Control Thermostat from an existing scene?

[cksedg]

I have an Insteon thermostat that I have set to control two heaters in my COLD basement office.  That works great.

At the end of the day (or when leaving my office), I have a scene set up to turn all my office lights and devices off, by saying "Alexa, turn off office lights."  I would like to add the thermostat to that scene and have it set the thermostat mode to OFF when the other lights go off.  I can add it to the scene, but it doesn't turn it off.  I don't need to turn the thermostat on--I can do that manually--just need to turn it off with my existing scene.  I don't want the heaters to run unless I am there.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Guy Lavoie]

Well thermostats can't just be "turned off" like a light bulb. You can do things like change modes, setpoints, etc.

One way to do that with a scene would be to add a virtual switch to your scene (install the Virtual plugin) and then create a program that sends the desired commands to the thermostat when that virtual switch is turned off by the scene command.

If there is a light in your scene that only gets turned on by that scene (and never manually), then you can watch the status of that light instead of a virtual switch in your program. 

Edited yesterday at 12:39 AM by Guy Lavoie

[cksedg]

There is not a light in that scene that does not get turned on manually.  In fact, the scene is used only to turn all lights OFF.  I would never use the scene to turn them all on at the same time.  It's so that when I leave the basement I can just tell Alexa to turn off all basement lights. So, I want that same scene to change the mode of the thermostat to OFF.  I would always turn it on manually.

[Guy Lavoie]

In that case you could create a program that would watch for any of your lights getting turned on, and have it turn on a virtual switch on, like this:

If status light A is on

   Or status light B is on

   Or status light C is on.    (Etc)

      Then turn virtual light on

 

The virtual switch would also be added as a responder to your existing "turn off" scene.

A second program would then watch for the virtual switch going to off, and execute your thermostat commands, like this:

If status virtual light is off

    Then set thermostat mode...

[cksedg]

Thank you so much!  After thinking about this all evening, I started doing just what you have written--then I got your answer.  I can't believe I came up with the same solution.  The only difference is that I don't have a virtual light; I have a plug in module, but it should work the same.

Thanks again!

[Guy Lavoie]

Plug in module, virtual switch... whatever works for you as a unique indicator of the status you want to look for in your program to control a scene and other non-scene devices. It would be easier if UDI added a "If scene on/off command..." in IoX, but at least we have a workaround.

Glad it helped.