about the app.

the selection "choose thermostat for vents"... what data is used from that stat?
Temperature/mode (heating or cooling)/fan running (for circulation on/off)?
I am hoping that the only data your app uses is mode and whether the stat is calling for heating or cooling.
Can the air balancing be "reset" so your app re-runs the vent opening and temperature rise/fall when vents are added or subtracted?
When the stat calls for fan (similar to #1), should all the vents open, or can there be an option to open all vents? Problem I have is there is no feedback from the T6 that the fan is being called..... I will have to add some kind of sensor to the fan call for this to happen.
how can I make a zone inactive and close the vent in that zone, and your vent app will know that zone is inactive and will close the vent and not re-open it?

I am using the "thermostat controller" app to force my T6 stat to call for heat or cool by faking the setpoint to the stat above what the stat is set for, making it call and setting the mode.
It works great!
BUT I am also enabling different ZEN44 temp sensors at different time of the day for sensing the room temperatures, and the thermostat controller app does the averaging.

This could cause a problem if the zone that is not using it's temp sensor, is trying to heat/cool and the vent is closed... it may never get to temperature.

So my setup is:
ZEN44(1)(2)(3)(4) -----> thermostat controller app -----> T6 stat ----> HVAC
.....................................(selects different combos of ZENs,
....................................depending on time of day schedule)

Also a little off topic.... Is it normal for there to be about a 30 sec to 1 min delay before the vents operate? I am guessing the delay is due to the cloud and Flair's processing time....
ANOTHER reason I HATE cloud integration!!!!!! But we all know that!

pomonabill220 · November 20, 2024, 1:54am

In playing around with my setup, for vent control I will have to write a rule that duplicates the modes in the thermostat controller app and set the vents to inactive when the thermostat controller app is not using the ZEN44 temp sensors in that room.... It will work but is kind of kludgy and could be dangerous is the vent doesn't open,,,, of course the HVAC does have safeties for over temp.

Isn't setRoomActive, set to false, supposed to close the vent, or do I need to close it first???

Noticed that there is an error in the logging.... estracting instead of eXtracting.... found that funny!

pomonabill220 · November 20, 2024, 7:14pm

Found something odd..
I have 5 vents that I am bench testing and saw an entry in 4 of them that I don't know is affecting the operation with your integration.
Here is a partial capture of the good (newer) vent that seems to function:

Current States
Connected-gateway-name Bridge-edf7
Created-at 2024-11-20T19:00:56.182077+00:00
Duct-pressure 509.6405
Duct-temperature-c 22.06
Firmware-version-s 260
Level 15
Motor-current 2056
Motor-run-time 750
Percent-open 15
Room-active true
Room-air-return false
Room-away-mode Smart Away
Room-created-at 2024-11-20T05:52:57.502679+00:00
Room-frozen-pipe-pet-protect true
Room-heat-cool-mode FLOAT
Room-heating-rate 0.7543529440417843896966569284768317932635052609098110747661527127047079862467944622039794921875
Room-hold-until-schedule-event false
Room-humidity-away-max 80

And one of the other 4 that has a line about a "Room Hold reason".
I don't know how to get rid of that and IF it is affecting the operation.
I can control all of them through the Devices page and a dashboard that I setup with the vents though..

Current States
Connected-gateway-name Bridge-edf7
Created-at 2024-11-20T19:01:21.626445+00:00
Duct-pressure 509.4175
Duct-temperature-c 22.05
Firmware-version-s 260
Level 100
Motor-current 2056
Motor-run-time 750
Percent-open 100
Room-active true
Room-air-return false
Room-away-mode Smart Away
Room-created-at 2024-11-19T02:36:11.454502+00:00
Room-frozen-pipe-pet-protect true
Room-heat-cool-mode FLOAT
Room-heating-rate 0.292880015902746519620439003396003621498208458881078378134733218912124872944086251795928121043587066818503217291436158120632171630859375
Room-hold-reason Set by Bill
Room-hold-until-schedule-event false

Thoughts or ideas? And yes, my name is Bill.

Just to add....
got this error in the log...
app:32492024-11-20 19:40:50.020

warn

Finalizing room states: wrong parameters ([167860:[993a3bcd-0492-5b3c-73ea-656e993778d9], 167861:[b4ddc8e0-32df-5c20-e5df-38ce7e74f491], 167824:[352c675c-88f6-54d9-4a0c-0486bbed70de, 21fcbac2-450e-5f08-0900-5e38813bcf3d], 167939:[6ed3a934-01d0-544b-c958-d748a1082139]], null, 1732160255229, 1732160450018, heating)

I have NOT selected a stat in the Flair app and have turned off Dynamic Air Balance... if that is where the warning came from?

mluck · November 21, 2024, 4:03am

I’m not the developer of this app (just a user), but in my experience, when I see a room to inactive, it closes the vent. Of course, this presumes that you don’t have conflicting automations in the native Flair app (typically you want to set Flair to manual in their mobile app) and that you’ve configured this Flair-HE integration properly.

I have a rule for each room that sets it to active or inactive based on temp/humidity in the room, whether anyone is in the room that day, and whether the door is open or closed.

Works great.

mluck · November 21, 2024, 4:04am

Same as my experience. Yup that’s cloud for ya.

mluck · November 21, 2024, 4:06am

Hey @ljbotero did you see this question above? I can easily build the rules to do this off a humidistat, but I don’t know if I’d be creating a conflict with your vent control logic??

pomonabill220 · November 21, 2024, 4:31am

Thank you mluck for responding! You may not be the developer, but you have ALOT of experience with this fantastic and useful app!

I just looked at the mobile Flair app and it set to auto!!!! I could have sworn that I had set it to manual, but now it is and we'll see how things work.

How long after setting the vent to inactive will it close?
Does setting the vent to inactive the same thing as setting the room to inactive?

In a RM rule, the only way I have found to control the vents is using a dimmer device and specifying a custom attribute. Then the setlevel and setRoomActive options are there. Correct?

pomonabill220 · November 21, 2024, 4:32am

Figured...... oh well.
Looks like I might mod the vents with a Zooz motor controller like was posted here on HE.

pomonabill220 · November 21, 2024, 7:37pm

@ljbotero or @mluck
What function does a thermostat, when "use dynamic airflow balance" is enabled, do?
What parameters are used from the thermostat?

I had to uninstall your app, re-install and discover my vents as I think I messed up and the vents stopped responding.

Things seem to be working now though! (does renaming the vents break things?)

When a room is set inactive, and then re-activated, when will the vent start responding again?

Thank you for your help!

mluck · November 21, 2024, 10:34pm

@ljbotero would be the expert here, so I defer to him. But afaict it uses the room’s temperature vs. setpoint as inputs to determine whether the vent should be open or closed. I don’t know the nuance of this logic, but I believe it takes into account the total system pressure — as you don’t want to close too many vents simultaneously as it’s bad for your HVAC unit.

Not in my experience

Just like any other Flair cloud event, it seems to take 30-60 seconds but I see high variability in practice. Keep in mind, though, just because you reactivated a room, doesn’t mean that the vent will move necessarily. It just means you want the dynamic air balancing to reassert automated control — whether that automation triggers a change in the vent’s pct-open is a function of the room’s temperature/setpoint and whatever other criteria you’ve configured. Sorry if this is obvious.

pomonabill220 · November 22, 2024, 1:46am

Thank you mluck for your response! I appreciate the help and info!

I was hoping that the stat's call for heating or cooling would be the only parameter that the app uses, and my other temp sensors would actually control the vents..

In my setup, I do not use the stat's temperature for any control, only IF my remote temp sensors fail for some reason.

As far as changing a room's activation status, I would imagine that IF a room is de-activated, and then sometime later, the room was re-activated, the app would take control and position the vent again... at least that is what I would hope and will test.

Thank you again for your help!
This app appears to be GREAT for what I want to use it for!

pomonabill220 · November 22, 2024, 10:29pm

@ljbotero @mluck
I renamed my vents with a different device LABEL (not the device name) and things went south! The app couldn't find the vents anymore even though I could still manually control them.
I uninstalled the app, re-installed the app, re-discovered the vents (they were discovered with the original name and ID suffix) and I am STILL getting this error when I click on Discover in the flair app:

Is this expected after the initial discovery?
The logs (partial) seem to indicate that the vents aren't sending their data also:

I might just uninstall the app, reset the vents (OUI!), re-discover in the Flair app, re-install the HE app, and basically start over....

When re-naming the vents in HE, where should that be done? In the vent's Device Name or Device Label?

An observation.... when the vents are closed, they WHISTLE a little... guess that is to be expected?
Thoughts?

ljbotero · November 23, 2024, 8:39pm

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the questions! I’ll do my best to address them one by one. Please let me know if anything is unclear or if you have follow-ups

Dynamic Airflow Balance

What specific data is used from the thermostat when "Use Dynamic Airflow Balance" is enabled?
The app uses only the temperature from the thermostats assigned to each room to determine the temperature in that room. If you’re referring to the main thermostat that controls your HVAC, the app uses more parameters, such as:
- Current state (running, cooling, heating, etc.)
- Cooling and heating setpoints
- Temperature
Does the app use the call for heating or cooling, or other parameters like fan status or setpoints?
The app uses the parameters mentioned above but does not use fan status.
How does the app manage total system pressure to avoid closing too many vents simultaneously?
Good question! The app uses information about the vents and the number of conventional vents (non-Flair vents). If you’ve read the description, it explains:

"Enter the total number of standard (non-Flair) adjustable vents in the home associated with the chosen thermostat, excluding Flair vents. This value will ensure the combined airflow across all vents does not drop below a specified percent. It is used to maintain adequate airflow and prevent potential frosting or other HVAC problems caused by lack of air movement."

Room Activation/Inactivation

How does the app handle room activation/inactivation?
When a room is set to inactive, the algorithm takes it into account during the next vent adjustment cycle. It ensures that inactive rooms don’t overly affect the total system airflow, which has a minimum threshold of 30%. If all vents are set to inactive, the app will still open some vents to maintain at least 30% airflow.
Does setting a room to inactive close the vent immediately?
No, the vent will close only when the app performs its next rebalancing cycle. This happens a few minutes after the HVAC starts, but there might be a delay due to the cloud integration.
When a room is reactivated, how soon does the vent start responding, and under what conditions?
This is similar to the previous answer. The vent will respond during the next vent rebalancing cycle, which depends on the HVAC status and any delays caused by the cloud or thermostat reporting.

Renaming Vents

How does renaming vents in Hubitat affect the app?
I haven’t specifically tested this scenario, but in theory, it shouldn’t affect functionality because the app uses vent IDs rather than vent names. However, the new name likely won’t be reflected in the app, as this scenario isn’t explicitly handled in the code.
Should renaming be done via the "Device Name" or "Device Label" to avoid issues?
Since the app doesn’t handle renaming, functionality "should" remain unaffected, but the new name likely won’t display correctly. The safest option in this case is to uninstall the app, reinstall it, and rediscover the vents to ensure everything is properly updated.

Delays and Errors

Is it normal for there to be a 30-60 second delay for vent operations after a command?
Yes, this is expected. In fact, it can sometimes be longer. The delay is due to:
1. Cloud integration latency.
2. Remote thermostats taking time to report updated temperatures (to save battery).
3. Thermostat polling mechanisms, which might check the HVAC state at set intervals (e.g., every few minutes).
What does the "Room Hold Reason" state in the vent details mean?
This is likely an attribute defined by Flair in their API. It doesn’t appear to affect the integration’s functionality, but it’s worth checking Flair’s documentation for more details if needed.
Logs show the error: Finalizing room states: wrong parameters. What might be causing this, and how can it be resolved?
This error typically occurs if there’s an inconsistency in the vent or room states. Double-check that all vents and rooms are properly configured in both the Flair app and the Hubitat integration. If the issue persists, resetting and rediscovering the vents may help.
Is the error seen after clicking "Discover" in the Flair app expected behavior after the initial discovery of vents?
This might happen if the vents haven’t updated their states or if there’s a mismatch between what the Flair app and Hubitat expect. Again, resetting the vents and rediscovering them could resolve this.

NEW] Control Flair Vents with Hubitat - Free Open Source App and Driver

Dynamic Airflow Balance

Room Activation/Inactivation

Renaming Vents

Delays and Errors

Other Questions