Air condition control via ZXT-120

Hi,
I just got a ZXT-120 to control my Samsung Air Conditioner, and I got it to work with Indigo. However I can only see 4 modes: Off, Heat on, Cold on and Auto Heat/Cold, my unit has two more modes Dry and Fan. My unit also allow to set fans speed (3 levels) witch I can not seem to control with Indigo.

Is it possible to get this to work?

Best Regards
Jacob

[jay (support)]

The standard thermostat device type in Indigo doesn't support custom modes. We've seen a few with extra fan speeds but to my knowledge none that support the additional modes. Not sure what Fan mode is, but if you set the HVAC mode to off but the Fan mode to always on, that might accomplish the same thing.

I've been looking at this device on and off for a while, but not taken the plunge yet. It's a while since I read into the technical side of it.

My AirCon (UK) has heat, cool, fan ( which simply blows the air without heating or cooling) and dehumidify/dry. And 3 fan speeds.

It's not going to be easy to create a generic device definition or plugin for this model, because everyone's AirCon's will take different parameter values.

The values you need to send are a combined string for all settings.

In plainenglish, this might look like:

OnHeat22Slow or
OnCool15Fast

But it's IR codes, not plain English!


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Apologies, ignore most of what I've just said!

Ive just read the manual to refresh my memory; it is very well written with the necessary command classes, command sets and values for each mode and setting.

It also has a built in IR code library which I had forgotten about; therefore creating an extension of the thermostat device should be very simple.


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Lindehoff - is your device detected as a ZXT-120?

I just noticed here (viewtopic.php?t=11234) that the ZXT is already a supported device. I don't know what features are in it though.


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Lindehoff - is your device detected as a ZXT-120?

I just noticed here (viewtopic.php?t=11234) that the ZXT is already a supported device. I don't know what features are in it though.


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Yes Indigo detect it as a ZXT-120 and the "HVAC mode to off and the Fan mode to always on"-trick seems to work to get the FAN mode. Now I'm only missing Fan speed.

Hi,

is it possible to control:

- temperature
- fan speed
- working mode (aircond-de-humification)

Thanks
Marco

Hi,

is it possible to control:

- temperature
- fan speed
- working mode (aircond-de-humification)

Thanks
Marco

For me, the answer has been yes and no, depending upon whether I use one of the ZXt-120's built-in IR libraries or program the IR codes, manually, and play with the codes taught to the ZXT-120.

Using ZXT-120's built in library, Indigo allows(1) changing heat/cool set points, (2)selecting heat/cool/autoheatcool mode, and (3) fan auto-on/always-on. So there's no fan speed setting or dehumidification mode (maybe other libraries offer different options in Indigo, though?) Also, since my Frigidarie Breeze isn't listed in the library, I'm using another unit's codes, which switches my unit from fahrenheit to celsius in Indigo and on the wall unit's display. Then in your Indigo control page, users could touch an icon that says "Fan only, High" and Indigo would tell the ZXT to set the unit to 28 degrees in heating mode, but the ZXT-120 would actually send the learned codes from your remote, which were se to Fan only high. Since we don't use the extreme temperature settings of our ductless hvac that the ZXT controls, this hack would work fine. If we ever need the extreme settings, we could just use the actual remote.



Manual IR programming of the ZXT-120 is described in its manual, but allows for some simple hacking for limited control of more of those unit states. In IR learning mode, the user programs 20 different sets of IR codes from the remote corresponding to one set of commands for 19 degrees through 28 degrees celsius for heat and for cool (10 each), but you wouldn't have to use those to correspond to the actual heating and cooling states. For example, unless you love making the room really hot on cold days, you might set the parameters for Heat 26, Heat 27, and heat 28 to not heat but just send fan(only) low, med, and high commands. Similarly, use the extreme lows of cool 19 and 20 for dehumidification and some other state...

Thanks a lot for the answer.
I will give it a try

I've just replaced a ZXT-120 that failed (after many years flawless operation), and while configuring the replacement have once again come across the lack of Indigo support for fan-mode and dry-mode (these are standard modes of any aircon unit i've come across in Australia/Asia - but judging by some comments above perhaps typical US aircon units are different).

Its annoying because it means the traditional remote needs to hang around.

I note the work-around above (hijacking a couple of lesser-used temperature settings could achieve this at the expense of the native Indigo controls generating confusing results) but before heading in that direction I'm wondering if anyone has stumbled across the raw z-wave for these two commands?

I’d like to refresh myself on the Zwave command class around this device and see what I come up with; 5 years ago I didn’t know half as much Zwave as I do now.


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cool, thanks!
I see there's plenty on other HA forums regarding plugins for other usual platforms, ...but so far I haven't stumbled across the codes however.

I'm now trying to figure out the most efficient way to limit the selectable temperature ranges for the control page thermostat representng a ZXT-120. Will be necessary if I need to hijack temperature settings for other functions as discussed above, but regardless an aircon unit has a finite range of heat and cool set points which isn't reflected in the indigo ui.

Obviously can be achieved with. a lot variables and triggers....but this must be a common issue?

this (ancient) reference to a plugin purports to enforce temperature ranges. curious if there's a live version?

https://schollnick.wordpress.com/home-automation/indigo-v5-plugins/indigo-thermostat-add-on/

That plugin, although Insteon not Zwave, likely provides its own up/down buttons.

It can intercept an Up button press when it knows it’s at defined limit, and not send the actual Insteon command.


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