I just set up Thermostat Controller with a portable Midea A/C using a SwitchBot temperature sensor. Maybe it'll work fine, but I think I keep noticing that the "Controlled Thermostat" cool temp goes up to 70 whenever the controller sends an update to the A/C, and on the A/C itself I see a temp set of 70. Unfortunately, as you might expect, the temp sensor on the A/C is like 5 degrees cooler than the sensor on the other side of the room, so if the A/C is actually set to 70, then it turns off. How do I make sure that the app works properly?
(First night using this, so maybe it will be fine, but I'm worried either it will keep setting to 70 or it'll actually cool to 64.5 based on external temp )
So, as you can see in the logs (screenshot below), at 10:24 I set the temp to 65 on the controlled thermostat. (shows up as 64.5 in screenshot above).
The A/C ran for 20 minutes, and then just now (10:44), it stopped running (10:44) because the controller set the temp on the controlled thermostat to 71 as the external thermometer reached 71. Is this all expected? I would expect the A/C to run until 70, or maybe even 69.5 due to Hysteresis of 1.0.
(I set Control Offset to 0.1 trying to troubleshoot. Let me know if that's a mistake.)
(Also, this unit doesn't actually do any heating, thus the heating set point of 50.)
There are some bug fixes for Thermostat Controller in 2.3.6, now in beta. You might want to join our beta program so you could update to the latest. Perhaps that would resolve your problem. Or, at least would make it easier for me to figure out what's wrong.
I’m on 2.3.5.152. Happy to try beta if that’ll potentially help. Will search for instructions.
How should Thermostat Controller work? If I want external thermometer to get to 70, should thermostat be set to 70? Or just on/off commands sent (perhaps with far lower temp sent to thermostat) until 70 is reached on external probe? Former is what’s happening, but I guess I need something like the latter.
I updated to 2.3.6.140 but have had no success still with this controller not just abiding my thermostat's built-in thermometer for deciding when to turn on/off. Any ideas?
The way you have this set up, it ignores the thermostat's built-in thermometer. Add that to the temperature sensors if you want the average of that and the other sensor.
Sorry if I was unclear. I want to ignore the built-in thermometer. But look at logs from last night, in which the external thermometer never got to 68 or even close. The thermostat is being called to cool to 68.9, but that's not low enough to get the external probe to ever get anywhere near 68.9. I think I need Hubitat to call the thermostat to cool to something like 60 until the external thermometer gets to the target temp:
Your Control Offset is the problem. That determines how low the controlled thermostat is set relative to the controller setpoint. Your setting of 0.1 is wrong. Use however many degrees you want tor force the real thermostat into cooling.
Thank you! Looking forward to seeing how it goes tonight (or test earlier). Any reason I'd want say a 5-degree vs. 10-degree control offset?
Also, would love for the docs to be a bit more specific about this setting -- I guess I totally didn't realize it was the one thing that mattered so much to my situation.
You want enough of an offset to force the controlled t-stat into cooling. I, for example, have an offset of 3. So when my controller calls for cooling at 70 it sets the real t-stat to 67.
It is my understanding that you want to use the lowest offset needed to force heating or cooling. I tried different offsets and used the lowest one that works for my setup.
It doesn’t have to be the lowest, it just has to work in your setup. The default value is fine for most situations. It might need to be higher when there is a greater discrepancy between the sensor temps and the controlled thermostat temperature reading. The idea is to force the controlled thermostat into calling for heating or cooling, irrespective of its temperature. The controller thermostat completely takes over.
So one more issue that I’m realizing I haven’t solved. My time restriction turns the AC off at 6am each morning, but it doesn’t turn the AC on at 9pm each night. Is this an issue with the AC driver or how I’ve configured the controller?
Here are screenshots of the time restriction from the controller, logs of the controller and driver, and events from the driver (showing when I turned it on manually at 3am on 10/22 (3rd image) and when the controller turned it off at 6am on 10/20 (4th image)).
It seems odd that logs shows “Restricted” when it’s during the restricted time (3:38am now). Compared to what I think I’ve seen of other automations.
The name for the app is grabbed by the logging software at the time the logs begin, and it is never changed after that. So don't read anything into that name as it is displayed.
Restrictions are passive, their expiration does not cause an event. A temperature event is required to cause evaluation of the Controller Thermostat setpoints vs. current temperature.
or it'll actually cool to 64.5 based on external temp 
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