Info on Smarthome Insteon Thermostat

[tomsans]

Has anyone had any experience with the Smarthome Venstar Thermostat - INSTEON Remote Control Thermostat 7-Day Programmable?

I'm thinking of replacing my existing thermostst with an Insteon controlled device running under HS2 and would like some feedback before I go ahead with the replacement.

Tom

[mwaite]

I have the Venstar. For the most part it works well. Originally I used the Insteon plugin and customized scripts to control the thermostat. Today I'm using an ISY and Bob Paauwe's ISY Plugin to control the thermostat.

The Venstar is incapable of pushing updates back to HomeSeer. That is to say when a change is made directly at the thermostat the Venstar does not report these changes back automatically. So you have to set up a reoccuring event to poll the thermostat on a regular basis (I check it every two minutes).

Also, I have had to add additional scripting to account for spurious readings from the Ventstar. Ocassionally I'll get a bad reading back, I'm not certain if it's my Insteon environment or the Venstar itself. To account for this, I have security scripts that check the validity of the readings received from the thermostat, and repoll if I get something that's out of a set range of expected values. This works pretty well, I've never had an issue other than an occasional repoll, but it's worth mentioning.

[hart2hart]

Know this is couple weeks old but.... V2 of the thermostat adapters does transmit changes made at thermostat and updates other changes such as temp and humidity values.

[mwaite]

Oh that's very nice to know! Thanks!

[heatvent]

I have used the HAI thermostat in the past and it works / integrates nicely. Basically the thermostat runs fully standalone and HS can control and update the schedule remotely which is nice.

I understand you can remotely control the Ventstar but how about schedules? Can you program them remotely or is this only done at the device and via override by the control software (ISY, HS, etc.)?

Thanks

[mwaite]

You can't remotely program the schedule. However I let HS fully control the thermostat, eliminating the need to use the scheduler.

[heatvent]

Thanks Mike. That was part of my concern (although it may not be that important of one). I use the HAI thermostats now and HS syncs/programs the schedule into the thermostat. The thermostat then controls my HVAC independently which is presumably more reliable. However, not sure if I should really have any concern over this. If HS locks up or loses communication or some other error, then I would guess the thermstat stays on whatever temp it was last set at. Probably not a big issue at all.