ISY Program With Insteon Thermostats

[LYLEPROPERTIES]

Pardon my lack of knowledge but I am a newbie with an ISY.  I'm excited to see what I can do with it.  I installed the ISY and it appears to be working great.  I also installed an Insteon Access Point, Insteon LampLinc Dimmer, and 3 Insteon Thermostats.  This was all very easy.  I was able to link all of the Insteon devices to the ISY and can access them remotely using Mobilinc.  I love all of this.  My problem seems to be setting up programs in the ISY.  I have a program called "Night Time Thermostats" where I want to lower the thermostats between 10 PM and 6 AM.  See the attachment for the program.  During the day, I want the thermostats to be about 68.  At night I want them to be about 65.  The program is working as far as setting my set points correctly.  However, as an example, my wife was a little cool and the setpoint was 66-70.  She manually moved the temp up to 72.  At 10 PM, when the program ran, it moved the setpoint to 64-68.  Since the current temperature was 72, the air conditioner came on to cool it down to 68.  The thermostats are set to Auto and maybe that is my problem.  I don't want the air conditioner to come on to cool it down though.  I just don't want the heat coming on in the middle of the night as much.  If there is a simpler way to program than using all of my then/else statements, I'm open to suggestions.  Any help you can give this new guy would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

 

[stusviews]

You ar correct. The first thing you need to undo is setting the thermostat to Auto. That's because that setting will automatically switch between cooling and heating in order to maintain temperature between the set points. Instead, create a separate program for each of heating or cooling.

 

Heat
If
        From    10PM
        To          6AM (next day)

     And Status  'Thermostat-Playroom' is Mode Heat
 
Then
        Set 'Thermostat-Playroom' 64° (Heat Setpoint)
 
Else
        Set 'Thermostat-Playroom' 66° (Heat Setpoint)
 

 

Cool

If
        From    10PM
        To          6AM (next day)
     And Status  'Thermostat-Playroom' is Mode Cool
 
Then
        Set 'Thermostat-Playroom' 68° (Cool Setpoint)
 
Else
        Set 'Thermostat-Playroom' 70° (Cool Setpoint)

[LYLEPROPERTIES]

Thank you for the quick response.  My thought for setting to auto was that when I'm out of town we can get temperature swings with the weather.  With the auto, it would turn heat or ac on depending on temperature.  However, your program makes more sense in solving my initial problem.  I can always change the mode from heat to cool from my phone if I am out of town.

 

If you don't mind, I have a general question on programs.  I'm assuming the programs run at a specific time.  So if it is 3 PM in the afternoon (Heat, Setpoint is 66), and someone walks up to the thermostat and changes the setpoint to 70, it will stay at 70 until the program runs at 10 PM and changes it.  The program is not "polling" every few minutes to see what the setting is and set it back to 66.  Is that correct?  I'm also assuming the same with lighting.  If a program turns a light on and someone manually turns the light off, the light will stay off and not automatically turn back on because of something "polling" the device.  If I actually wanted something to be "polling" a device, I would need to capture the status and poll for the status and take an action based on that.  Is that correct?

[stusviews]

An advantage of ISY programs is that they can easily be disabled and re-enabled. If you're out of town often, then you can create a program that'll do that for you at the touch of a button. You do have a Keypad at each exit, don't you?

 

You are correct on all counts. If someone changes the thermostat setpoint or the state of a light, that device will remain that way until the next "run" of the program. But you can easily poll for that without constant traffic. "Status" watches for a change in the state of the device.

 

If
        From    10PM
        To          6AM (next day)

     And  Status  'BR / Devices / BR Thermostat Main' is not 77° (Heat Setpoint)

 

Then

      at this point you can change it back immediately or add a wait and then reset the thermostat. You can even allow someone to make a few degrees change by using < and > for the setpoint.
 

[larryllix]

Thank you for the quick response.  My thought for setting to auto was that when I'm out of town we can get temperature swings with the weather.  With the auto, it would turn heat or ac on depending on temperature.  However, your program makes more sense in solving my initial problem.  I can always change the mode from heat to cool from my phone if I am out of town.

 

If you don't mind, I have a general question on programs.  I'm assuming the programs run at a specific time.  So if it is 3 PM in the afternoon (Heat, Setpoint is 66), and someone walks up to the thermostat and changes the setpoint to 70, it will stay at 70 until the program runs at 10 PM and changes it.  The program is not "polling" every few minutes to see what the setting is and set it back to 66.  Is that correct?  I'm also assuming the same with lighting.  If a program turns a light on and someone manually turns the light off, the light will stay off and not automatically turn back on because of something "polling" the device.  If I actually wanted something to be "polling" a device, I would need to capture the status and poll for the status and take an action based on that.  Is that correct?

I have never found the Auto changeover on a thermostat to work properly. Great idea but it just doesn't work.

 

If you could set the differential to 0 degrees, you would waste energy, and dry out the air so bad, you may have a dry nasal cold all year long.

 

If you set a large deadband between heat and cool settings, you will need to readjust it every season

 

If you are comfortable at 72 F in the winter why would you be comfortable at 76 F in the summer? This doesn't make sense. And to add salt into the wound, in the summer your humidity will most likely be much higher in the house making the 76 F feel more uncomfortable. I wouldn't ever get to sleep for night sweating.

 

So you set your stat on Heat or Cool manually and save $energy$ and switch it over with your brain intelligence. I haven't seen an algorithm is a thermostat that can do it reliably yet.

 

Sooner or late most HA users end up with a variable called something like $sHouse.away or $Occupied, or $sVacation.

 

Use this to force your stat settings to what you want. When you switch it to set $Away = 1 your stat profile changes to your preset energy saving temperature. Of course modes can be switched from the variable value also.

 

 

If

   $sAway is 1

And

    whatever else

 

Then

   set stat.setpoint = 67 F

 

 

If

   $sAway is 0

AND

    whatever other logic to control temps Heat Mode, Season etc...

 

Then

    run program Set Home Temps (If)       <---other program decides what time of day it is.

Else

   ---                                                          <----this would run if $Away is not 0 = avoid code here

 

 

Program Set Home Temps   <----this isolates $sAway from switching to the false/else section

If

     from 10:00 PM

     to 6:00 AM (next day)

 

Then

    set stat.setpoint =  72 F

 

Else

     set stat.setpoint = 69 F

 

 

Combined with Stu's logic, above, this can get complicated but you will  continue to improve it as you learn ISY. Don't be afraid of having one program run another to keep the logic simple and so you can understand it next month.

[stusviews]

The Auto mode functions as it should on all of our Insteon thermostats. Like most people, we keep the temperature a little cooler at night during the winter and in the summer the cooling is off unless it gets too hot to sleep. There is a large deadband between feeling too cold and feeling to hot at night no matter the season. We do not live in an extreme zone, so we use the Auto mode at night and leave the setpoints the same all year round.

 

Likewise, being cooler in the winter (i.e., 72º) and warmer in the summer (76º) is not only a comfort zone for many, it also saves energy.

[larryllix]

The Auto mode functions as it should on all of our Insteon thermostats. Like most people, we keep the temperature a little cooler at night during the winter and in the summer the cooling is off unless it gets too hot to sleep. There is a large deadband between feeling too cold and feeling to hot at night no matter the season. We do not live in an extreme zone, so we use the Auto mode at night and leave the setpoints the same all year round.

 

Likewise, being cooler in the winter (i.e., 72º) and warmer in the summer (76º) is not only a comfort zone for many, it also saves energy.

Some people definitely have a tolerance for wider heat ranges. I ride share with a neighbour, for evening entertainment trips, into the larger city,  etc. When I ride in his car he can have the thermostat up to 25 C (77F) and the seats on full blast. It's -20 C outside.

 

He (neighbour) doesn't even notice the heat, and is perfectly fine with his sweater and big parka on, while I am dripping sweat, coat and sweater open or off and ready to pass out from heat stroke (sarc). My father was like that also, very heat range tolerant.

 

If I had my A/C turned up to 76F I would wakeup dripping sweat at nights and be sick within a few days. I believe your humidity ranges should be similar to ours with about 85-95% humidity in the some summer weeks.

If I turned the heat down to 66 at night in the winter I would either wake up with frost bite on my legs (exag) or smother under a 2" thick duvet curled up in the fetal position. Of course I can sleep in the same conditions by eating some spicy food and not need covers at all.

 

Right now I have installed a T7900 Venstar thermostat. I have the differential to 0.5C, as small as it will go.  I am monitoring temperatures with some new CAO tags I also just got. The calibration of the stat cannot be calibrated finer than 0.5C also and mine falls right between the two clicks. grrr....

 

The temperature fluctuations of much over the 0.5 degree have me in cold chills and sweating from hour to hour. I may have to reinstall my original stat that can maintain a steady temperature with it's PWM regulation and try to sell the T7900. The cloud monitoring is also very undeveloped, yet.

 

I am reading the Nest supports a mode that can feather temperatures for more regulated heating temps but I am not sure about it's API access, yet. I don't want to depend on cloud access, or even worse, cloud operation. Things are changing rapidly in this field.

[LYLEPROPERTIES]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.  This has been very helpful.