Trane Thermostat - Selecting Energy Saving Mode

Other Devices & Integrations Climate Control & Temperature Sensors
1

I just installed a new Trane thermostat, and it works great. Pairing it up with Vera also went without a hitch, and I see the basics in the device control panel - off, heat, cool, auto, setback adustment, etc. What I don’t see is the ability to switch between the standard “run” schedule and the Energy Saving Mode schedule. I would prefer to utilize this feature as this is in my weekend home, and I don’t want the HVAC shut down completely when I’m gone, but I obviously want the setbacks different. I was hoping to use Vera to simply switch from ESM to normal mode remotely before I head down to the house.

I believe at some point I saw some reference to this feature somewhere in this forum, but I cannot remember when/where, and my search didn’t surface anything obvious.

So first question, does Vera support this feature in the Trane thermostat? If so, second question, how do I enable it through Vera?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

2

I found a few close matches by searching the Forum with these three keywords:
energy saving thermostat

However, among those discussions, I felt the closest match is:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1650.0

Something tells me I once read that Vera (more likely the currently available Z-Wave thermostats themselves) will not allow the “Energy Saving” mode to be activated or de-activated remotely … only physically at the thermostat panel. Who knows why, but if I had to aver a guess, it would be, “So that users will not return to their vacation homes to discover the A/C had ‘accidentally’ been running the entire time.”

Like most others, I don’t foresee pressing the “Energy Saving” button – which, let’s be honest, used to be called simply “HOLD” on traditional thermostats – very often, but when I do, it will be somewhat of a comfort knowing that even Vera can’t ‘accidentally’ seize control of the settings. :slight_smile:

I realize this isn’t exactly the answer you were looking for, nor can I assure you that I’m 100% right about the ESM-vs-Vera functionality … I just am summarizing what I’d read earlier throughout similar Forum discussions.

Let us all know if you discover otherwise.

3

With the Trane, it should be possible because it supports the COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION for direct read/write to the thermostat configuration memory.

[url=http://www.homeseer.com/pdfs/TZ43.pdf]Support Home Page | HomeSeer

4

Schlage does not even support that feature in their application.

5

As per my other post, I am finding out whether or not I am allowed to post all of the things you can do via Z-Wave on the Trane/RCS stat.

[url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1730.msg6293#msg6293]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1730.msg6293#msg6293[/url]

6

So another question regarding this thermostat…I want to setup an event to alert me if/when one of the setpoints is reached. It seems pretty intuitive adding this event to a scene, by selecting “When HEAT setpoint is reached”. But then I’m presented with a “degrees” box. If you’re requesting an alert for when the thermostat temperature reaches your setpoint, why would you need to put the degrees in there as well? I tried just setting up an alert when a specific temperature is reached, but I’m getting alerts everytime the thermostat is polled, even when that temperature has not been reached (unless I’m interpreting the < & > operators backwards).

I have once again tried to search the Wiki for information on this particular setting with no luck.

7

Slackner, I’m pretty certain someone else questioned whether the “Notify when setpoint reached” feature even works. A couple of us experimented with similar (poor or unclear) results as yours.

Not that MCV has chimed in yet to explain everything or point out a potential bug, but no matter what … this is clearly a “It ain’t doing what I THINK it should do” situation. Happened to me while testing the “Setpoint” event trigger with my Wayne-Dalton WDTC-20 thermostat last week.

8

Here is the post with all of the Schlage (Trane) features:

[url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1801.0]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1801.0[/url]

9

I’m still a little stuck as to the best and easiest way to use my Trane thermostat with Vera. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the thermostat allows me to toggle between “Energy Saving Mode” and normal “Run” mode schedules. Ideally, I’d be able to remotely switch between these two using Vera, but Vera only allows me to adjust setpoints and to turn the thermostat and/or fan on or off (or to Auto). Apparently there are some command codes that will allow this, but I still haven’t been able to find anything out about these. So, in the absence of this desired functionality, I have a question about my work-around.

At present, I leave my weekend home and put the thermostat into Energy Saving Mode. Before I go back to the house, I simply adjust the setpoint through Vera to ensure the A/C is turned on when I arrive, and then when I do arrive, I simply switch the thermostat into its normal “Run” schedule while I’m there. What I’d like to do, in situations where friends/family use my home, to avoid having to explain how to use the thermostat, is to control it all through Vera. So, if I leave the thermostat in its normal “Run” mode schedule, and I use Vera to change a setpoint, will it…

a) put the thermostat essentially into “Hold” mode at that setpoint? -or-
b) temporarily change the setpoint until the next schedule event in the thermostat program, and then simply revert back to its normal “Run” program?

And if the answer is a), can I bump the thermostat back into its normal “Run” mode/schedule if I use Vera to turn it off completely, and then turn it back on to “Auto?”

Hopefully what I’m trying to accomplish makes sense. I basically want to leverage the standard thermostat program features during normal operation (when I’m at the house), and only use Vera to change the setpoints when I leave (and hold them there), but be able to revert back to normal program mode remotely again.

As mentioned above, all this could ideally be solved with a Vera command to toggle between “Run” and “ESM”, so if anyone actually knows how to do that, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks!

10

Citing no particular claim by the mfr. or other source, I’m going to go out on a limb and assert that “ESM” (Energy Saving Mode) in the case of the Wayne-Dalton WDTC-20, and possibly other new-fangled thermostats, is IDENTICAL to the old “HOLD” button.

In short, I think your quest for Vera to switch between “Run” and “ESM” may be a bit misguided (pardon me if I’m wrong…).

That is, currently, it’s a piece of cake to have Vera set any “Setpoint” you wish, and the thermostat will remain there. That’s how I use mine, and Vera enforces “energy savings” by placing the COOL setpoint at 82 throughout the day, during which the system rarely runs. I believe, if you read the documentation for your thermostat, that you’ll find the “ESM” button does nothing more than this, with the added “convenience” (?) of having two pre-set “Setpoints” – one for COOL and one for HEAT – which they deemed appropriate.

I hope this makes sense.

11

“ESM” just may have an additional effect if it’s implementing anything like the safeguard I believe all “OFF” modes afford a thermostat … namely, “Don’t listen to Z-Wave” (for safety’s sake). But I’d be guessing if I said that’s the case … Vera doesn’t offer me “OFF” … just “ON”.

So I’ll be interested to hear a definitive answer from an expert like ZMistro. Meanwhile, I may test my WDTC-20 to find out whether Vera can force it “ON” from a manual “OFF”.

UPDATE: Perhaps unlike your Trane, my W-D does not have an “OFF” mode. And its “ESM” equivalent (button) is called “Save Energy”.

12

I"m almost (although not completely) certain that I tested this when I was last at the house. I switched the Run mode to off at the thermostat, mostly to see if Vera would register the change, and she did. Then I used Vera to switch it back to Auto. In that case, it went back to the mode it was in when I switched off, namely the normal “Run” schedule.

13

Im just happy that my RCS TZ-43 Stat works properly now :slight_smile: It wouldnt do the slightest for months… I am sure MCV will add all of the features in due time.

What exactly does the ESM or Save Energy mode do anyway? I just have a scene to shut my A/C off when I am at work.

14

ESM is just really another version of hold that doesn’t actually require you to change the setpoint, and then put it into hold mode. The reason I prefer to use this mode, instead of just shutting down the thermostat completely, is that my weekend house is in the desert, and I prefer that the house not get too hot when I’m not there, so I set the A/C at 88. There are days when it gets hotter than that inside, and that’s just generally not good for furniture, art, etc.

15

Just wanted to point out that if you’re particularly adventurous and technically inclined, and know about the z-wave commands, you can always attach Luup code directly to a scene to send any z-wave commands to any device, with low-level access to the Serial API, to do anything really.

16

[quote=“B0SST0N, post:13, topic:164764”]Im just happy that my RCS TZ-43 Stat works properly now :slight_smile: It wouldnt do the slightest for months… I am sure MCV will add all of the features in due time.

What exactly does the ESM or Save Energy mode do anyway? I just have a scene to shut my A/C off when I am at work.[/quote]

Basically, as explained in the Trane TZEMT400AB32 manual anyway, and my understanding, ESM mode are setpoints that stay constant, not affected by daily scheduling. It overrides the scheduling feature and keeps one set of setpoints for heating, and one for cooling.
A child process of another batch of setpoints that don’t change, if you will. :slight_smile:

17

Yes, exactly as Sandman XX states, which is why I like to use ESM because I do have the scheduling in the thermostat itself enabled for normal operation when I’m at home.

I raised a question earlier that I don’t believe has been answered yet (forgive me if it has, but I couldn’t find it in the thread anywhere)…

Disregarding ESM for a moment, assuming my thermostat is in normal “RUN” mode and operating under a schedule set at the thermostat itself (i.e. at 8am 78 degrees, at 10am, 80, 6pm back to 78, 11pm 75), if I send a command through Vera to change the cooling setpoint at anytime during the day, will it put the thermostat into HOLD mode at that setpoint? Or will it only effect that change until the next schedule change on the thermostat occurs, at which time the scheduled temperature will take effect and override the setpoint I previously set with Vera?

18

does your tz43 respond to polls? when i look in the log it’s full of this:

09/14/09 23:04:26.122 17 pollnode_sms2 #2node 2 5 cmds 09-09-14 23:04:11 09-09-14 23:04:11 09-09-14 23:04:26 14.552740000 14.544737000 Failed Node never responded 2 3 ZWaveThermostat

as a result the gui only updates with temperature when a comand is sent or the node is configured.

19

[quote=“slackner, post:17, topic:164764”]Yes, exactly as Sandman XX states, which is why I like to use ESM because I do have the scheduling in the thermostat itself enabled for normal operation when I’m at home.

I raised a question earlier that I don’t believe has been answered yet (forgive me if it has, but I couldn’t find it in the thread anywhere)…

Disregarding ESM for a moment, assuming my thermostat is in normal “RUN” mode and operating under a schedule set at the thermostat itself (i.e. at 8am 78 degrees, at 10am, 80, 6pm back to 78, 11pm 75), if I send a command through Vera to change the cooling setpoint at anytime during the day, will it put the thermostat into HOLD mode at that setpoint? Or will it only effect that change until the next schedule change on the thermostat occurs, at which time the scheduled temperature will take effect and override the setpoint I previously set with Vera?[/quote]

With most stats, the internal schedule will override whatever the set point is unless you put it in Hold mode.