Regretting showing my kids how the heat can be adjusted on Alexa . Have told my teenager NOT to crank the thermostat up in the middle of the night before (typically when she goes to bed at 1-2am). But alas I woke up cooking last night at 3am, after I came to my senses I checked the thermostat and it was set to 71. My schedule on the Nest has it at 66 at night so it probably ran for at least an hour straight before I woke up.
So... just quietly installed this rule today. The 1 minute "stays" is so she thinks it took but then a minute later it will go back to 68. So still can be turned up a little if needed but not enough to cook me alive.
I would do that and would like it even colder, but the wife would not approve, especially when I am away for work trips. So the compromise is allowing it to be turned up a little.
I was away many years ago an I noticed the house was set to 25 C !!! That's crazy for a Canuck.
Called home and it seems my son had friends over and one of the females decided it was too cold for her so she cranked the thermo.
I now have a piston in place that monitors the heating setpoint and sets it to 20 no matter how hard you try
I did this by accident by having too many triggers in one webCoRE piston. One part change setpoint based on presence and mode. Another part monitored the actual temperature to switch seasonally between heat/cool.
When my wife manually increased the thermostat, it started to heat as expected. As soon as the actual temperature increased 0.5C, the piston triggered and reset the setpoint per presence and mode. She did not find it as funny as I did, so I fixed my sloppy programming.
My Ecobee has an ability to assign a security code which has helped me with my teenage kids as my daughter would crank down the AC to 65 during the summer.
If your daughter or wife run cold one of the best gifts I gave my wife was a heated mattress pad years ago. Has 2 zones so she can heat her side of the bed before she turns in. I even automated it with a dry contact relay and soldering a wire to the button. She turns it on 20 minutes before she goes to bed.
Growing up my parents hammered home energy saving. "Did you leave that light on? Do you really want to go on that ski trip?" or the classic "Close the front door, I'm not paying to heat the great outdoors".
So imagine my surprise (and silent glee) when I woke up one morning when my Mom was visiting, to a chilly house... and so did she. She came down stairs while I was making coffee, and asked why the house was cold. I hadn't noticed, and wandered over to the closest baseboard thermostat to check the status.... "Off".
"Mom, did you open your window last night?"
The answer was "Yes", to which I got to look her straight in the eye and say "I'm not paying to heat the great outdoors, the heat won't come on until you go close your bedroom window".
Which brand did you get? Winter is coming to an end but sounded like I really need to prepare for this coming winter. Got that fancy Endy foam mattress this Winter and I am sweating while my wife thinks 20 degree C is perfect for sleep.
I do not recommend sharing it out to anything else from the hub though, the API will complain if you send a ton of commands all at once (like when sliding a thermostat around). So I have it integrated to just the Hub with this app, and for Amazon I use the skill, for Homekit I am using the homebridge nest plugin. I mostly use it on the hub for data collection to send to my database, and now for this rule.
Soft Heat and have also bought Sunbeam. Been though 3 of them and they last about 4-5 years before taking forever to heat up. My wife uses it year round because I like it cold at night.
I like this one because it has a simple wired remote that you can automate with dry contact relay and still use the on off button manually too. Stayed with same brand and the modified remotes worked with new pad.
. Have told my teenager NOT to crank the thermostat up in the middle of the night before (typically when she goes to bed at 1-2am). But alas I woke up cooking last night at 3am, after I came to my senses I checked the thermostat and it was set to 71. My schedule on the Nest has it at 66 at night so it probably ran for at least an hour straight before I woke up.
