Whole house fan script

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  • Last Post 24 May 2018
jonnysax posted this 22 May 2018

ok, so I'm planning on buying one of those whole house fans (Quiet cool) and I wanted to make it "smart."  My plan is to wire it up to a z-wave switch, thats the easy part... Next I want to have a script or scene that compares two of my sensors (outdoor temp vs indoor temp) and will kick on the fan once the outdoor temp drops below the indoor temp.  I dont even know where to begin with this... anyone have something similar?

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weidnerj posted this 23 May 2018

You probably could do that with current scripting capabilities - as long as you are not wanting to compare two different temperatures and use common value as your starting point.  So I want to keep my house at 72 degrees, and it is 75 inside now and 65 outside, you could create a condition where inside is greater than 72 degrees and outside is less than 72 degrees to turn on the fan.  Eventually you would want the fan to turn off, say 68 degrees or your house will get too cold. 

jonnysax posted this 23 May 2018

see, this is why i ask... thats a much better idea than what i had.  maybe i can set several different time triggers to check the conditional temps and the status of the fan throughout the evening.  Anyone else have any other ideas on how to set this up?  I'm planning on also sending a notification out wen this runs to make sure to tell us ot open the windows if they arent already.  

rscott posted this 23 May 2018

If you haven't already, your first step is to get the indoor and out door temps into their own "devices." To do this, you click the blue icon next to the "reading" that shows up for a given device; for example, if you have a motion sensor that also tells the temp, you can create a device from the temp reading. Here's a little tutorial that describes how this works. Install the weather plugin so you can do the same thing with the outside temp.

Weirdnerj has a good solution to limiting the run based on the temps. What other ideas do you want to solve that we can help with?

 

jonnysax posted this 24 May 2018

hi Ryan, Yes i think running based on temps is a great idea, I feel the only way to improve it would be gaining the ability in a scene to set a condition comparing two device states... is that a possibility?  heres how I feel this would look:

Devices:  Whole hose fan - on

Triggers: Time trigger 8:00pm

Conditions: Whole house fan - off, indoor temp > outdoor temp (I already have these set up as you suggested, an outdoor motion and an indoor one both as their own "devices")

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