Newbie with questions!

Posted on
Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:29 pm
petematheson offline
Posts: 847
Joined: Sep 14, 2014
Location: Southampton, UK

Re: Newbie with questions!

Only on the Z-Wave devices do I get the arrows to increase / decrease the set points.
Do you mean go into the plugin and change the Default On temperatures / AM / PM On Setpoints?

That's what I did (on your plugin ones) for those ones screens hotted, and the radiators started heating up - so sounds like it's doing the job.
I did also have to kick the NEST's temperature up a couple of degrees to get the boiler to fire up, so I can come up with a way of fixing that fairly easily. Something like if X device is requesting heat then set nest target temperature to +3 degrees or something.

Posted on
Sun Oct 25, 2015 2:02 pm
autolog offline
Posts: 3988
Joined: Sep 10, 2013
Location: West Sussex, UK [GMT aka UTC]

Re: Newbie with questions!

petematheson wrote:
Only on the Z-Wave devices do I get the arrows to increase / decrease the set points.

Yes that is correct and it is because this was the first Plugin I wrote and I couldn't get my head around how to make it a native Indigo thermostat device. Subsequently I have understood how to do this and so the next incarnation of this Plugin will create Thermostat devices.

petematheson wrote:
Do you mean go into the plugin and change the Default On temperatures / AM / PM On Setpoints?

No - you can use the Actions to do this e.g. :
StellaZ_Actions.png
StellaZ_Actions.png (171.45 KiB) Viewed 3744 times


petematheson wrote:
That's what I did (on your plugin ones) for those ones screens hotted, and the radiators started heating up - so sounds like it's doing the job.
I did also have to kick the NEST's temperature up a couple of degrees to get the boiler to fire up, so I can come up with a way of fixing that fairly easily. Something like if X device is requesting heat then set nest target temperature to +3 degrees or something.


You can control the Stella-Z Thermostat Controller using the actions above :)

Posted on
Sun Oct 25, 2015 2:05 pm
petematheson offline
Posts: 847
Joined: Sep 14, 2014
Location: Southampton, UK

Re: Newbie with questions!

Ah but then I have to go in and create actions for every controller :) Quickly getting out of control with my OCD! lol

Per StellaZ I have:
1 Z-Wave Device
1 StellaZ Device
1 Thermostat
2 Triggers

and that's before I start adding my own triggers and schedules etc.. I need to re-think my organisation / folder structure quickly!

Posted on
Sun Oct 25, 2015 2:22 pm
autolog offline
Posts: 3988
Joined: Sep 10, 2013
Location: West Sussex, UK [GMT aka UTC]

Re: Newbie with questions!

I have a Control Page to Summarise all the Stella-Zs and then a Control Page for each Stella-Z an example of which is:
StellaZ_CP.png
StellaZ_CP.png (102.39 KiB) Viewed 3732 times
In this example, I have clicked Boost and it has set the setpoint to two degrees above the current ambient. The Plugin has forced the setpoint of the Stella-Z to +7 deg C above the Setpoint so that it doesn't turn off before the Remote setpoint is reached (it might do because of the radiator temperature effect). The Boost is for 20 minutes.

Once you have set-up one Control Page, you can easily create another by having two Control pages open at the same time - the original and a new empty one - then select all items on the original and drag them to the new empty page - all elements of the original will be duplicated. You can then go through and change the elements to point to the next Stella-Z / thermostat controller you are setting up.

Hope this helps :)

Posted on
Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:40 pm
petematheson offline
Posts: 847
Joined: Sep 14, 2014
Location: Southampton, UK

Re: Newbie with questions!

Getting there with these StellaZ's, although my thoughts are changing to replacing my Nest with a pure z-wave one instead, but would also need to buy another lot of StellaZ TRV's to complete the house.

My current question - the reason I'm looking at these StellaZ's is to heat just the rooms that we're using.
My study for example, it hardly ever used. But when I use it - I'd like an easy way to flick on the heating in that room.

Currently I'm having to log onto Indigo, edit the controllers for the 2 living room rad's and switch the schedule off (because I'm no longer using the living room) then go and switch the schedule on for the study.

Is there a better way of doing this / controlling this? Something I can do from the Indigo mobile client or via action groups perhaps?

Posted on
Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:06 am
howartp offline
Posts: 4559
Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Newbie with questions!

I'd have a control page for heating, with buttons representing each room.

I use a blue and red radiator image - blue is off, red is on - for my boiler. (Not individual radiators yet)

You've two options - if you want to toggle heating in a room, you'd be better with an action such as 'Toggle Lounge Heating' with a small script in: If (radiators are on) then (turn them off) otherwise (turn them on). This means one button per room that toggles on/off.

If you prefer GUI actions only (ie no script) then you need actions for on and off, and you need two buttons per room.

OR a third action that runs both actions simultaneously, but with conditions on each so only one runs.

(OR, you could disable the 'on' action when radiators become on, and vice-versa, so you don't need conditions - depends how far you want to go!)


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Posted on
Sat Nov 07, 2015 6:26 am
autolog offline
Posts: 3988
Joined: Sep 10, 2013
Location: West Sussex, UK [GMT aka UTC]

Re: Newbie with questions!

petematheson wrote:
... Is there a better way of doing this / controlling this? Something I can do from the Indigo mobile client or via action groups perhaps?
HI Pete,
If you look at the image from this earlier post, you will see that you can do exactly this.

It probably isn't clear from the image but tapping Advance, Extend, Boost or the '+' or '-' will invoke Plugin actions.

The Plugin provides a number of actions (see Usage Section in the the documentation) that allow you to manually control the Stella-Zs.

So for example, you can:
  • Turn off/On/Toggle a thermostat (uses the Default 'ON' Temp
  • Advance to next schedule (either start or end)
  • Boost a thermostat - I find this incredibly useful if I just want a bit of heat in the room for a short period of time just to take the chill off - it results in a lot of energy saving in my experience.
  • You can also temporarily extend a schedule

So in your example you could just advance the schedule for the living room (which would turn it off, if on) and advance the schedule for the study (which would turn it on, if off). This could just be setup in a control page (as I illustrated in the earlier post). You could setup actions in your Control Page to control multiple thermostats at the same time.

Let me know if you want any further help or clarification :)

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