Line Voltage Electric Heater Thermostat Option?

My house has oil forced air heat and central air, and has 5 zones of line voltage electric baseboard heaters (each of 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and 1 living room). I searched for a while to see if there's a solution for this z-wave enabled but didn't come across anything. I'm going to be using a Honeywell (most likely) thermostat for the forced air setup but looking to also include the electric baseboard in the scheme.

The reason I'd like to do this is because at night I'd like to take the forced air to the low 60's and only have 2 of the bedrooms at normal temperature. The forced air is a single zone throughout the house which includes about 2500 square ft. total and only two bedrooms really need to be at heated temp. I thought about simply putting an on/off module in place of the thermostat and use a multi sensor, but then if I wanted to use the temp buttons on the thermostat to change it temporarily I wouldn't have that access.

[jay (support)]

[MODERATOR NOTE] Moved to a more appropriate forum since it's not a question about a specific device.

I wonder if you could use one of the Everspring sensors, which also has set points on them. Then associate them with a micro module (or switch) so that it sends on/off directly to the module when setpoint boundaries are crossed. You might even be able to set an association with the Z-Stick so that Indigo would get the on/off alert and could do something else. Maybe someone has one of these and can comment more.

That seems like an option, but only if the set points read through indigo as a "thermostat" so to speak and not just an on/off type device. If it allows the set points to be adjusted via indigo as well as manually overridden I could see that working fine with an on/off module.

[jay (support)]

Not really - if the device is associated directly with the module that's actually controlling the heater, then Indigo doesn't need to know about the set points (though that would be a plus). Z-Wave associations are somewhat like INSTEON links - it allows one device to talk directly to another without having to go through a central controller.

So, here's what I envision would happen:

1. User associates the Everspring's setpoints to some Z-Wave on/off device (don't know how to do this since it's a device specific process, but it should be in the Everspring's manual)
2. User adjusts the set points on the Everspring
3. Temp crosses the threshold
4. Everspring tells the on/off device to turn on (or off)
5. Device reports it's state change to Indigo (just for completeness - Indigo will know the state of the on/off device thus the state of the heater)

So, in this scenario, you don't really need Indigo to know the set points since that's handled directly between the Everspring and the on/off device. This would also allow you to directly control the device from Indigo. The problem, of course, is that the set points would be working independently of Indigo so there might be some odd syncing issues between when you want Indigo to control and when you want the Everspring to control. I think you'd use Indigo only as an override to the Everspring, not the other way around.

Actually, you summed up what I was saying just a different way. But the override via indigo vs. my original intent of having the control override indigo is probably perfectly fine, I can't really see a downfall to that. Once I get my network up and running with my initial devices (I'm a new indigo owner) i'll definitely be giving this a shot.

[jay (support)]

Keep us posted - I've never actually heard of anyone using those Eversprings in that way so I'd be interested in your feedback.