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Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 5:02 pm
by TinTin
Hi All,

I just made my first step, or should I say faux-pas, into the home automation world. I'm in the process of renovating my house in Spain with new heating and Air Conditioning. I thought I would make my first small step with a smart thermostat that would control the temperature of the house all year. So I read and read and read about smart thermostats and eventually decided to buy a Nest v3. When the time finally came to install it, obviously well after the refund deadline, my installer told me that Nest in Europe does not work wiry Air Conditioning. I laughed and told him that was impossible, going back and digging (very deep) into user forums etc until I finally discovered that indeed the European model is actually only a "half smart" thermostat. It seems that European heating and air-conditioning systems are so fundamentally different to the US ones that a company as smart as Nest is not able to control both of them. Or maybe they simply thought that it doesn't get as hot here as in the US in summer. Nest actually has a web page, which is extremely hard to find among all the other marketing blurb about how smart their thermostat is, which states the difference with the US model. Sadly I only found that now.

So basically I have two choices now: Either I install the Nest to control only my heating for 4 months a year and the rest of the time function as a wall clock and I have a dumb thermostat controlling my AC. Or I bin the Nest and buy a "real" smart thermostat. The problem is that I have not been able to find one that can actually control a central heating and ducted air con system at the same time (in Europe). The astonishing thing is that in all the dozens of Smart Thermostat reviews I have read, nobody even mentions air conditioning. I live in Spain and tbh I care a lot more about it than heating. There doesn't even seem to be a smart thermostat that can only control AC (Sensibo, Tado, etc only seem to work with IR units and are not particularly smart).

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Re: Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 11:27 pm
by Akatar
do you need a opentherm thermostat?

Re: Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2019 1:19 am
by TinTin
Doesn't need to be Opentherm. My heating is actually oil and I'm using the existing burner, ie probably 10 years old and won't have opentherm. Just changing all the pipes and stuff.

Re: Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:43 am
by g_fink
Nest and Tado are thermostats, Sensibo isn't a thermostat.
I have a sensibo and both a/c and heat work. The thing is that it only works if you have a remote control that transmits in ir. It won't work if you have the zone controlled wall controller. I have that on my main floor and sensibo can't work there. But it's great with the separate rooms where I have splits - installed later- and they all have remotes. you can cool and heat, no problem.

Re: Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:28 pm
by Akatar
perhaps
http://www.proliphix.com/products-netwo ... t550cw.htm
i'm not sure if it does everything you want/need

Re: Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:39 am
by TinTin
Thank you for your replies. It's true, Sensibo would not work in my case. Even this Proliphix looks like it is basically just an advanced scheduling tool which I guess can be accessed remotely with some alarm functions. Any modern AC software can do that as well (eg MELCloud in the case of Mitsubishi ACs). I'm really looking for a thermostat that can learn from users' behaviours, has geofencing, etc. Basically like the Nest works in the US. Can't believe that Europe doesn't have anything like that...

Re: Hvac Thermostat

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 12:58 pm
by Akatar
TinTin wrote:Thank you for your replies. It's true, Sensibo would not work in my case. Even this Proliphix looks like it is basically just an advanced scheduling tool which I guess can be accessed remotely with some alarm functions. Any modern AC software can do that as well (eg MELCloud in the case of Mitsubishi ACs). I'm really looking for a thermostat that can learn from users' behaviours, has geofencing, etc. Basically like the Nest works in the US. Can't believe that Europe doesn't have anything like that...
Mail plugwise and tado, i heard something that they are going to support ac in the "near" future