Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

Posted on
Tue Jun 26, 2018 8:10 pm
mundmc offline
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Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

How did I just now stumble on this?

https://keenhome.io/pages/how-it-works

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These smart vents are battery operated and work with Ecobee and Nest.
Pro: My mother-in-law can stop confounding Ecobee by opening the windows in her room because she likes humid 80 degree weather, SOME OF THE TIME.
Con:
1) It requires a web-based API and a hub
2) I use Ecobee, and the plugin still is rough around the edges

Honestly though, $600 for 5 rooms covers the AC zone of my house with all of the bedrooms, and would pay for itself in one or two summers.

Posted on
Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:41 am
mundmc offline
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Re: Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

Possibly better? https://flair.co/products/vent

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Posted on
Fri Jun 29, 2018 11:46 am
mundmc offline
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Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

Well, after reading a small amount about HVAC systems, I am a little concerned these damage/ undermine the integrity of most AC systems. I’m still curious if anybody has tried.


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Last edited by mundmc on Fri Jun 29, 2018 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Fri Jun 29, 2018 2:00 pm
norcoscia offline
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Re: Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

I was one of the original kickstarter people for Keen - I have four of the vents and they have not been much fun.

For starters the engineers put a directional antenna in their bridge so you need to pick a direction and aim the bridge to reach the vent - so if you have more than one (like me) you need to have a few repeaters set up to keep all the vents in signal range (and I have a small single story house) . aka - a pile of more stuff to have plugged into outlets, look horrible, use more energy and still not work reliably.

Next problem - the vents are supposed to read temp (or they were supposed to) - they don't so you can't really figure out how to adjust them to do what you want.

Next problem - the vent covers stick up so far that it is very hard to vacuum over them - impossible really.

I just leave them open 100% so they don't do anything - they are supposed to not overpressure you system but who know if that works.

After reading your post I looked at what they were doing now and to be honest I was surprised they were still in business - I noticed they are now selling a temp puck so the system can finally do what it was supposed to do from the beginning - will it - who knows.

Worst HA system I have ever purchased - so bad I did not want to sell them to someone else on eBay because I would feel guilty.

_______
Norm

Posted on
Fri Jun 29, 2018 6:24 pm
mundmc offline
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Re: Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

Wow, thank you, and condolences. I thought it looked to good to be true. I wonder if there are other experiences, or with Flair.


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Posted on
Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:48 pm
gglockner offline
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Re: Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

I so need a smart vent system to link to Indigo. Some rooms like our guest room only need HVAC when occupied. And on the ground floor, we need heat in the winter but no A/C in the summer. I was hoping for Z-Wave vents but there are none. I'm thinking seriously about Flair, and it would be really simple to write the client API but I won't have time for a hobby project for about 6 months.

Posted on
Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:53 pm
mundmc offline
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Re: Keen smart vents, work with Ecobee

I, for one, am very interested. At present i use fan boosters on switchlinks.

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