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Lennox wifi iComfort

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    #16
    I'm about to ditch mine. Mine is not communicating. At least not to the separate equipment. It's serial bus to a Lennox interface panel, and from there, the panel just connects like a normal TStat would to the furnace, and condenser. I have two phase heat, and single phase cool. It's a pretty tstat, and it seems to work well as a tstat, but i'd rather be able to control it over anything else.

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      #17
      I apparently wasn't kidding. lol
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        #18
        In other homes, I have had thermostat setback automated for away mode by commanding the thermostat whenever the alarm system was armed. This is one of the greatest energy saving benefits I have found from using home automation. With my present home and the Lennox iComfort wifi thermostat, I have been frustrated along with others who have posted here, that I have no way to implement this automation.

        Investigating other non-Lennox thermostats, I found none that have the digital communication required to operate the variable fan speed and variable capacity features of the system that deliver the additional efficiency and comfort that the system provides. Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell etc. thermostats are either analog thermostats or, if digital, cannot communicate the proprietary Lennox protocol. Some can be connected to the non-digital terminals of the Electronic Interface Board on the Lennox furnace, but the furnace then reverts to 2-stage at best (70%, 100%) operation only.

        In my research I found only 3 options that might work to automate communication with the iComfort furnace and keep the variable fan and variable capacity features:
        • Buy a SmartThings hub and try to implement the software hack mentioned above that allows the ST to command the thermostat. Reading the whole thread on this hack, it seems highly precarious and the original author of the hack no longer supports it.
        • Replace the iComfort wifi thermostat ($400) with the newer S30 iComfort thermostat ($600). While the S30 still cannot be controlled directly by HS/Plugin, it does have Alexa communication which could (I believe… haven’t tried it) be utilized by HS to command (but not monitor) the thermostat.
        • Use the HS Tasker plugin to communicate with Android Tasker App to command the iComfort wifi thermostat via automated use of the Lennox iComfort Android App. Initially I rejected this alternative because initial reading indicated the Android phone would need to be rooted for this to work. More recent Tasker and AutoApps software can perform the needed actions without rooting.
        I have successfully implemented the Tasker option and can now trigger an event when my alarm system is armed (interfaced by Spud’s Envisalink DSC plugin) that has Tony Lofgren’s HS3Tasker plugin tell Tasker on my phone to open the Lennox iComfort app, navigate the screens and “tap” the buttons necessary to change the thermostat program… e.g. from winter to away. At this point, this is all I need. I think one might also be able to read the thermostat settings from the app and pass those back to HS, but I am not eager to learn how to make that work (yet).

        If anyone is interested in this solution, and is willing to spend the considerable time to learn Tasker, I can provide the Tasker “Tasks” that are working for my phone… caveat: Tasker frequently works differently for different phones.

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