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HVAC communicating thermometer (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by FerNZA@lemmy.world to c/homekit@lemmy.ml

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I recently purchased a small studio flat and thought that it is the perfect place to make a smart home since I will only need to control a few things.

I have already ordered my light switches and am still contemplating my blinds.

But my biggest concern is my airconditioning as I stay in the desert and it becomes quite unbearable during summer I normally left the AC on the whole day in my rental apartment.

But since this AC works on electricity only I figured I wanted to make it smart and only want it to cool a 15 minutes before I normally arrive back home.

My thermostat though is a communicating one and so far the only one I am seeing is the Lennox iComfort S30, but I don’t know if it is compatible with what I currently have. The videos I looked at said the companies should be sister companies for compatibility but I couldn’t find out how to check that.

This is my current thermostat

thermostat

wiring

Has anyone else tried to do something similar?

Edit: This is what is on top of the roof of the apartments and each has 1 or more of these

fan

rooftop unit

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[–] fishos@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Consider turning down the temp before you arrive, but don't have it completely turn on from being off. If it's off all day, then the power required to bring it back to desired temps will often be higher than if you ran it continuously at a lower setting while you were gone. I have a window unit that I have set to run at an "ok" temp on low during the day and then when I get home it goes down a few more degrees. Otherwise it takes hours to cool back down and it's running on its highest setting the whole time to accomplish that.

[–] FerNZA@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I did do this when I just moved in, but my current unit still made the apartment much too cold even when I set it to be 26 degrees C/ 80ish degrees Fahrenheit. It sets the cooling to the lowest setting, but it doesn’t switch it off even if it is way lower than the setting.

But if my new controller can keep the temperature steady, I will do as you suggest. Thank you

It is one of the reasons I wanted to change the controller

[–] fishos@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

If you find something that works, please update this. I've been on the lookout for a smarter thermostat as well and coming up short in what I wanted

[–] doctorzeromd@sopuli.xyz 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's the controller, looks like part number 506507. How many wires are coming off of it in total? What does the actual air conditioning unit look like?

[–] FerNZA@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks.

I will have to get up on the roof of my apartment block to see. I will take a picture and update my post a bit later. It is only those 4 thin cables that come out of the controller.

Last time I was up there all I could see was a fan and a marshall rooftop unit (calling it this very loosely, I just watched a few youtube videos. I wasn’t expecting to go into the hvac system deeper than the controller change). There is air ducts to all the apartments from their rooftop unit.

[–] doctorzeromd@sopuli.xyz 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So there isn't an air conditioner in your apartment? It's central for the whole building? Wouldn't that mean there is one temperature set for everyone?

I was going to try to figure out what those 4 wires are to determine what smart thermostats you can swap with it. It seems like it's just a controller looking at the info online, not a thermostat. I think it just communicates info to some central box, that the connects to the AC components. If that's the case, I don't think you can replace it.

[–] FerNZA@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Each apartment has their own control over the temperature with the controller in their apartment. I updated the the pictures in the original post to show what is on the roof. The unit in each apartment controls the fan and I think the rooftop unit.

[–] netburnr@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I use a zwave thermostat with homeseer. There are wifi based ones as well.