Trane Thermostat users?

[chewie]

Hey guys, I just got my first Trane Thermostat installed (Hooray for Radio Hack getting out of the Z-Wave business!) and I have a couple of questions for folks that have this, or similar thermostats.

First off, how are you using them? Are you using the built in scheduler on it and having HS monitor or are you using HS to control everything?

Second, I have searched and do not see anything that really talks about how to get these devices tied in through HSTouch, anyone got a link to a post that discusses that?

Third, did anyone ever figure out how to use HS to put the device into or out of Hold? I am going on vacation next week and would like to have it ignore the schedule, but I would also like to be able to connect when I am getting on the plane to come home and re enable my schedules so the house is nice when I get home.

Thanks in advance gang!

[Monk]

Chewie -
I can only answer to the first question.
I have been using events to set it back to lower temperature (64) at night, then @ wakeup time put it back to 68. Sometimes I will bump it up if it feels chilly - either from the Tstat itself, or from the HS plugin - which never shows the correct temp unless you poll it. Saw that newest HS release might fix that though..

The events of course are for winter months. Not sure what the value for summer use will be. It seems much easier to heat this house than to suddenly have to cool it.

[travis010]

I highly recommend using BLStat. It takes care of all of the scheduling and all of the hold functionality and the devices it creates/scripting capabilities it has, makes creating events really easy.

I made my own HSTouch screens for controlling the stats using a mixture of the BLStat devices and BLStat scripts.

[chewie]

travis010, once I get my second t-stat in I will pull down blstat and give it a whirl. Thanks for the suggestion, Blade's plugins all come very highly recommended and I would not mind buying some from him considering how active he is around here.

[RBergquist]

I have 4 of the Tranes installed across two houses - working fine for 3 weeks. I also have 2 of the RCS TZ-43 which - the "parent" of the cloned Trane units that have been working great for months.

My philosophy on thermostats on other devices that are mission critical (e.g. security system) is to have HS Monitor and adjust the devices but to let them operate independently. [You can read alot of HS posts where the PC has failed. PCs are just not as rock solid as a dedicated thermostat.] I think of HS as the butler that goes around and adjusts devices automatically.

I have the thermostats set up with their own schedules and use Run mode when house is occupied. I use ESM (aka "Away") mode when house is unoccupied. Homeseer automatically makes the switch based on seeing a change in Armed status of security plug-in (Ademco Vista plugin - works great!). WAF has been great because resetting thermostats is automatic and no training/remembering/nagging is required.

I've documented how I've added buttons to switch run Run/Hold <-> ESM here: http://forums.homeseer.com/showpost....1&postcount=20

If your philosophy is to trust HS to be up all of the time and have centralized control, then install BLStat. I have installed it and it does that job well.

I use the iPhone version of HSTouch and the provided iPhone2 interface gives me control of most thermostat actions. To switch them from Run/hold <-> ESM, I have virtual devices for Occupied status defined in HomeSeer with events that adjust the thermostats when the status changes. (I haven't found an way to get this functionality onto the Thermostat page, but I'm a noob on HSTouch and I'm hoping HS will add it in an upcoming release.) I turn on the Occupied status as I get off the plane -- house is warm when I enter :-)

[chewie]

A follow on question here is how do these tstats react to power loss and recovery since they do not have batteries?

[Olbrit]

I have an RCS TZ-43 (18 months) and assuming it works the same as the Trane, mine holds its settings ok after power losses; longest outage was about 8 hours.

FWIW, I leave it on hold 100% and have the local HT/HS2 control it using events for home/away temperatures, schedule, dehumidification, etc.

[chewie]

Cool, thanks guys! I am planning to put in my second tstat today and once I do that I will probably setup some events with them. I will let you guys know how I end up using them and if I use any additional plugins.

[Raptor]

We have had ours about 1 year now and love it,

the main thing we use it for is bringing up the heat from 64 to 70 at 6h30am so the house is warm to get up into then set its self back to 68 to stop the cats from freezing while we are out.

The number 1 reason however is so i can control it from the safety of the couch or from the master bed if i am too hot or too cold!

Raptor