Indigo Domotics

Is there a simple way to monitor and report the temperature in a room (without a thermostat). I have an HVAC zone that includes multiple rooms. I would liek to be able to tell my thermostat on which room to base its on/off stat. For example, the thermostat is in the hall but it would be great if it could cool or heat based on the temperature in the kitchen at certain times of day only (when cooking, for example), Need to get report of Kitchen temperature to Indigo.

Unfortunately, no (at least not yet). It's a BIG device request to Smartlabs and we really hope there will be a solution soon. Search the forums - there are a bunch of different approaches (1-wire sensors, the THUM device, phidgets, etc.).

I use Oregon Scientific wireless temperature sensors. See this post for more information.
http://www.installationexperiences.com/ ... regon.html

loafbread wrote:

I use Oregon Scientific wireless temperature sensors. See this post for more information.
http://www.installationexperiences.com/ ... regon.html

requires it to be plugged in with usb cable

pgershon wrote:

Is there a simple way to monitor and report the temperature in a room (without a thermostat). I have an HVAC zone that includes multiple rooms. I would liek to be able to tell my thermostat on which room to base its on/off stat. For example, the thermostat is in the hall but it would be great if it could cool or heat based on the temperature in the kitchen at certain times of day only (when cooking, for example), Need to get report of Kitchen temperature to Indigo.

What thermostat do you have? If it is the Venstar or RCS, the manufacturers of those make remote sensors to work with their central thermostats.

pomprocker wrote:

requires it to be plugged in with usb cable

Only the RMS300 - the remotes (up to 3) are wireless.

pomprocker wrote:

If it is the Venstar or RCS, the manufacturers of those make remote sensors to work with their central thermostats.

Note that while the Venstar does support remote sensors, it averages the temps for the remotes and the temp local to the thermostat and that's what gets reported to Indigo via the INSTEON adaptor - so you can't currently get each temp separately. I believe the averaging is done in the thermostat itself vs in the INSTEON adaptor so I don't think there's anything that Smartlabs can do about it - but I could be wrong.

A Venstar T1900 can be configured to ignore the local sensor and use only the remote sensor for temperature control or it can be configured to average the local and remote sensor. The remote sensor is wired to the thermostat but fortunately it uses standard UTP like Category 5e.

loafbread wrote:

A Venstar T1900 can be configured to ignore the local sensor and use only the remote sensor for temperature control or it can be configured to average the local and remote sensor. The remote sensor is wired to the thermostat but fortunately it uses standard UTP like Category 5e.

Same with my RCS unit.

Any solutions for monitoring water temperature? I just put a 220 Insteon relay on my hot tub, but I'd love to have a temperature probe that I could keep in the water to let me know if it goes under N degrees...

There's a floating wireless temp sensor available for the WMR200 weather station.
Might be others out there as well....provided you have a weather station of course.

Carl

I've been using TempLincs with HCA on a PC to control ceiling fans around the house, but since moving to Indigo I have been upgrading to all Insteon devices (thanks Indigo, BTW, for costing me over $1000 ). After searching through the forums here for an alternative, no one in any thread mentions the I/O Linc High and Low Temperature Threshold Kit http://www.machomestore.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=217&osCsid=3nu13k5o2sff999k4brejqk053 which seems to do what I need. Am I mistaken?

If you only care about crossing pre-set high and/or low thresholds, then yes that kit is perfect for you. Most people who want to do temperature monitoring actually want the temperature reported into Indigo (so you can do more complex logic), which that kit doesn't do.

There may be a new INSTEON device later this year that will do wireless temperature monitoring that will actually report the temp. I really wish Smartlabs would include temp monitoring in their other wireless sensors (Motion Sensor, TriggerLinc) - that's what the Z-Wave crowd seems to be doing.

Jay, why did the TempLinc become discontinued do you think? It seemed like a perfect solution.

ryanbuckner wrote:

Jay, why did the TempLinc become discontinued do you think? It seemed like a perfect solution.

Smarthome would have to answer that question. But right now our recommended solution for monitoring temperatures (and humidity) in multiple locations wirelessly is the the RFXrec433 and Oregon Scientific temperature sensors.

I know Norm will have the RFXrec433 in stock soon, and I know he just got a shipment of temperature sensors in but I'm not sure he has them listed on the site yet. I imagine you could order them though if you emailed him.