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Virtual thermostat controlling a real thermostat

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    #1

    Virtual thermostat controlling a real thermostat

    Steve,

    I am trying to control thermostats that are part of my zoned HVAC system that are connected to HomeSeer via MQTT messages to a node-red server that actually sends commands and receives status/temperature info from a serial port connected to the HVAC zone controller.

    I had written about 1/2 of a plugin in HS2 to control these thermostats, but decided to go with JavaScript and Node to take over the parsing/handling incoming thermostat messages and generating thermostat commands.

    I'm wondering if I can use your plugin to act as a proxy for these thermostats, allowing HomeSeer to control them via MQTT messages to the node-red server.

    So I am not controlling an HVAC unit directly using a software thermostat but rather controlling it by sending commands to a real thermostat.

    Any thoughts on whether this might be feasible for me to do using your plugin?

    Thanks!

    Mitch Mitchell
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    #2
    Originally posted by mitchmitchell1616 View Post
    Steve,

    I am trying to control thermostats that are part of my zoned HVAC system that are connected to HomeSeer via MQTT messages to a node-red server that actually sends commands and receives status/temperature info from a serial port connected to the HVAC zone controller.

    I had written about 1/2 of a plugin in HS2 to control these thermostats, but decided to go with JavaScript and Node to take over the parsing/handling incoming thermostat messages and generating thermostat commands.

    I'm wondering if I can use your plugin to act as a proxy for these thermostats, allowing HomeSeer to control them via MQTT messages to the node-red server.

    So I am not controlling an HVAC unit directly using a software thermostat but rather controlling it by sending commands to a real thermostat.

    Any thoughts on whether this might be feasible for me to do using your plugin?

    Thanks!

    Mitch Mitchell
    Hi Mitch,

    I don't fully understand you're use case but I suspect the pi wouldn't be much help. That is unless you just want your real thermostats to act as dumb devices that read the temperatures and are controlled to turn the zones on and off. You could then probably configure VStats to do all the scheduling and control using the temperatures read from the thermostats. However, I don't think that is what you are looking to do.

    You also mention HS2 but the pi is HS3 only.

    Steve

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      #3
      Steve,

      Sorry I wasn't clear in my comment -- I do not have HS2 any longer.

      I upgraded sometime back but I had written a plugin for my HS2 system to talk to my Honeywell Enviracom system -- when I upgraded to HS3 I did not port over my plugin. Instead I wrote a system using Node-red (actually on a beaglebone not an RPi in this case) so that I have a nice interface to control my thermostats, but no way to make them talk to HS3 right now. My HS3 is running on a full blown Ubuntu server not on an RPi.

      So my question was whether I could use VStats as a "front end" for my Node-Red server to act as the Homeseer part of the equation, but keep the intelligence in the real thermostats -- however as I've looked at your plugin, I'm starting to think I could achieve what I want by setting up devices manually similar to the way your plugin does. I'd then use scripts to send MQTT messages to my Node-Red server for controlling set points, schedules, and the receive MQTT message back into HS3 to update temperature data.

      I'm guessing the bulk of your plugin code is really to implement all the intelligence I would not need since I want to keep the real physical thermostats in control of the system.

      Thanks!

      Mitch

      Comment

        #4
        Originally posted by mitchmitchell1616 View Post
        So my question was whether I could use VStats as a "front end" for my Node-Red server to act as the Homeseer part of the equation, but keep the intelligence in the real thermostats -- however as I've looked at your plugin, I'm starting to think I could achieve what I want by setting up devices manually similar to the way your plugin does. I'd then use scripts to send MQTT messages to my Node-Red server for controlling set points, schedules, and the receive MQTT message back into HS3 to update temperature data.

        I'm guessing the bulk of your plugin code is really to implement all the intelligence I would not need since I want to keep the real physical thermostats in control of the system.
        You are thinking along the right lines. It should be relatively easy to set up virtual devices in HS3 that are synced with SetPoints, etc in your thermostats. I hope it goes well.

        Steve
        • Likes 1

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          #5
          Steve,

          I took a slightly different approach and downloaded the VB source for the RCS Serial plugin from github. I gutted the serial port code and changed it to use MQTT for the comms link to my node-red server that controls the HVAC. I wrote a small parser to translate the RCS serial protocol on the node-red server and now have my thermostats working with homeseer. I was able to use your thermostats as a model to make sure that the plugin created them correctly.

          Thanks!

          Mitch

          Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

          Comment

            #6
            Originally posted by mitchmitchell1616 View Post
            Steve,

            I took a slightly different approach and downloaded the VB source for the RCS Serial plugin from github. I gutted the serial port code and changed it to use MQTT for the comms link to my node-red server that controls the HVAC. I wrote a small parser to translate the RCS serial protocol on the node-red server and now have my thermostats working with homeseer. I was able to use your thermostats as a model to make sure that the plugin created them correctly.
            Sounds like you have it cracked and should feel very satisfied.
            Good work.

            Steve

            Comment

              #7
              Well I have it working with Homeseer, HSTouch is still not entirely working -- are you able to use HSTouch to change modes and such on your thermostats?

              Comment

                #8
                Originally posted by mitchmitchell1616 View Post
                Well I have it working with Homeseer, HSTouch is still not entirely working -- are you able to use HSTouch to change modes and such on your thermostats?
                Yes, but only because I have custom screens so I can set them up to control everything the way I want. I have more modes than HS expects so the standard project screens don't allow setting the modes.

                Steve

                Comment

                  #9
                  Can you do that with the dynamic screens feature at least so you don't have to build a custom screen for each device?

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Never mind, the answer is yes, got it working for hold/run states.

                    Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


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