Thermostat recommendation to display message - Door Open A/C Disabled

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1

I have the following application:

We have rental properties and have issues with renters leaving doors open. We need to monitor and provide notification to our renters when they open our balcony doors AND "leave" them open too long. The issue is when they leave the balcony door open, we get moisture and sea salt winds which create high humidity inside the condo which damages our A/C units. We would like to lock out the A/C system when the door is open say for great than 10 minutes, and a alarm/beeping sound on the thermostat and display a message, example "A/C is disabled, close balcony door to enable A/C"

What thermostat should I use for this application that hubitat supports?

Thanks in advance

2

I’m not familiar with any smart thermostats that can be configured to beep or show a text notification based on triggers from a home automation hub. I’ll be curious to see if anyone else knows of one.

Changing the thermostat setpoint or mode based on a contact sensor remaining open should be doable with pretty much any thermostat that is compatible with Hubitat though.

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3

If you don’t mind Cloud interaction, I have successfully been doing just this (your use case) with the Ecobee thermostats for about one year now. Understand, however, if you only want to do “local”, in which case, I can’t help you. In my case, Alexa makes an announcement, but you could easily make a warning light or buzzer turn on as a reminder. In my use case, an announcement is made and the HVAC is actually turned off if the door/window is left open for 5 minutes, then turned back on to the previously set temps when the window and door is closed.

4

I cannot rely on external services to notify my rentals. We do not want angry rentals when they do not have A/C if the the internet is down, or cloud servers are not working.

This is the main reason we wanted to use Hubitat.

5

I suspect you’re going to want a zigbee or z-wave thermostat that is compatible with Hubitat (so it'll function entirely locally), as well as a separate device to notify your tenants.

The 6th gen aeotec siren, for example, is a z-wave device with quite a few built-in chime sounds; you could plug it in near the thermostat and let your tenants know that when they hear a specific chime noise coming from it, that means the a/c has shutoff due to a door/window being open.

Alternatively, if you want a message to appear on a screen, or to be spoken from a speaker with text-to-speech, there are fully local options for that but will most likely require a bit of work on your part to setup (as opposed to devices that'll do it out of the box, like an Amazon Echo, but rely on the cloud).

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does anyone make a zigbee or zwave message display? Something that I could locate next the the thermostat and control it with a rule from hubistat?

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I understand completely, hence my caveat. Hope you find a solution that meets your specific use case.

8

Use a Honeywell t6 pro z-wave combined with @bertabcd1234 's Device Status Announcer . Combined with a Google speaker. This should do what you want to do.

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9

You could do this with an Amazon Fire Tab and the android Hubitat Dashboard app.

Setup your rules to disable the A/C and prevent it from turning back on when the contact sensor is opened. Setup a tile on the dashboard to show the message right next to the thermostat. At that point, any local thermostat (zigbee/z-wave) would fit the bill.

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The issue is, I cannot rely on wifi either. Its because the HOA can change the Wifi SID and password at anytime for renters. I do not manage the wifi. I need the thermostat, balcony door sensors and the message device to work independent of the wifi. Im looking for all communication to be either zigbee or zwave solution, or a combination zigbee/zwave.

My goal was to find a zigbee or zwave smart thermostat that could do the message part to eliminate a separate message device.

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Gotcha. I crawled the Z-Wave alliance website, but the only thing that looked close is not available. The certification was from about 2013 and looks like the company doesn't exist anymore.

12

I get what you are trying to do, but what if you have a door sensor battery go dead, and the thermostat is disabled? Is there someone on-site who would be able to change a battery at 2AM for you?

Even though I think Hubitat is reliable enough in most cases, I would be sure to have an override of some type so you don't have nuisance calls or negative reviews for the A/C not working.

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13

Yes, we do have maintenance staff that would be able to change batteries. In addition, I was going to have the hubitat online for only alarm and to monitor but not depended on the network to operate. My plans was to have an override of some sort as a keyed switch possibly, I was planning to program it for fail safe, to allow the thermostat to operator as a normal thermostat if any sensors go offline.

This is a known problem in the rental business with renters leaving doors open. The ocean winds gets into the condos and damages near everything overtime, A/C, furniture, walls, etc.

14

There are z-wave alarms that you can use, but for tts or phone notifications you are stuck with Wi-Fi/internet. Though you could using the stuff I mentioned above use an alarm speaker with a custom sound file. Maybe something that when tripped says "please close window" every two minutes until all the window sensors are detected shut.

15

Get a custom LED sign "A/C is disabled, close balcony door to enable A/C"
Connect the sign to a smart switch and have it flashing with with an RM rule. All local and it should be very reliable.

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16

I believe both the Gen 5 Aeotec Siren and the Zooz Multi Siren allow you to upload a custom audio file. You could record someone's voice saying that the AC has been disabled as the doors have been left open longer than 10 minutes. This would be completely local. You could even hardwire the siren by soldering wires to battery connectors.

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17

can the hubistat interface with the SONOFF NSPanel Pro Smart Home Control Panel? From what I read, the NSpanel could be used to monitor the door sensor, and disable the A/C, and provide the disable A/C message on the touch screen. Your thoughts? Has anyone used these with Hubitat?

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That device is both WiFi and cloud-dependent. I thought your requirements were no WiFi and no cloud, since the HOA controlled the WiFi SSID/password.

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I read that it can communicate with zigbee devices.

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After getting several replies, the missing link for my application is the display. These are high end condos, $1m plus units. Renters pay a lot of money to rent. We need to protect the unit from getting damage from sea salt, however we to avoid upsetting the renters. So it is very important to have either a smart thermostat with the message displaying on the thermostat why the A/C disabled, or a display next to the thermostat, displaying on the thermostat why the A/C disabled.

This is what happens in the rental business. (And it happens often)
The guys, (most of the time) are partying on the balcony enjoying life (which is great), its easier just to leave the balcony wide open so they can go in and out the condo, the door stays open for hours, maybe all day. With controls, we would disable the A/C, what happens next, the condo gets extremely hot and quick during the summer. And when that happens, the wife gets hot, (see the issue?) when the wife is sweating and the guys or drunk on the balcony, that is a mess up issue. Then the wife is calling the front desk complaining the A/C is not working.

With a display next the thermostat, the wife will quickly fuss at the guys to close the door. That's the goal.

The display needs to be wall mounted, near the thermostat, needs to be professional in appearance to match the condo, needs to be reliable (very important), needs to function independent from the wifi. I would like the solution to have wifi for remote monitoring "only", but not required but would be very useful to notify us if a local zigbee device fails. Etc

After getting feedback, the missing device is the display itself. I started researching displays that support zigbee and zwave.

My thought now is to consider display controller (that supports zigbee), using a zigbee door sensor to communicate directly to the display controller, which could provide the disabling function using to a zigbee relay to kill the 24vac to the A/C unit, That way anything all control communication would be using zigbee, all local. If the hubistat can communicate to display controller, then I can use the wifi for monitor only,

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