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    Ventilation control for fresh air?

    I came across a post online elsewhere inquiring about automating the Honeywell whole house ventilation controller. WS8150, iirc. And that it could be controlled via the wifi thermostats.

    Any idea if control for this is exposed via the cloud portal? And thus potentially in the plug-in?

    The guy asking isn't (yet) a homeseer user. And it's not my setup, so I don't have much additional info.

    #2
    I can't find any indication that this is in any way tied to the TCC or Lyric stuff, so highly doubtful. It's just a dumb slider switch.

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      #3
      Originally posted by shill View Post
      I can't find any indication that this is in any way tied to the TCC or Lyric stuff, so highly doubtful. It's just a dumb slider switch.
      Apparently he's got their 8000 series wifi thermostat and it has an option buried in a menu. I asked about the app support, and he relayed there doesn't appear to be anything in it.

      As for the module, it's apparently a lot more than just a dumb slider. The switch provides a manual override for the module, which appears to be configurable based on number of rooms/square footage, and operates transparently while the thermostat has called for heat/cooling. Which seems like a relatively clever way to implement it.

      I mentioned it here figuring someone else might have seen it or know about it.

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        #4
        Well, if I look at it's manual here: https://forwardthinking.resideo.com/...ll/68_0282.pdf, it just appears to be a basic timer that controls a single ERV/HRV relay. You can roughly set the volume of the house, and the volume of the ERV flow, and it will run the ERV a given amount of time.

        In HS, you could do that calculation by hand, and just program the ERV to run that much time and do the same sort of functionality.

        I have a Lossnay ERV in my HVAC system, and that thing is much more complicated to control - it has a bypass valve (that allows outside air flow to bypass the heat exchanger) as well as 3 speed settings. There is a Mitsubishi remote control which has timers etc.. in it, but I pulled the manual and found a external control header on the Lossnay PC board, and hooked a WiFi controlled set of relays to it using a special cable I bought off ebay. That let me have HS3 have full control over it, and that header overrides the remote - so gave me a clean way to control the ERV.

        I have a simple timer control set, but what I want to do is use CO2 sensors in the house to trigger ERV operation. If the air gets stagnant and CO2 level starts going up, trigger the ERV operation. That will be more efficient than running a timer, esp when the windows are open or the kids are going in and out all the time. I already turn off an areas HVAC operation when windows for that zone are open, so that also can bias ERV operation.

        I haven't yet found a good CO2 sensor that talks to HS3. Ideally I'd like to sprinkle them around the house and then trigger ERV operation based on the worst reading.

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          #5
          Have you seen these?

          https://www.climaxnordic.com/new/aqs-1zb.php
          https://www.climaxnordic.com/new/co2-1zb.php

          Unfortunately a search doesn't turn up anywhere online to buy them.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by wkearney99 View Post
            Have you seen these?

            https://www.climaxnordic.com/new/aqs-1zb.php
            https://www.climaxnordic.com/new/co2-1zb.php

            Unfortunately a search doesn't turn up anywhere online to buy them.
            Not only that, but there is no HS support for them in any case. There aren't that many decent off the shelf CO2 sensors. You can build one fairly easily, but again integration support is an issue.

            Probably the easiest approach without doing something custom in HS, or getting a smarthings or hubitat and cluing things together through one of the integration plugins is to get one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0784TZFRW and use IFTTT to connect it to HS to drive HVAC controls.

            If you find a better approach, please tell us about it. It seems the obvious thing you want to control ventilation on a more dynamic basis.

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              #7
              I suppose "everything" starts without support, so eventually the chicken/egg situation has to be overcome.

              I'd very much like to avoid starting the process depending on yet another cloud service. Things are fragile enough as it is. Bad enough I don't have direct thermostat control (redlink/cloud). Though, I suppose, it'd be interesting if Honeywell has anything relevant to this...

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by wkearney99 View Post
                I suppose "everything" starts without support, so eventually the chicken/egg situation has to be overcome.

                I'd very much like to avoid starting the process depending on yet another cloud service. Things are fragile enough as it is. Bad enough I don't have direct thermostat control (redlink/cloud). Though, I suppose, it'd be interesting if Honeywell has anything relevant to this...
                They are not big on building things that communicate well.

                You can absolutely do this locally if you build the CO2 sensor and then use something like JSON to import it into HS. It just is a tradeoff on how much work you want to do.

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                  #9
                  PS Hubitat seems to have a local driver for the Awair CO2 sensor: https://community.hubitat.com/t/rele...-monitor/47789 If you integrate it into hubitat, and then use the Elevation plugin to pull the data into HS, you can use that to control your ERV settings...

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                    #10
                    Seems like someone's already done some HS integration with a Purple Air sensor setup:

                    https://automation.rmrr42.com/2019/0...urple-air.html

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                      #11
                      Purple Air doesn't monitor CO2 as far as I can tell. For controlling an ERV or other ventilation, it's best to drive that off CO2. If you have polluted indoor air because of VOC's or small particulates, you probably have bigger issues.

                      Now purple (has some issues according to some) is useful for outdoor air quality, and if you live in CA like I do where fires cause really bad air quality every so often, it's good to know if you have badly contaminated outdoor air and shut off the ventilation during those times to keep that bad air from getting inside.

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