5 ms·
Typical problem: >> In my house, our nursery both cooled faster and heated faster than any other room in the house. The thermostat (a Nest) controlled the boil
by sandworm101 4y ago
Typical problem:
>> In my house, our nursery both cooled faster and heated faster than any other room in the house. The thermostat (a Nest) controlled the boiler from the living area, and would often turn off the boiler while the nursery was still chilly.
Nerd solution: integrated sensors. Smart home devices. Complex multi-zone heating. Issue never really goes away. Each time something is updated/bricked the entire system must be revisited. (See LLT tech tips videos about Linus's new house.) I'm still laughing at his hot LCD displays mounted directly below the thermostats in each room.
Actual solution: An electric space heater. Available at any Walmart for 25$. Built in thermostat. Problem solved.
- photoGrant 4y agoI find it hard to adjust the majority to fit the minority. Better to cater to the edge cases individually and keep the larger system more stable.
- WaitWaitWha 4y ago:D Put an ESP32[0] in the space heater. Detect temperature, humidity, barometric pressure. Detect human presents, identify if it is human versus dog. Provide Zigbee communication to Home Assistant. Send alert if dangerously excessive electricity is used, and shut down power to device. Check external weather to make sure water pipes do not freeze when away, and keep heat sufficiently high to prevent freezing but optimize for lowest power usage. Check every 15 seconds. Write automation that knows when away, on vacation, or price of electricity is too high turning it off, on, or throttling to reduce consumption. Reduce grid usage, by heating during best solar panel power generation. And, then you just began. This is how Home Assistant used. :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32
- bob29 4y agoWhere's the robot to pat you on the back?
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoShhh. Do not scare them away too early. https://www.ranzhourobot.com/pat-me-robot/ https://www.ranzhourobot.com/pat-me-robot/
- vsviridov 4y agoAll because of one simple cherry...
- mason55 4y agoI just stuck a door sensor on the nursery and have the space heater turn on if the door is closed for two minutes (and back off when it’s open for two minutes). Perfect mix for us. Not (much) to break in the automation.
- Bedon292 4y agoWhat space heater? I work from my basement and its a bit cold down here. I have a manual one but would like to be able to do some automations.
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoI run Home Assistant on a RasPi 4B and it takes care of the office temperature & humidity more precise and cost efficient than if I fiddled with the knobs on heater and dehumidifier. And, it is fun.
- ender341341 4y agoCareful with how you're enabling the space heater, many smart plugs aren't designed for space heaters (or other high amperage devices). Though there are plenty that are.
- blitzar 4y ago> LLT tech tips videos about Linus's new house I tried, I couldnt take it. Between doing things the most botched way possible and spending the most money possible (My 4 billion $$$$ home theater system clickbait) I couldnt take it anymore. Its a low form of scam / con when you use your home renovation as a tax writeoff and "content".
- detaro 4y agoIsn't that pretty much all LTT content? High on money and flashy-flashy, low on facts and care.
- sandworm101 4y agoYa but it is also a common syndrome in Vancouver. Someone building a "nice" house is pulled in by people touting various control systems. The systems never really work. It is always the first time the installers to be installing this particular equipment. There are reasons why people with old money still use standard light switches just like poor people.
- Nextgrid 4y agoMy rule for home automation is that the automation should merely augment the existing stuff and degrade gracefully in case of failure.
- pixl97 4y agoI automate accessory lighting, but not primary. Christmas/holiday lights, mood lighting, under counter lighting, all that is controlled by automation. Now, primary lighting for the room, there's a switch on the wall for that.
- adql 4y agoI remember some IoT switches that just had lamp and switch connector and outside of control did just that - worked as dumb switch so if all else failed lights still worked as usual. It is still adding one extra component that could fail, but it was at least immune to "controller died, nothing works" problem.
- Nextgrid 4y ago> Each time something is updated/bricked the entire system must be revisited. The advantage of a fully local, self-contained system is that you can treat it as an appliance - you don't have to update or tinker with it continuously. There's no reason for it to update or brick itself. A friend of mine still has a Home Assistant set up from now almost 3 years ago running with no updates or anything - it just acts like a PLC to manage some lights, switches and toggles heating on/off based on window sensors. Nobody has to mess with it and it just works in the background.
- sandworm101 4y ago>> toggles heating on/off based on window sensors. Do people want this? Maybe I want both warmth and fresh air in the room? And I foresee the day where the window sensor is faulty. I'm shivering in bed as I have an argument with my furnace about which one of us should be in charge of setting the temperature in my bedroom.
- Nextgrid 4y agoIt's a fail-safe against leaving in the morning for work, opening the windows, and leaving the heating on full-blast all day long as it tries to heat the outside. It matters even more now given the energy prices in some countries. Hass just sends on/off commands to a self-contained thermostat in response to window sensor state change events. If it fails, you can still manually go to the thermostat and set it to whatever you want.
- dividedbyzero 4y agoAre there any thermostats at all that work completely locally, i.e. without any internet access and no cloud, but still can be controlled via HASS?
- maxerickson 4y agoVenstar wifi thermostats have a local API that can be switched on. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/venstar/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/venstar/ I've not used it (I installed one because I wanted scheduling and liked that it had further possibilities and wasn't overly expensive).
- florbo 4y agoThe real win was balancing the boiler and TRVs. Automating the boiler for efficiency is neat. I'd have kept a spare thermostat connected (with a physical switch for it's power) in case all that automation implodes, though.
- j45 4y agoSome things are a hobby to tinker with and learn from.
- danuker 4y agoElectric resistive heating is much more expensive than gas heating. Maybe a heat pump is more efficient (about the same as gas, depending on climate) but needs more capital than $25.
- Someone1234 4y ago> Electric resistive heating is much more expensive than gas heating. That seems like a complex question to answer. Electric heating is more efficient than gas heating (100% Vs. 95%), but electricity costs more than natural gas, taking out any benefit. But that isn't even what makes this complicated, if they're running their natural gas whole-home system to heat a single room, how does THAT compare to a more costly room heater? Heat pumps are definitely more efficient (e.g. 300%) but cost $1K for a single mini-split, and installation costs/permitting is expensive. $5K isn't unrealistic for just one installed, maybe $2K~ DIY (assuming you can even pull the permit yourself for both electric and HVAC).
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- blitzar 4y ago> I'm still laughing at his hot LCD displays mounted directly below the thermostats in each room I caved and watched - as this triggered my interest. It was actually worse than I expected. They really have 'designed' the system to be broken, and they were just pretending they couldnt figure out how to make it work, and had been sat in a freezing house for weeks ... right?