AprilAire 8800 Thermostat - Why such limited control ?

[telljcl]

(Posted this in the general area first, which probably wasn't the right place - I apologize.)

 

There seems to be a very limited number of things you can "check" (or change) via the ELK / ISY rules / programs as it relates to these (or any?) thermostats.

 

For example, there appears to be no way to see if the compressor is actually running or not.  You can see if the thermostat is in "cool", "heat" or "auto" mode, but can't confirm what the compressor is doing.  I guess you could compare the set point temp (which you can poll) to the room temp (you can also poll that) and make a guess as to whether the compressor is running or not.  You also can't tell if the fan is running - only if it is set to "auto", "on", or "circ".

 

For a while now I've had relays on my HVAC units that tell the ELK if the compressor(s) are running, and which stage, so I can program certain things as a result.  I can also keep track of cycles, "On" time, overlap, etc...  I thought with these new thermostats I wouldn't need my old solution, but turns out I do.

 

Also it appears that most or all of the Thermostat setup settings are not available through ISY / ELK.

 

You also can't see what the exterior temperature sensor is reading, and you also can't do any programming of time period / temperature settings.  All this still has to be done at the Thermostat.  I think you can do it with an RS-232 connection, a computer and a lot of cryptic command syntax, but is there no interface / program out there where you can access any of this for program purposes from ISY or ELK? 

 

Not sure if this makes any sense, but it is a little frustrating to spend additional money and still not have a whole lot more control over this stuff.

 

Any direction would be appreciated as I'm not very good at the ISY and am completely new to the thermostat integration part.

 

I posted this in the general ISY area, and someone commented that with a Ventstar unit, I could have complete control (I don't think it even requires the ELK? Not sure) - Anybody have experience with these?  I hope they aren't Z-Wave since I don't want to embark on a signal strength / 95% success type situation, which is why I got the hard-wired units.

 

Thanks!

[ISYhbsh01]

See my reply in the other thread.

 

http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/13813-aprilaire-8800-thermostats-and-isy-elk/?do=findComment&comment=114454