Venstar Thermostat + eISY at Far Away Building

[KHouse]

I have a new building going up that will have an office (1 thermostat for HVAC + 2 gas garage heaters), and another building going up about 1,000' away from the office.  This building will have 3 HVAC's (3 thermostats).

The office will be outfitted with the eISY and Insteon.  The HVAC guys want to install Venstar T4900 thermostats.  I've got Insteon throughout my home, however, use my Honeywell thermostats through their native app and not through my eISY.

What would be the proper procedure to connect the office/building thermostats to an eISY in this new construction?  I will have empty conduit ran for low voltage from the office to this far away building.  Not sure how to get wifi out there / reputable signal that far, and not sure how to "hard wire" the thermostats to the eISY.

Appreciate any help anyone can give.

(On a similair note, also now trying to figure out how to use Insteon door sensors on the doors in this far away building.  Again, can hard wire the distance, or if using some insteon devices along the way can repeat the signal, though I'm not sure how far that signal travels through powerline).

[Goose66]

The Venstar T4900 are Wi-fi, and there is a Venstar Plugin developed for the ColorTouch thermostats, but the T4900 should work with it. I would be happy to help you get it working and be able to add the T4900 to the "supported device" list. There is a Honeywell plugin, too.

Long distance Insteon is going to be problematic. Many have tried over the past decade, and there are really no good solutions. Insteon really needs some type of ethernet or Wi-fi bridge, but based on the status of the technology today, don't count on any future solutions or upgrades coming to Insteon - it's pretty much a dead technology, IMO.

[auger66]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you want, but I believe you want three thermostats to work in the out building with internet connectivity.

The way I would do this is to get internet in general to the out building. Everything else will fall into place, and you'll have much more flexibility if want to do anything else in the out there.

• Run fiber in the conduit to the out building from your existing gateway, router, or switch. Consider making two runs for redundancy.
• Use a wireless bridge between buildings. Physical connections are always better than wireless.
• Assuming you want all of this on the same network and existing internet provider, connect an access point and switch to the out building fiber or wireless bridge. Some APs are also switches.

For sensors,  YoLink wireless devices have very long range, and there's a Polyglot node server for YoLink. But if you have internet and wifi in the out building, range shouldn't be an issue for anything. I've been extremely impressed with my YoLink devices. Plus, their customer service is great.

Another way is to have your internet provider provide separate service to the out building and run that building on separate everything. I don't know if that's practical for your situation.

Edited April 4 by auger66

[KHouse]

Thank you both, and thank you for the offer @Goose66.

To clarify, yes, I'm looking to have 3 thermostats in the out building connect to the eISY, so looking at the best way to do this.

I also need 3 door sensors in the out building connected to the eISY, or security system.  In my home I run an Elk M1 with Honeywell wireless devices.

In this new build I will be using Insteon in the office (lights and some motion sensors), however, will also have a security system (brand/model TBD as of yet).  I can choose anything to work with the eISY to get what I need in the out buildng and for security.  Would you have any other recommendations that might work better knowing it's not tied to Insteon (but tied in one way or another to the eISY)?

Thanks again.

Edited April 5 by KHouse

[Goose66]

I like DSC panels with hardwired sensors. There is a connection device called EnvisaLink that connects your DSC panel to the LAN in the building (which I assume is linked back to the house and eISY via ethernet in the low voltage conduit). There is a plugin that will allow the DSC/Envisalink to work with the eISY. The envisaLink and plugin also support Honeywell Vista panels.

[paulbates]

Another option is yolink / yosmart. They make a thermostat and security products, and dependable range is their strong suit. There is an actively developed plugin for the eisy that i use for other applications. If I had a quarter mile away outbuilding, I would be giving it a look. They are really responsive to requests about product use pre and post sale.