Home and Away modes

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
#1

I am sure that there is a very obvious answer to this question. But, I can’t seem to figure it out from the scheduling.

I want to create a HOME scene, which say has the A/C set for 72 degrees during the day and 70 at night. I would further like an AWAY scene that keeps the temperature at 80 degrees – until I manually set it to HOME.

My problem is that if I schedule the thermostat to go to 70 degrees at night, it will do it regardless as to whether the scene before was HOME or AWAY. So, I can set away – but as soon as night comes, the away setting is lost.

There must be a very simple solution, but I cannot find it.

Thank you.

#2

Install the VirtualSwitch plugin and name the device Away. You can use the switch to indicate when you are away.

If you add the following Luup to your scene trigger Luup event, it will prevent it from running when Away is on.

local dID = <id of your VirtualSwitch device> local away = luup.variable_get("urn:upnp-com:serviceId:VSwitch1","Status",dID) if away == "1" then return false else return true end

You can reverse the action by exchanging the return true and return false statements - so it would prevent the scene running if Away is off.

#3

I would also recommend that you check to see if your thermostat has an energy savings mode you can set. On mine, there is such a mode that you can program in the trigger points for heating and A/C to turn on.

I use this in conjunction with my alarm system, when the system is armed in away mode, the thermostat is set to energy savings mode. When I disarm the alarm (i.e, when returning home), the thermostat is restored to normal operation.

I managed to save about $60 on the energy bill (combined electric and gas, I have a gas furnace with A/C) this last month during a warm spell here in the US using this setup.

Considering that the thermostat I got (see my signature block below) normally costs ~$150 on Amazon, and I got it off ebay brand new (minus the mounting screws) for $90, it has almost paid for itself in one month.