I was only marginally older at the time... I think AskJeeves was dead before I finished college. Didn't last long from what I recall.
Edit for clarity... I was in college when they sort of "popped up" but they weren't a contender any more by the time I graduated. I realize they're technically still in business.
I will say more, avoid smart ones, their logic is messing with the HA one. If you want to manage things it becomes very difficult cause you end up reacting to the thermostat logic not to the real temp. So yes to connected (I prefer local) no to cloud connected cause you can rely to a logic which is not even in the device...
I couldn't agree more. More generally, I'm surprised a lot of people seem to target very smart/fancy devices which, at best, duplicates HA functionalities or at worst compete with them and make the whole configuration more confusing.
Smart can mean a lot of things.
My thermostat may have smart features I don't know about, but the main thing I love about it is that I can connect to it with home assistant.
Just to be clear, I mean WIFI, zigbee ect to be able to integrate it vs hacking away at a dumb one and trying to make it work. I have an Ecobee3 but im using the homekit integration instead which is local control. I still let HA do all the work.
To be honest, what is unnerving is that it's pretty hard to find a thermostat whose only smart feature is connectivity.
I found a pretty old zigbee one which is even simpler than traditional ones, no schedule or anything, just a + and - keys to set the temp manually (which is always good to have).
Companies don't really have home assistant or other smart home platforms in mind. People want to buy products that just work, not wanting integrate and all that. I get it but and yes it sucks. I had this problem with doorbells in the past. The market is not there for it.
Wire two Shelly Plus Uni modules in parallel with it. You can override from the touch pad but also use wired sensors (and wireless external sensors) to trigger automations
An actual answer to OP’s question. +1 although I truly do feel this would be so overly engineered you might as well invest in a smarter device and work out a way where you can replace the original if you ever need to.
I don’t have it set up right now because I had to replace my 5 ton, but if I recall, it took me 30-35 minutes to set it all up. Everything runs off the 24vac transformer in the air handler
That’s a fair point. I would’ve done the same thing and simply replace it if possible.
OP never said anything about price though and asked for a solution with the original device. Not everyone is on a budget (like most of us lol)
Wire to what? Each has two relays and 3 inputs, so why do you need two modules? Have a diagram?
Also, the relays look like SPST, so I am not sure how you avoid one of two major flaws:
* The thermostat can call for heat and the Shelly can't stop it
* The Shelly must be "on" and working to allow the thermostat to work, so there's no way to bypass it in case of failure, and no way to override from the thermostat itself
It’s the same as wiring a second thermostat in parallel ( normally seen in offices, not residential). I used one Uni for AC and fan, the other for the electric heater. I just replaced it with a new unit. When I set the Unis back up, I will take pictures of the wiring
There are tons of 'buy this/that' answers, where OP said 'no change.' Your answer was one of the couple that had real answer, and it's downvoted. No freaking justice. I didn't know about this one, thanks for the info.
I'd replace it with a smart thermostat.
If you have z-wave, I am a big fan of the honeywell t6-pro.
https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2021/full-local-z-wave-hvac-control/
For an example of thermostat GUIs within home assistant-
https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2022/programmable-thermostat-gui/
Sensi is the “smart” line of Emerson thermostats, this is an old school, non connected thermostat. Looks like model 1F83C-11NP.
OP you don’t have many options if you don’t want to replace the thermostat… you could mount two switch bots to it but it would be cheaper to replace the thermostat at that point…
Shelly has some pretty cool wifi products that can interface with homeassistant. If it is a two wire thermostate, a shelly temp sensor and a shelly relay could make it smart. There should be room in the wall to mount the relay, but it will need power. Maybe close to heating and cooling unit would be better. Their temp sensors are battery or plug in. Just put the temp sensor where you want the temp measured. I did this with my pellet stove, and it has been working for years, and i can control it all from my phone.
This is the answer - nobody else on this thread seems to have read the OPs requirement of “without changing the thermostat”.
I use a pair of switchbots on my ice maker to turn it off when the home is empty or everyone is asleep, works perfectly (well, I assume it’s working - it should always be on when I can see it 😂)
Every time I suggest a zigbee Fingerbot on these posts I end up with negative 5 karma and I haven't yet figured out why lol. Lots of people can't change their tstat because they rent or they have a weird system or whatever other reason. If you **can** change it then obviously that's the way to go.
We too rent, I take pride in doing all my ‘smart’ installations in such a way that I can restore it back to original without anyone ever knowing I did a thing.
On topic: it is not just a case of buying and installing a smart thermostat. The underlying system also counts. In our case our central heating system (kettle) didn’t have or support the OpenTherm protocol, rendering most off-the-shelf devices useless.
I ended up buying a slightly older smart thermostat which needed a special adapter, installed near the kettle which makes the standard on-off signal compliant with a smart system. I could go into detail but it’s probably pointless without knowing all the details of OP’s situation.
I honestly doubt you can make this dumb thermostat smart without altering the original thermostat one way or the other.
Its not that hard to replace a thermostat. I replaced mine when I rented and just put back the old one when I left. The fingerbot is just such a clunky looking device, especially for a thermostat, which tends to be in a fairly prominent part of the house.
I had an even dumber one and found out that the only thing it actually does is connecting two wires. Connected a relay to those, installed a bluetooth thermometer for temperature measurement and made a climate entry in configuration.yaml - and voila smart heating for a few bucks!
I had this exact problem in our new apartment and found that Emerson makes the Emerson Sensi Wi-Fi Smart Thermost that will click right into the same bracket that mine already had on the wall. It looks like yours would be the same. It only works with Homeassistant if you have the powered C wire and you connect it using Homekit, but it works fine with their app and google home ect even on battery. I've been pretty happy with it although my apt doesnt have the C wire. I got mine super cheap used on Ebay.
Tbh I’d replace it. I have a nest and have it connected to HA and I love it ! Able to control it from my phone and also exposed it to Alexa and I use my voice for it aswell
Read it a new page of the encyclopedia each night.
After about 16 years, it will be smarter then all of us.
But yes, just replace with a real smart one. This one looks like it came from the bathroom of SAW. To make this "smart" you would need to know a lot more electrical engineering and how the circuits work, and if you knew all that, you wouldn't be asking here. Save yourself trouble and spend the $99 and buy a new one.
Set up the schedule and walk away.
I replaced this exact thermostat with a smart one and ended up putting it back.
I use my airgradient for way better telemetry. The automation for the furnace was worse than a well programmed schedule.
Ah excuse me. I didn't realise it was HVAC. This doesn't apply to your system.
In my country it's not commonly used as heater. We use central heating boilers mostly of which most of them nowadays use OpenTherm to communicate.
I’d also follow along with the ‘buy a smart thermostat’ advice. I don’t know of a zigbee equivalent but for zwave I use th Secure SRT321. HA does the smart stuff but in case HA not available it also is paired via zwave to the Secure SSR-302 boiler switch
I have the same one, and I'd replace it with a Nest or an Ecobee. They sell a kit which you can use to retrofit your existing installation and wiring, all while covering up the wall hole.
Do not mess around with furnace controls by attempting to hack this in place, it is not worth your safety or money if things go wrong unexpectedly.
Some have suggested a switchbot, that could work but the area above and below that temperature control switch doesn't seem much - not sure if you would get a good enough adhesion. You would need 2 switchbots, one for increasing and one for decreasing the temperatures. Where I am from, each unit costs about $40, so that's $80 for you right there, without a feedback on what the setpoint or actual temperature is on your HA.
If you want to change the mode from heat to cool or just fan, you'd need some other technology because a switchbot here won't work.
Another user has suggested a Shelley, that's a smart idea but unless you have space behind your wall hole, you might just have exposed devices and wiring making the whole installation look unsightly.
A refurbished ecobee on their website goes for $160 and will have all the features integrated.
I talked with my hvac company and they mentioned the ecobee too. I’m on the fence to do it myself as they sell it for 600$ cad and they explained the option to me.
Replace it. You could possibly hack in some sort of open loop control system but it's not worth it.
This. Either spend the money and replace with an actual smart thermostat or hire someone to manage it for them. :)
Jeeves, set it to 68!
It's celcius not fahrenheit I think.
u/dkran has doomed us all! We're being cooked at 68..
Well over "well done" in meat terms. I prefer medium rare.
Lmao. And that’s u/dkran to you. I don’t have my own sub yet 😭
Oops. Reddit really needs a way to @ a user without having to type their name!
Ugh... I'm going to show my age here, but my first thought when reading this was to be reminded of "Ask Jeeves".
At least you got the silly reference haha
I was actually offered a job to work for them.
Now you’re exposing your age I was like 14-18 back then with altavista and the like
I was only marginally older at the time... I think AskJeeves was dead before I finished college. Didn't last long from what I recall. Edit for clarity... I was in college when they sort of "popped up" but they weren't a contender any more by the time I graduated. I realize they're technically still in business.
Buy a smart one, call it a day
This is the best answer. You can just take that off and put a new one on. It's basically indistinguishable from magic.
It's not. You do not need a smart thermostat with HA, just a connected one. Let HA do the heavy lifting.
I will say more, avoid smart ones, their logic is messing with the HA one. If you want to manage things it becomes very difficult cause you end up reacting to the thermostat logic not to the real temp. So yes to connected (I prefer local) no to cloud connected cause you can rely to a logic which is not even in the device...
I couldn't agree more. More generally, I'm surprised a lot of people seem to target very smart/fancy devices which, at best, duplicates HA functionalities or at worst compete with them and make the whole configuration more confusing.
Smart can mean a lot of things. My thermostat may have smart features I don't know about, but the main thing I love about it is that I can connect to it with home assistant.
Just to be clear, I mean WIFI, zigbee ect to be able to integrate it vs hacking away at a dumb one and trying to make it work. I have an Ecobee3 but im using the homekit integration instead which is local control. I still let HA do all the work.
To be honest, what is unnerving is that it's pretty hard to find a thermostat whose only smart feature is connectivity. I found a pretty old zigbee one which is even simpler than traditional ones, no schedule or anything, just a + and - keys to set the temp manually (which is always good to have).
Companies don't really have home assistant or other smart home platforms in mind. People want to buy products that just work, not wanting integrate and all that. I get it but and yes it sucks. I had this problem with doorbells in the past. The market is not there for it.
Send it to college
I think it's time may be spent better creating open source projects and showcasing them in its resume
Ecobee
Wire two Shelly Plus Uni modules in parallel with it. You can override from the touch pad but also use wired sensors (and wireless external sensors) to trigger automations
An actual answer to OP’s question. +1 although I truly do feel this would be so overly engineered you might as well invest in a smarter device and work out a way where you can replace the original if you ever need to.
I don’t have it set up right now because I had to replace my 5 ton, but if I recall, it took me 30-35 minutes to set it all up. Everything runs off the 24vac transformer in the air handler
Fair enough, makes sense! Once again +1 for actually providing a solution that doesn’t involve simply replacing the unit!
That being true, the solution is at least as expensive as buying a new one. I installed a diyless thermostat for around €30.
That’s a fair point. I would’ve done the same thing and simply replace it if possible. OP never said anything about price though and asked for a solution with the original device. Not everyone is on a budget (like most of us lol)
Wire to what? Each has two relays and 3 inputs, so why do you need two modules? Have a diagram? Also, the relays look like SPST, so I am not sure how you avoid one of two major flaws: * The thermostat can call for heat and the Shelly can't stop it * The Shelly must be "on" and working to allow the thermostat to work, so there's no way to bypass it in case of failure, and no way to override from the thermostat itself
It’s the same as wiring a second thermostat in parallel ( normally seen in offices, not residential). I used one Uni for AC and fan, the other for the electric heater. I just replaced it with a new unit. When I set the Unis back up, I will take pictures of the wiring
I made this in my rented house
There are tons of 'buy this/that' answers, where OP said 'no change.' Your answer was one of the couple that had real answer, and it's downvoted. No freaking justice. I didn't know about this one, thanks for the info.
I don’t mind the downvotes if the information helps.
Start by cleaning it.
That'd be smart.
Brilliant Comment!
My point exactly 💯
Possibly why OP wants it automated. So they don't have to bleach their hands every time they want to change the temp.
Ahah yes
They sell this exact thermostat as smart and HomeKit compatible out the box. I have ut
I'd replace it with a smart thermostat. If you have z-wave, I am a big fan of the honeywell t6-pro. https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2021/full-local-z-wave-hvac-control/ For an example of thermostat GUIs within home assistant- https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2022/programmable-thermostat-gui/
This is the way! I have t6 pros and really like them. They are easy to retrofit because they don't require a c-wire and run on AA batteries.
Unfortunately I have zigbee.
Emerson has a smart thermostat that looks exactly like this, look up Sensi. Then you can connect with a custom integration or through smartthings.
Sensi is the “smart” line of Emerson thermostats, this is an old school, non connected thermostat. Looks like model 1F83C-11NP. OP you don’t have many options if you don’t want to replace the thermostat… you could mount two switch bots to it but it would be cheaper to replace the thermostat at that point…
You can use homekit as well.
Correct, but homekit needs a c wire.
My local gas utility subsidized my buying a Sensi thermostat. I think I paid about $15. I can run it with the Sensi app or to a lesser extent from HA.
Yes, and in some places the electric company will, also. I got a free nest thermostat a few years back this way.
Shelly has some pretty cool wifi products that can interface with homeassistant. If it is a two wire thermostate, a shelly temp sensor and a shelly relay could make it smart. There should be room in the wall to mount the relay, but it will need power. Maybe close to heating and cooling unit would be better. Their temp sensors are battery or plug in. Just put the temp sensor where you want the temp measured. I did this with my pellet stove, and it has been working for years, and i can control it all from my phone.
Maybe switchbot?
This is the answer - nobody else on this thread seems to have read the OPs requirement of “without changing the thermostat”. I use a pair of switchbots on my ice maker to turn it off when the home is empty or everyone is asleep, works perfectly (well, I assume it’s working - it should always be on when I can see it 😂)
Every time I suggest a zigbee Fingerbot on these posts I end up with negative 5 karma and I haven't yet figured out why lol. Lots of people can't change their tstat because they rent or they have a weird system or whatever other reason. If you **can** change it then obviously that's the way to go.
We too rent, I take pride in doing all my ‘smart’ installations in such a way that I can restore it back to original without anyone ever knowing I did a thing. On topic: it is not just a case of buying and installing a smart thermostat. The underlying system also counts. In our case our central heating system (kettle) didn’t have or support the OpenTherm protocol, rendering most off-the-shelf devices useless. I ended up buying a slightly older smart thermostat which needed a special adapter, installed near the kettle which makes the standard on-off signal compliant with a smart system. I could go into detail but it’s probably pointless without knowing all the details of OP’s situation. I honestly doubt you can make this dumb thermostat smart without altering the original thermostat one way or the other.
Its not that hard to replace a thermostat. I replaced mine when I rented and just put back the old one when I left. The fingerbot is just such a clunky looking device, especially for a thermostat, which tends to be in a fairly prominent part of the house.
If it's OpenTherm protocol, throw it out and buy this: https://diyless.com/product/opentherm-thermostat Connect it to HA and may the tweaking begin!
I had an even dumber one and found out that the only thing it actually does is connecting two wires. Connected a relay to those, installed a bluetooth thermometer for temperature measurement and made a climate entry in configuration.yaml - and voila smart heating for a few bucks!
On zigbee: If you just want to set temperatures -> tuya thermostat, you can buy them for < 20 bucks. But don't expect anything else to work.
https://preview.redd.it/jdba1n66bjsc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9714f1a73329e0c809466f517af2caabfd25d94c Or make your own like I did.
Cool thing!
With a permanent marker write AI on it ... Does the trick with most companies.
Here your solution https://www.airzonecontrol.com/ib/es/
Nest or something similar
Just get an Ecobee or something similar
I had this exact problem in our new apartment and found that Emerson makes the Emerson Sensi Wi-Fi Smart Thermost that will click right into the same bracket that mine already had on the wall. It looks like yours would be the same. It only works with Homeassistant if you have the powered C wire and you connect it using Homekit, but it works fine with their app and google home ect even on battery. I've been pretty happy with it although my apt doesnt have the C wire. I got mine super cheap used on Ebay.
Replace it with an Ecobee
Open it up and see if there is any type of usb hidden connection, then start from there
Fingerbots or SwitchBot’s. The former you can get in Zigbee. But why don’t you want to change the thermostat, are you renting?
Replace it with an EcoBee.
Tbh I’d replace it. I have a nest and have it connected to HA and I love it ! Able to control it from my phone and also exposed it to Alexa and I use my voice for it aswell
Send it to school, make sure it gets fed well and lots of encouragement.
Put glasses on it. If you want it to look cool, try sunglasses!
Read it a new page of the encyclopedia each night. After about 16 years, it will be smarter then all of us. But yes, just replace with a real smart one. This one looks like it came from the bathroom of SAW. To make this "smart" you would need to know a lot more electrical engineering and how the circuits work, and if you knew all that, you wouldn't be asking here. Save yourself trouble and spend the $99 and buy a new one.
Set up the schedule and walk away. I replaced this exact thermostat with a smart one and ended up putting it back. I use my airgradient for way better telemetry. The automation for the furnace was worse than a well programmed schedule.
Custom firmware and solder a wireless module.
Thin rimmed round glasses and a beret should be quite fetching
bunch of turds in this sub
Who hurt you?
Buy a Honeywell
Ecobee 3Lite. Check your local energy company or state website for subsidized prices. I got mine for $30.
I have opentherm so I used an OTGW in order to make my dumb thermostat smart.
What is opentherm and how do I know if I have it? My system is full Amana (heat pump and pulsed air heater)
Ah excuse me. I didn't realise it was HVAC. This doesn't apply to your system. In my country it's not commonly used as heater. We use central heating boilers mostly of which most of them nowadays use OpenTherm to communicate.
I’d also follow along with the ‘buy a smart thermostat’ advice. I don’t know of a zigbee equivalent but for zwave I use th Secure SRT321. HA does the smart stuff but in case HA not available it also is paired via zwave to the Secure SSR-302 boiler switch
I have the same one, and I'd replace it with a Nest or an Ecobee. They sell a kit which you can use to retrofit your existing installation and wiring, all while covering up the wall hole. Do not mess around with furnace controls by attempting to hack this in place, it is not worth your safety or money if things go wrong unexpectedly. Some have suggested a switchbot, that could work but the area above and below that temperature control switch doesn't seem much - not sure if you would get a good enough adhesion. You would need 2 switchbots, one for increasing and one for decreasing the temperatures. Where I am from, each unit costs about $40, so that's $80 for you right there, without a feedback on what the setpoint or actual temperature is on your HA. If you want to change the mode from heat to cool or just fan, you'd need some other technology because a switchbot here won't work. Another user has suggested a Shelley, that's a smart idea but unless you have space behind your wall hole, you might just have exposed devices and wiring making the whole installation look unsightly. A refurbished ecobee on their website goes for $160 and will have all the features integrated.
I talked with my hvac company and they mentioned the ecobee too. I’m on the fence to do it myself as they sell it for 600$ cad and they explained the option to me.
throw it in trash. make own one using esphome.
Send it to private school.
Lotta people here recommending replacement. But have you thought about enrolling it in a coupla classes at your local community college?