How to detect Ecobee Vacation Mode from inside EISY programming

[ISY4Me]

I want to be able to detect when my Ecobee's are in Vacation Mode.   The Vacation Mode controlled my the Vacation setting in the app works great, but I have some programs that could possibly override things and I want to be able to detect the Vacation Mode being enabled so the program folders in question can be set to not run.

However, when I try to determine how to detect the Vacation Mode state in EISY, I can't see how to do this.  Has anyone attempted to do the same?

[paulbates]

It's a climate type, and uses status:

[dbwarner5]

I often get caught up in the "battle of controllers" : ISY, Alexa, Ecobee etc.. 

As a result, whenever possible I default to using the ISY for control.

So in both of my houses, even though I have "smart" thermostats, I basically never touch them and let the ISY do all the temp management. When either home is in "Vacation" mode, then EVERYTHING to do with the house being vacant gets managed on one controller.. the isy --=> security, temperature, water pump, random lights at night, etc. 

This has helped to keep my sanity around trying to remember which controller is doing what. 

A few other temp related examples of isy vs thermostat control:

-if I tell Alexa to set the thermostat at house 1 to set the AC temp to anything above 80, isy takes over and runs the fan 30 out of 60m minutes, and holds indefinitely the tempt 85.. But as soon as I ask Alexa to set the temp to anything below 80, isy takes over and adjusts the temperature to the schedule I like which includes 4 or 5 adjustments between 11pm and 8am to keep the house circulating and cooling.

-at house 2, I have two thermostats. if I tell Alexa a temp for either one, it will adjust the other one automatically to be in sync. (upstairs / downstairs). and depending on the outside temp it will adjust them either plus 1, even of minus 1 as I have noticed they run best this way at certain temps. 

-using seasonal input, temps and schedules and modes adjust automatically. 

 

All of this would be a nightmare to do on a thermostat. 

cheers!

[larryllix]

I formerly tried to control my ecobee stats for various things I thought they wouldn't do properly. Later I learned the thermostats are smarter than my ISY and allowed my ecobees to control my ISY and stopped messing with the ecobee smarts. Every time you override the ecobees smarts it upsets their history of response times vs climate settings, and they become confused and have to start accumulating history vs temperature response times again.

I have found the vacation modes in my latest ecobee more reliable and easier to set than my ISY programming so I allow the ecobee stat to be the boss and set my ISY modes. I can count on two fingers the number of times I have had to manually override a temperature setting in the last year and a half now.

If you want to sync two ecobee stats, just select the sync feature and select which options you want to synchronise and ecobee will do it itself.

 

Sync.stat.vacation - [ID 0093][Parent 005C][Run At Startup]

If
        
        // Run at Startup enabled
 
        'Living Room / Ecobee.stat - LivRm' Climate Type is Vacation
 
Then
        $sHouse.vacation  = $cTRUE
        $sHouse.armed  = $cTRUE
 
Else
        $sHouse.vacation  = $cFALSE
        $sHouse.armed  = $cFALSE
 

 

Edited March 5 by larryllix

[ISY4Me]

@paulbates Thank you.  I saw that and having the status in Climate didn't initially make sense, but I just setup a test case  using Climate and the Vacation state and it worked perfectly. 

@dbwarner5 I agree with your approach.  Eventually, I hope to go in an integrate my own Vacation controls into my programs so that everything remains explicitly controlled by the EISY.  This is will take some time... and with that in mind, detecting the state and letting the thermostat control vacation settings was a quicker solution.  Using the detection to disable folders of HVAC control was just a quick solution.

[ISY4Me]

Thank you @larryllix... that is essentially what I have done for now.  It is a simple solution.

[larryllix]

1 minute ago, ISY4Me said:

Thank you @larryllix... that is essentially what I have done for now.  It is a simple solution.

I think if you investigate further you will find that the ecobee thermostats can do all that without any outside interventions. There are sync options with multiple options to synchronise built in, including fan cycling periods, vacation modes, climate selections etc.. etc..

[dbwarner5]

16 minutes ago, larryllix said:

I formerly tried to control my ecobee stats for various things I thought they wouldn't do properly. Later I learned the thermostats are smarter than my ISY and allowed my ecobees to control my ISY and stopped messing with the ecobee smarts. ....

If you want to sync two ecobee stats, just select the sync feature and select which options you want to synchronise and ecobee will do it itself.
 

AS always, there are many different approaches to things. My ecobee is in a home that I use, rent and can be vacant. While I am sure the ecobee can do all these modes, I get tired of learning new systems and relying on me doing something separate / in addition to all the other things I have to do to "set" the whole home in the mode it needs to be in when I leave it, or a renter leaves it etc. 

The other home with two thermostats are not ecobees, but older Honeywells with Zwave. No way to link them natively, so the isy is perfect, and because one is much smaller and upstairs, it requires different offsets to the main level one so as to not do "all the work" or vice versa. Again, ISY manages that really well. 

 

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, dbwarner5 said:

AS always, there are many different approaches to things. My ecobee is in a home that I use, rent and can be vacant. While I am sure the ecobee can do all these modes, I get tired of learning new systems and relying on me doing something separate / in addition to all the other things I have to do to "set" the whole home in the mode it needs to be in when I leave it, or a renter leaves it etc. 

The other home with two thermostats are not ecobees, but older Honeywells with Zwave. No way to link them natively, so the isy is perfect, and because one is much smaller and upstairs, it requires different offsets to the main level one so as to not do "all the work" or vice versa. Again, ISY manages that really well. 

 

One thing I did a lot of work on was "Intelligent Setback" during heating. After having many different brands and models I have discovered that no thermostat has that feature.
I experimented with a lot of algorithms to accomplish this but none were really perfect. The calculation of times based on outside weather and inside temperatures got out of hand for ISY calculations, and screwed up occasionally.

Later I went to a multiple stage system where ISY would use distinct weather points to pick one stage that determined the setback time.

Next, I discovered that playing with temperatures was too complicated and required to many "what-ifs" in the programming so I settled on using climates in the ecobee stats, and ISY just picked one at the smartest time. That proved to be the safest method as I had a few run-aways with ISY controlling temperatures and, using preset climates eliminated that risk factor.

However, there were severe limits in my previous home. It was so efficient that it needed no heat in the winter if the sun shone and, it had so much thermal mass, heat would be turned on about 2 AM and off at 5 AM to get heat for the next afternoon. Getting it to cool down again for the nights sleep became a problem as turning the heat off at 3 PM caused us to be too cool to watch TV, at nights, but still too warm to sleep at 11 PM.   Of course, multiple zones and stats don't ease the complexities of it all. 

But along came a solution...moved to an apartment with one ecobee and now try to reject the pressurised building air, they love to run at the sweating temperatures. Open a window and you create a relief where all the building heat/pressure exits through your unit.  I run a window A/C all winter despite sub freezing temperatures now and it competes with my 2-3 gallon a day humidifier.  

Am I crazy yet? I check the door peephole  for white coats every day.

Edited March 5 by larryllix