MCOHome MH4 Thermostat

I also submitted through the web interface, but thought I would also post here:

I finally got my MCOHome MH4 electric heat thermostat. A couple of the basics are working, but there are also a couple of important functions that don't:

Working:

• I can change the heating setpoint for whichever heating mode is currently in effect.
• I can change between heating mode and off mode.

Not working:

• I can't change to energy saving mode, vacation mode, or schedule mode.
• If I manually change from heating mode to energy saving or vacation mode at the thermostat, the UI still shows the heat setpoint for heating mode.

Also, the settings for cool mode and fan mode are all showing even though this thing obviously can't cool and doesn't have a fan.

I've got a copy of the manual on my personal website. Pages 8 and 9 are the key Z-wave pages.

BTW: If someone can tell me the raw Z-wave commands to send to this thing in the meanwhile to switch between the modes, I'd be greatly appreciative.

[jay (support)]

Our current Thermostat implementation doesn't support the features you're asking about (no cool, alternate modes which are vendor specific, etc). Removing cooling features from the current implementation of the class is on the request list. We do have a somewhat related feature request to support other modes, but those are actually quite difficult since there isn't a standard for modes beyond heat/cool/auto (not in the industry in general, and not as part of the Z-Wave spec).

Since the vendor has documented custom Z-Wave commands and parameters that can be used to control those features then it would be possible for someone to add actions specifically for this thermostat (but not likely us unless the thermostat gains a lot of traction from our user base).

Hi Jay. Thanks for the reply. Getting rid of the cooling mode stuff is in the "nice but not necessary" category for me. But as for setting the other modes...

Here's what's in the manual:

Note: Basic CC is used to control energy saving mode and comfort mode:

• Basic Set (Value = 0x00) = Set Energy Saving Mode
• Basic Set (Value = 0xFF) = Set Comfort Mode
• Basic Get = Get Report
• Basic Report (Value = 0x00) = Report Energy Saving Mode
• Basic Report (Value = 0xFF) = Report Comfort Mode The other values besides the two above will be ignored.

Note:
This device supports 4 kinds of modes in Z-Wave: Off mode; Heating mode (Manual); Energy Saving heating mode (Auto) ; Away heating mode (Vacation).
Users can set these 4 modes via COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_MODE. And COMMAND_CLASS_BASIC can switch among Heating mode & Energy saving heating mode.
COMMAND_CLASS_THERMOSTAT_SETPOINT can be used to set the heating temperature threshold value in Heating mode or Energy saving heating mode.

Does this give you enough info to help me figure out what to send in a "Modify Configuration Parameter" or "Send Raw Z-Wave Command" so I can at least set these in an Action?

As for getting an industry standard: The folks at MCOHome have been very helpful by email. I'm pretty sure they'd work with you to get their products to use particular commands. Glad to send you a PM with my contact information.

[jay (support)]

I'll ask Matt to jump in on sending the raw Z-Wave stuff as that's not my forte.

As for getting an industry standard: The folks at MCOHome have been very helpful by email. I'm pretty sure they'd work with you to get their products to use particular commands. Glad to send you a PM with my contact information.

Getting the info isn't the issue: the problem is all the places throughout Indigo (Mac UI, server, IWS, REST API, Indigo Touch, etc) that need to be touched to add that functionality in is significant. And being as there is no standard in the industry (those features are very specific to vendors), it's just not worth the effort required.

[matt (support)]

Below are the 3 hex bytes you can use for sending raw commands to change to auxiliary heat and away:

0x40 0x01 0x04 (auxiliary heat)
0x40 0x01 0x0D (away)

Below are the 3 hex bytes you can use for sending raw commands to change to auxiliary heat and away:

0x40 0x01 0x04 (auxiliary heat)
0x40 0x01 0x0D (away)

Excellent! (I was going to say "cool", but that seemed a bit punny.) Thanks.

One correction: Auxiliary heat mode is 11 (0x0B), not 4.

Now, if you could get Indigo to suppress the log messages for the temperature update when the temperature hasn't changed, life would be happy.