Ecobee remote sensor information as trigger?

[notslow]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning new bathroom ventilation and am considering using isy to control it. Can isy see the remote sensors humidity data and trigger a program? I'll detail below what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

I'll focus on the master bathroom as it is the most complex. There is a seperate commode room, separate shower, seperate bath.

I would like to trigger an isy program by motion sensor when ending commode room.

I would like to trigger an isy program when humidity rises in main bathroom due to bath or shower.

I already have an ecobee sensor in the bathroom, but would it make more sense to just use a z wave multi sensor to get motion and humidity? I'm concerned that nodes may be too complicated, but it would be nice to not have to add more sensors.

 

By the way, I know there are bathroom fans with built in sensors. The reason I don't want to go this direction is that with my bathroom layout, i would need at least two fans with sensors. I can install one remote fan to ventilate entire bathroom, it's quieter and more cost effective even if I have to buy a couple more sensors.

 

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, notslow said:

Hi everyone,

I'm planning new bathroom ventilation and am considering using isy to control it. Can isy see the remote sensors humidity data and trigger a program? I'll detail below what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

I'll focus on the master bathroom as it is the most complex. There is a seperate commode room, separate shower, seperate bath.

I would like to trigger an isy program by motion sensor when ending commode room.

I would like to trigger an isy program when humidity rises in main bathroom due to bath or shower.

I already have an ecobee sensor in the bathroom, but would it make more sense to just use a z wave multi sensor to get motion and humidity? I'm concerned that nodes may be too complicated, but it would be nice to not have to add more sensors.

 

By the way, I know there are bathroom fans with built in sensors. The reason I don't want to go this direction is that with my bathroom layout, i would need at least two fans with sensors. I can install one remote fan to ventilate entire bathroom, it's quieter and more cost effective even if I have to buy a couple more sensors.

 

Ecobee sensors do not sense humidity.

Ecobee sensors are not a quick response. Fastest update allowed is every three minutes. The NS polls them as fast as permitted without being locked out.

The ecobee occupancy is based on a very slow changing sensng algorithm to avoid noise and false positives. Sensing your occupancy make take ten minutes.

I suggest you research the Insteon 2441ZTH thermostat for that. As much as they are poor quality, the humidity sensor has a fast response. No motion though.

CAO Tags will sense humidity but no MS. CAO may have an MS option now.

There are some Zwave multi-sensors out there.

[lilyoyo1]

10 minutes ago, larryllix said:

Ecobee sensors do not sense humidity.

Ecobee sensors are not a quick response. Fastest update allowed is every three minutes. The NS polls them as fast as permitted without being locked out.

The ecobee occupancy is based on a very slow changing sensng algorithm to avoid noise and false positives. Sensing your occupancy make take ten minutes.

I suggest you research the Insteon 2441ZTH thermostat for that. As much as they are poor quality, the humidity sensor has a fast response. No motion though.

CAO Tags will sense humidity but no MS. CAO may have an MS option now.

There are some Zwave multi-sensors out there.

I don't have an issue with mine reporting on quickly. The problem is that it won't report occupancy off for an HR. 

[larryllix]

2 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I don't have an issue with mine reporting on quickly. The problem is that it won't report occupancy off for an HR. 

That may be OK for humidity fan control then. The off cycle could be ignored and done by ISY timing, perhaps.

[JBanaszak]

CAO has a PIR sensor for motion, temp, and humidity. I have a couple in a small condo and they seem to work well. At home I have the 13bit tags integrated to ISY through the node server running on Polisy.

 

I have not tried using the motion sensor in an ISY program, so you might want to investigate how they reset (mine seem to default to “timed out” after sensing motion but that’s fine for my use case). Temp/humid work as expected.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[HABit]

I have an Ecobee sensor in my master bath that I use for a similar purpose of controlling exhaust fan shutoff. I don’t use it for initiating anything, but let a “user” turn on the fan when they feel comfortable doing so (no draft, etc). The humidity and temperature seem responsive and have given a good experience for controlling the fan. I do limit the run time since humidity reduction if Florida can be dicey. As far as occupancy goes, I don’t think the Ecobee is suitable for quickly alerting you to presence or, especially absence since it has its own occupancy algorithm which has a small detection delay time, but much longer dwell time indicating occupancy, when nobody is in the room with the sensor. I do use that indication in the living room, since I didn’t want to hang more sensors on the wall, to initiate area lighting, but not to turn it off. In rooms that are very interactive (people coming/going/occupying for long periods), I always have manual selections for comfort, lighting, etc., typically with a KPL in a console (box) near the seating.

[larryllix]

24 minutes ago, SeeGreen said:

I have an Ecobee sensor in my master bath that I use for a similar purpose of controlling exhaust fan shutoff. I don’t use it for initiating anything, but let a “user” turn on the fan when they feel comfortable doing so (no draft, etc). The humidity and temperature seem responsive and have given a good experience for controlling the fan. I do limit the run time since humidity reduction if Florida can be dicey. As far as occupancy goes, I don’t think the Ecobee is suitable for quickly alerting you to presence or, especially absence since it has its own occupancy algorithm which has a small detection delay time, but much longer dwell time indicating occupancy, when nobody is in the room with the sensor. I do use that indication in the living room, since I didn’t want to hang more sensors on the wall, to initiate area lighting, but not to turn it off. In rooms that are very interactive (people coming/going/occupying for long periods), I always have manual selections for comfort, lighting, etc., typically with a KPL in a console (box) near the seating.

Yes, humidity removal, based on RH does not work very well. I had to switch my fruit/root/cold cellar and over to "dew point" comparisons, in order to accomplish that here. When it ran on RH the humidity level continually rose as the air outside, even with a lower RH humidity, made the cooler air inside rise in RH level.

Dew point is hard to calculate using RH and temperature, especially using ISY calculations. I found a way to approximate the curves, using ISY programs, though.

In a bathroom, with a RH switch point is chosen at very high levels the drying effects should be good unless you live in a submarine. However I have recorded RH levels at 98% outside just before it rains.

[notslow]

A little confused by all the responses. So ecobee sensors positively don't sense humidity? If not, then I'll just go with something like aeotec multi sensor 6. Seems like this may be a way simpler way to do what I need than trying to integrate ecobee with isy.

[lilyoyo1]

14 minutes ago, notslow said:

A little confused by all the responses. So ecobee sensors positively don't sense humidity? If not, then I'll just go with something like aeotec multi sensor 6. Seems like this may be a way simpler way to do what I need than trying to integrate ecobee with isy.

They do not sense humidity. Only temp and occupancy (which isn't good for HA)

[notslow]

Okay, good to know. So Aeotec multi sensor it is. Thanks everyone for the advice.

[HABit]

@lilyoyo1 Hey you are right, individual sensors don’t have humidity. But the TStat reports the humidity accurately, and available in ISY. 

Sorry @notslow for the misleading post. However, since I know the temperature in the bathroom/other room, and know what the temperature is set for, it’s easy to run the fan until the temp in the bathroom drops to your threshold you think is sufficient. That’s my primitive way of doing at least, but I figure having the Ecobee sensor in the bathroom added value to the HVAC system in terms of area control.

My future eye is on powered zone/room dampers. With the Ecobee sensor and the ISY NS for Ecobee, this becomes easier to do.

[lilyoyo1]

38 minutes ago, SeeGreen said:

@lilyoyo1 Hey you are right, individual sensors don’t have humidity. But the TStat reports the humidity accurately, and available in ISY. 

 

The thermostat does show humidity but unless it's in his bathroom, it wouldn't matter as the thermostats location would be different. It doesn't help the ops use case

[HABit]

For my situation I use temperature as a better indicator of humidity in the bathroom than a humistat. Humidity is not absolute, it is relative (called RH). The laws of thermodynamics state that Humidity is inversely proportional to Temperature. In a closed bathroom where a person is showering, the water vapor content will rise in the atmosphere, and a humistat will see an initial bump in humidity readings, but the temperature will also begin to rise. The temperature will rise more directly in relation to the humidity since the water vapor imparts energy to the surrounding air space. As the temperature rises, the humidity readings will become more inaccurate indications of the absolute water vapor content in the air. Warm air can hold more water vapor than dry. The humistat reports relative humidity (the amount of water vapor that can be held by the air in a ration of 0 - 100%). So I look at the temperature rise and run the fan until it is within the threshold I keep in a variable in the ISY. This has worked effectively for me to evacuate the super-saturated/moist air. 

You can search on humidity vs temperature on any HVAC site, or better on a thermodynamics/physics site for a better explanation than I’ve provided here.