Using Netatmo as thermostat sensor

[ArveSH 0]

Hi,

I am complete newbie trying to get up to speed with Fibaro/Lua. I have a HC2 running 4.160, several Fibaro Dimmers, a Netatmo weatherstation with two extra indoor modules, all imported into HC2, many Philips Hue lamps (not yet imported into HC2, working on it) and a HeatIT/Multireg Z-wave thermostat for my electrical floor heating in my living room.

 

I find the thermostat is very inaccurate and the room temperature drifts many degrees. Also it only displays setpoint temperature, not actual temperature so I am not sure which tempeature the thermostat "sees". I have a Netatmo weatherstation indoor module in my livingroom that I would like to be used as thermostat room sensor instead of the built-in sensor, alternatively use the average between the two sensors. What is the simplest way of achieving this? I have recently chosen the Netatmo as the main room temperature sensor, but I assume this does not achieve what I want. Also I have considered creating an association between the Netatmo and the thermostat, but have not been able to find out how to do this. I tried searching forum and internet in general. Would appreciate any help the community can provide.

[Meinewenigkeit 1]

Hi,

 

i tried this long time ago and give up. It is possible to set up Netatmo as main sensor. But my devolo danfoss thermostat ignore netatmo an use his own sensor in heatpanel.

 

I don't know if this is possible. Maybe someone knows more?

[petergebruers 1,261]

Welcome to the forum!

 

I've been around here for a while and I think "temperature control" is a tough subject. Much tougher to grasp and understand than electricity. It is more difficult to measure stuff...

 

I do not want to underestimate you... I just want to start at the basics to make sure everyone is at the same level of understanding by the end of this post.

 

This is copy/paste with some rework from my previous posts on this forum... I'll keep repeating and improving the explanation until everyone understands it... To my knowledge, no one on this forum has attempted to explain heating systems... until now. So please bear with me... I am not a heating specialist, but an engineer and passionate about HA so boiler control and temperature is part of my hobby.

 

Let's get some things straight.

 

• The FGT is a THERMOSTAT. Popp, Danfoss Licing Connect, Eurotronic TRVS, they are all THERMOSTATS. Technically, they are not "valves", they are "thermostatic heads" attached to a valve. It is customary to refer to the assembly (head + valve) as a "Thermostatic Radiator Valve" or TRV.
• I will use TRV if I refer to some sort of thermostat to control water flow. I will use FGT or FGT-001 when I talk about the "Fibaro Heat Controller". I will NEVER refer to the FGT as the "HC" because that abbreviation is used quite a lot on this forum to reference the "Fibaro Home Center". If I accidentally use HC in a topic about heating, I mean "Home Center". I'll try to avoid that...
• They do NOT use your controller, to regulate temperature. They do not use any sensor measurement of your Z-Wave system. They contain their own sensor (or sensors!) and the FGT has an optional external probe. That probe is not Z-Wave, it is Bluetooth Low Energy. But the measurements are transferred to your controller, by the FGT. So reporting from the external sensor to the FGT is fairly frequent (every 10 minutes) but reporting by the TRV to your 
• You tell the TRV to go to 22 °C and it does that for you. It does not need a controller or a temperature reference, nor does it need a room thermostat and you also do not have to buy the external probe... It is an autonomous system. It uses hot water and a battery to control room temperature.
• The FGT-001 can either use its internal sensor or the special extra bluetooth low energy "button" external probe. The extra sensor can be in a more optimal place: the right height, no direct sunlight, nearer to the spot where you want to control temperature. With this probe, the FGT starts reporting temperature too. It reports to the TRV every 10 minutes. To conserve power and reduce network traffic, the FGT only sends temperature to the controller every 2-3 hours or when the temperature readings differ by 0.5-1 degree from the last report.
• You can turn the KNOB (or push buttons) to change the set point. No magic involved. For instance, on the FGT-001, turn the ring until it displays "cyan" and it will regulate the valve, until the temperature averages 18 °C. It does not need the extra sensor, because there is one (actually two) and the device itself has an algorithm to go to the set temperature. It also does not really need a controller, all magic is performed by the micro-controller onboard.
• Your TRV does not need a connection to a controller to do its job. You can install a TRV, set the thing to 24 °C if you like that, and it will start to open and close the valve. So you can check the performance of your TRV by leaving it excluded. This will make sure it is not a communication problem, or a script changing the set-point. Of course, this degrades it to "a mechanical thermostatic head" - but we managed to live with that kind of control, did we not?
• You get more interesting possibilities, with a Z-Wave controller. You can send temperature settings to the controller via your app, or using the browser interface. Like: "go to 23 °C for 4 hours". Because FGT-001 is a FLiRS (frequently listening routing slave) device, roughly one second after you change the temperature, it will take into account your new target value! So there is no "wake up" interval (and delay) like ordinary battery operated device. Older TRVs are not FLIRS so they kind of "request settings at regular intervals" - otherwise know as "wake up interval". To my best knowledge, the only other FLiRS device on the market is the "Spirit Z-Wave Plus". Danfoss has announced the LC14, it should be FLiRS based but I don't think you can buy one yet.
• Some part of slowness of the "older TRVs" comes from the wake up interval. The FGT-001 has eliminated that. It will respond to commands "almost instantly".
• You have your TRV connected (included, added) to a Z-Wave controller? So now you have a "remote control" for your thermostat. It still does not need your controller or a temperature sensor to control the temperature. Sometimes, it is more convenient to use your phone or a tablet. But it's not real automation (yet). Communication is bidirectional: the controller can set the TRVs set-point and the TRV will report the set-point if someone turns the knob. The FGT-001 also reports temperature if it has an external sensor. It DOES NOT report sensor data without external sensor. To me, this makes totally sense, because the sensor is not in a good position to detect room temperature. I have dedicated a separate topic to this. Popp is a modified Danfoss TRV. It reports temperature, but depending on your house and position of the TRV, its temperature reporting will not match the temperature at a key point in your room... If you want to know more, please read my other topic... 

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• The next step would be to use the heating panel. The heating panel is nothing but a scheduler. It contains time/temperature settings. And all it does is send the schedule to the TRV. Again, the FGT or Danfoss is fully autonomous after it receives the schedule. Older thermostats get only a set-point change. The FGT-001 gets a complete schedule. The effect is largely the same. You can override the schedule by turning the knob, or by using the app. You get manual override and holiday mode as a bonus. You need to understand the concept of zones and rooms and maybe take into account that one FGT remote sensor can send temperature to three FGT-001 heads. It might be a little bit more complex than I suggest... one thing that trips people is how "time" plays a role in overriding the schedule.
• If this still isn't enough control, you can use Lua to send a set-point to the TRV. Even in this case, you still do not need an extra temperature measurement... The FGT is FLiRS and responds almost instantly to your commands. The older valves get a setting at the next wake-up (typically set to anything between 5 an 30 minutes). Of course, you can use some sensor in the room to estimate the performance of the TRV and nudge the set-point up and down, to compensate for the fact the TRV is not in a good position to measure room temperature. I do not present scripts to do this... You can use Lua with or without the heating panel,. If you want to make your own scheduler, you can do that, no need to configure the heating panel.
• All it needs is... a steady source of hot water and battery. And this brings us to the issue of room thermostat and boiler control. The boiler should take care of the hot water problem. It has a boiler thermostat, and possibly some settings and maybe an external probe. You see, I do not mention a "room thermostat" when I talk about boiler control, this is intentional. I might discuss this another time.
• For sake of completeness... other TRV systems exist. If you are interested in a mains operated, completely silent actuator (not a thermostat!) look up "thermoelectric actuator". notice: "actuator" is not "thermostat"... You need a thermostat to control that kind of actuator. It is something to keep in mind: all Z-Wave TRVs make some noise!
• There is one rather peculiar device on the market, which causes a lot of confusion: "Danfoss RS 014G0160 Thermostat". On a HC 4.160 you can use this as a kind of remote control. It does not act as a real thermostat, because the device does not control any output (on a home center). You can use Lua to intercept "value" and "timestamp" as with any other thermostat.
• Also for sake of completeness...You can turn a sensor and a switch (relay) into a basic thermostat using "linked device". It only works with a relay, not a thermostat.

Are you still with me?

 

Any questions? Go ahead! There are no stupid questions... I learn from people asking questions, either because it makes me formulate the answer or makes me aware of things I do not know! Thats good!

[Meinewenigkeit 1]

@

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English isn't my nature language so i read your post a few times.

 

My conclusion: You know nothing Jon Sn...ähh Meinewenigkeit and my school english is crap. 

 

So the only possibility for external sensor ist the new Fibaro extra bluetooth sensor? My main problem is, the temperature form the internal sensors from devolo danfoss are not correct. The position is too close to the heater. If i have 22 ° room  temperature the sensors have 25 ° for example. That sucks.

 

I thougt i read that the new Eurotronic Spirit Z-Wave Plus maybe have the possibility for external sensor through parameter?!

 

 

 

 

 

[petergebruers 1,261]

1 minute ago, Meinewenigkeit said:

My conclusion: You know nothing Jon Sn...ähh Meinewenigkeit and my school english is crap. 

 

I hope I did not offend you... At least it was not my intention

 

1 minute ago, Meinewenigkeit said:

So the only possibility for external sensor ist the new Fibaro extra bluetooth sensor? My main problem is, the temperature form the internal sensors from devolo danfoss are not correct. The position is too close to the heater. If i have 22 ° room  temperature the sensors have 25 ° for example. That sucks.

 

Yes, but 3 things... The sensor is dedicated, it only works with FGT-001 and the FGT-001 currently has firmware issues. I agree with the bad measurement of internal sensors, you might be interested in this topic:

 

 

4 minutes ago, Meinewenigkeit said:

I thougt i read that the new Eurotronic Spirit Z-Wave Plus maybe have the possibility for external sensor through parameter?!

 

I don't know much about Spirit... But I had a quick look at the manual and it offers this explanation.

 

Parameter 8, "Measured Temperature offset", set to 0x80 External temperature sensor will be used for regulation.

 

I guess you have to go to the association settings of your temperature sensing device, then add the Spirit to the correct group.

 

I see an issue with this... I might be wrong because I cannot test this but better safe than sorry... Not every sensor can do that! For instance, in the manual of the "Fibaro D/W 2 sensor":

 

The Door/Window Sensor 2 provides the association of three groups:

1st Association Group – “Lifeline” reports the device status and allows for assigning single device only (main controller by default).

2nd Association Group – “On/Off” is assigned to the device status - contact sensor (sends Basic Set command frames).

3rd Association Group – “Tamper” is assigned to the TMP switch (sends alarm command frames).

 

So it should be in group 1 but this cannot be done because it only accepts one target (the controller). Maybe you can report to the Spirit, but then it no longer reports to the controller.

 

So what I want to say... better get some confirmation before you buy.

 

I will edit my post with this information

[Meinewenigkeit 1]

2 hours ago, petergebruers said:

The sensor is dedicated, it only works with FGT-001 and the FGT-001 currently has firmware issues. I agree with the bad measurement of internal sensors, you might be interested in this topic

 

I read about the problems with the currently firmware. Thats the reason why i wait and of course the delivery difficulties. I following your external sensor thread. Very interesting. Good work by the way.

 

I see the whole heating stuff is more complicated than i thought.

 

2 hours ago, petergebruers said:

Parameter 8, "Measured Temperature offset", set to 0x80 External temperature sensor will be used for regulation.

 

Yeah, thats what i mean. I didn't own Eurotronic Spirit Z-Wave Plus, so i don't know more information. For me and me money is it the best way to wait for Fibaro firmware update i think. So maybe next heating period.

 

Martin

Edited February 6, 2018 by Meinewenigkeit

[pjvik 3]

When you link the devices you select one of the Netatmo sensors as temperatur sensor og the switch or valve that have to be operated. I use Fibaro motion sensors av tenperatur sensor and an Fiber switch to turn on and off the heating. This works very well.

Off you also set up an Heating plan for the actual room.

Edited February 6, 2018 by pjvik

[petergebruers 1,261]

6 minutes ago, pjvik said:

When you link the devices you select one of the Netatmo sensors as temperatur sensor og the switch or valve that have to be operated.

 

Thank you for chiming in. Yes, I already said that it can be linked to a switch:

 

9 hours ago, petergebruers said:

Also for sake of completeness...You can turn a sensor and a switch (relay) into a basic thermostat using "linked device". It only works with a relay, not a thermostat.

 

But are you sure it can be linked to a "valve"? I doubt it, and he already said:

 

10 hours ago, Meinewenigkeit said:

But my devolo danfoss thermostat ignore netatmo

 

[pjvik 3]

I do not have any valves so I cannot test if the valves works.

I also see that ArveZH lives in Norway and have electrical heating, but he have electrical floor heating and that is a slow system.

Edited February 6, 2018 by pjvik

[petergebruers 1,261]

5 minutes ago, pjvik said:

I do not have any valves so I cannot test if the valves works.

I also see that ArveZH lives in Norway and have electrical heating, but he have electrical floor heating and that is a slow system.

Then I am 99 % sure, you cannot use a valve or any thermostat in "linked devices", only relays... That is what this topic is all about... Heatit is indeed for floor heating and it is a thermostat, not a relay... SO we are back where we started 

 

Edit: but thanks for trying anyway!

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by petergebruers

[ArveSH 0]

Thanks for all the contributions. It seems to me then that there is no simple (or indeed any) way of achieving what I am trying to do. This is also useful to know

 

Btw I noticed that in the HeatIt menu it is possible to choose between (built-in) Room sensor (default), and external sensor a.o. I assume that this refers to a HeatIt proprietary sensor, not a third party like Netatmo.