There’s a few threads out there regarding efforts to reverse engineer the Carrier Infinity thermostats, which are used for some of the higher-end offerings.
That said, it appears as though Carrier is jumping in to the marketplace to compete with Nest, et. al.
The details are scant, but it appears as though this new thermostat could be used on the more sophisticated Carrier furnace/AC/heat pump setups. I am personally looking for confirmation on this as I’m considering the Infinity line as an HVAC replacement for my home.
Anyway, a somewhat overlooked detail to all of this is that Carrier appears to have teamed up with Ecobee on the product:
That’s fairly intriguing since the Ecobee API is well documented - ecobee API - so perhaps a plug-in could be used to interface with these more sophisticated HVAC setups.
The product has not yet been released, but if I get more info from the Carrier dealers that I’m working with to get bids on my project, I’ll follow up and post them.
If Carrier re-labels the ecobee3 in this new relationship (or a new package for essentially the same device), it may be that the existing Ecobee plugin I write some time back can be used directly, or with minor changes, depending on what they come up with. Please let us know what you learn!
[quote=“watou, post:2, topic:186050”]If Carrier re-labels the ecobee3 in this new relationship (or a new package for essentially the same device), it may be that the existing Ecobee plugin I write some time back can be used directly, or with minor changes, depending on what they come up with. Please let us know what you learn!
Regards,
watou[/quote]
Hi
I was hoping to hear the answer on whether your plug in would work or not. Has anyone tried it yet?
If Carrier cloned the cloud service infrastructure (i.e., duplicated the whole server infrastructure so it’s not at ecobee.com), then the plugin won’t work. But if it all homes back to the ecobee.com infrastructure and is API-enabled like all the Ecobee-labeled thermostats, it ought to work. I have no way to know or test, but would love to hear if anyone does!
watou
P.S. I also see their older Wi-fi thermostat looks identical to the Ecobee SmartSi, which could also potentially use the same API. The question is whether Carrier offers the Ecobee API against their branded versions. From a lot of the screenshots, it looks like a private-label repackaging of Ecobee.
Both the installation and service manuals for this new thermostat are available on the web.
Carrier’s “Infinity Touch” and “Cor” thermostats are designed for different markets. The “Inifinity Touch” thermostat is specifically designed for use with Carrier’s higher-end Infinity line of heating and cooling equipment over a 4-wire bus, allowing for close integration of the operation all the equipment including the ability of the thermostat to read trouble codes from the equipment. If you have or plan to own a Carrier Infinity furnace or A/C unit, the “Infinity Touch” is the model you should buy. On the other hand, the “Cor” is designed as a more universal thermostat using conventional thermostat wiring and seems to be designed for use with Carrier’s lower-end equipment models (like its “Performance” series). Since it uses a conventional thermostat wiring scheme the “Cor” can also be used with most furnace and A/C equipment from other manufacturers. While the “Cor” will work with Carrier’s “Infinity” furnaces (as will any other conventional thermostat for that matter) Carrier likely wouldn’t recommend you do so. My guess is that even though Carrier outsourced the design of the “Cor” to Ecobee, since the “Cor” is designed to be remotely accessible via Carrier’s own web portal it is not likely to be API compatible with Ecobee’s own brand of thermostat models. Since “Cor” is functionally not much different than any of the other remotely accessible thermostats on the market, if having an open API is required then you might as well look at another product.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year trying to figure out how one would get a home automation system to talk to Carrier’s Infinity equipment. What I have found out is that Carrier does sell a “system access module” (SAM) which communicates over the same 4-wire bus as their Infinity thermostats. The current SAM model is designed to be compatible with the current “Infinity Touch” thermostats, and is the product Carrier sells specifically for the purpose of allowing home automation systems to talk to their Infinity heating and cooling equipment. The good news is that the full specs for serial communication with the SAM are available to the public, the bad news is that the SAM costs over $800. I think Carrier figures that if you can afford a high end turnkey home automation system (like Control4) the cost of the SAM is not significant.
Yeah, for the moment, it appears as though using the Cor thermostat is a non-starter for what I’m trying to achieve energy-wise, e.g. going with the Infinity Greenspeed units that rely on the “Infinity Touch” functions for system control.
This seems like a reasonable concession, that is, to untie my HVAC from the rest of my Vera-based home automation. With the incredible variability in the heat pump to maintain more constant temperatures at almost unbelievably low energy use, I do not have to rely as much on home activities to trigger setbacks or consume heating/AC data for anything else in the house to be done. Contrasting that to my current use of the Nests, which control single-stage, single-fan-speed HVAC units, I’m essentially reverting from a single on/off approach to more of a “dimmer” effect on heating and cooling.
hmb, your comments were very insightful regarding the SAM. I think I’ll attempt to create a conversation with Carrier on this other than using my potential installer as the intermediary; they seem very unfamiliar with the technologies and ultimately dismissive of customer desires for home automation.
watou, you’ve done a lot of great work for this community, so I was subtly hoping to be able to experiment with the Cor - if only to see if it has an API to be tinkered with - to create another option for Vera users to enjoy more thermostat options. Perhaps someone else will make the jump to the Cor and those experiments can be done for a plugin to be used to communicate with it, but unfortunately I’m not going to be able to help with that in this case.
I have an Infinity Furnace and Performance AC unit, currenty running an Infinity wired thermostat. I was considering changing thermostat to a wifi Cor unit. I welcome your input.
Thanks
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