smart thermostats & remote access

[David L]

Just keep in mind that just like CCTV cameras, you really don't want to give your thermostat access to the internet or expose it to remote access from the internet by port forwarding. This is another use case for a self-hosted VPN. If you can use a mobile device to control the thermostat while on your local network, a VPN will allow you to control it remotely as well. This means a cloud service or subscription is not needed or really wanted.

This is actually what I want. I have All of our IoT devices, including the thermostat on their own VLAN, this helps protect my Private network. I have a local VPN server which I access our devices remotely through via HA, BUT here is my concern:

Call this next statement crazy, paranoia, conspiracy or what ever but with all of this Climate Change insanity/nonsense push I do not want to be controlled. I know most of us are on Smart Electric meters (Grid), which also can be controlled, but I just don't want to end up being punished because of our thermostat setting.

A utility company locked thousands of customers out of their smart thermostats in Colorado

An epic heatwave is suffocating the western US.

www.theverge.com

Maybe the above is just my ignorance but I will sleep better at night knowing I have not freely given access to the companies who made the devices of which I own through the Internet, having the Thermostat connected via Z-Wave sounds good to me.

 

[jec6613]

I have to remember that I'm an oddball. I use RS-485 controlled thermostats from RCS that is tied into my larger home automation system. It's not not Crestron, but it's not Google Home either.

Of course I've been using this system for well over a decade too. RSC doesn't even make those thermostats anymore as they have moved on to Z Wave, Zigbee and Wi-Fi controls.

Not oddball, just old school. I use a lot of RS-485 in my alarm panel as well - refuses to die.

 

[concord]

I bought the Z-Wave one below for around 80.00 USD about 4 years ago, been working fine with my Trane heat pump. Note that it is Z-Wave only (not Z-Wave+). If you don't have C wire (no 24v power), you can use batteries (but not both at same time).

I'm accessing it in HA and I use ZeroTier to get access and use HA app on my phone. Nice to be able to access when you are away. Forgot to set the thermostat down one time on vacation, was easy to use ZeroTier/Wireguard with HA app on phone and adjust.

https://www.amazon.com/GoControl-Thermostat-Z-Wave-Battery-Powered-Works/dp/B00ZIRV40K

Edit: Can get them on ebay instead, new and used...

GC-TBZ48 for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for GC-TBZ48 at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

 

[David L]

I bought the Z-Wave one below for around 80.00 USD about 4 years ago, been working fine with my Trane heat pump. Note that it is Z-Wave only (not Z-Wave+). If you don't have C wire (no 24v power), you can use batteries (but not both at same time).

I'm accessing it in HA and I use ZeroTier to get access and use HA app on my phone. Nice to be able to access when you are away. Forgot to set the thermostat down one time on vacation, was easy to use ZeroTier/Wireguard with HA app on phone and adjust.

https://www.amazon.com/GoControl-Thermostat-Z-Wave-Battery-Powered-Works/dp/B00ZIRV40K

Edit: Can get them on ebay instead, new and used...

GC-TBZ48 for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for GC-TBZ48 at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

Have you tried/used Assist?

Assist - Talking to Home Assistant

Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.

www.home-assistant.io

 

[concord]

Have you tried/used Assist?

No, haven't been keeping up with new stuff for HA, need to look into it. Even before HA, I was watching open source projects, like Mycroft and Jasper, with the idea to keep your conversations in-house and not going out to Apple or Amazon., or spied upon. Lost interest, due to slow development, but it looks like they are still around and the Mycroft device is real expensive.

Jasper | Control everything with your voice

jasperproject.github.io

Open Conversational AI Community

A Collaborative Forum for the Conversational AI Development Community

mycroft.ai

 

[Mike A.]

It was cool to see the Alexa stuff when it first came out and how easy that made things vs the older hacked ways of doing voice control that were around before. But I discovered long ago that I don't really like talking to my house to control things. Useful I suppose in some cases because you don't need to pull out a device or touch anything else but I don't really want to be doing much active control as far as home automation goes other than to handle exceptions. Ideally, it should all just kind of work behind the scenes with schedules and sensors without my intervention. I do use the Alexa devices to do announcements but I don't recall the last time that I asked it to do something.

 

[wittaj]

This is actually what I want. I have All of our IoT devices, including the thermostat on their own VLAN, this helps protect my Private network. I have a local VPN server which I access our devices remotely through via HA, BUT here is my concern:

Call this next statement crazy, paranoia, conspiracy or what ever but with all of this Climate Change insanity/nonsense push I do not want to be controlled. I know most of us are on Smart Electric meters (Grid), which also can be controlled, but I just don't want to end up being punished because of our thermostat setting.

A utility company locked thousands of customers out of their smart thermostats in Colorado

An epic heatwave is suffocating the western US.

www.theverge.com

Maybe the above is just my ignorance but I will sleep better at night knowing I have not freely given access to the companies who made the devices of which I own through the Internet, having the Thermostat connected via Z-Wave sounds good to me.

My utility company frequently sends me a one time offer of $25 to allow them the opportunity to install a smart thermostat and give them the ability to control it based on electric demand - no thank you. $25 isn't worth that. Now gimme free gas and electric and I may consider it LOL.

 

[David L]

My utility company frequently sends me a one time offer of $25 to allow them the opportunity to install a smart thermostat and give them the ability to control it based on electric demand - no thank you. $25 isn't worth that. Now gimme free gas and electric and I may consider it LOL.

We get those invites too. A big NO from me...

 

[tangent]

I want to install a smart thermostat that I can remotely access. Is there a way to leverage my camera network to do this?

What do other people do with their thermostats to provide convenience yet not compromise security?

Smart thermostats are going to talk to that particular manufacture's cloud service and provide things like cloud based integrations with alexa, google, home kit and easy remote control via an app. You are at their mercy, they could go out of business, close down that part of their business, or deploy a software update that changes the interface of your thermostat to something you hate or change who they sell your data to.

If that's not what you're looking for, then a thermostat with zwave or zigbee is probably your best bet. You'll just have to build out a home automation system to interface with it. One caution, some of these thermostat's have no schedule capability at all and assume your home automation system will handle everything. If you want to go this route, I'd probably go for the Honeywell T6 Z-Wave version.

 

[The Automation Guy]

It was cool to see the Alexa stuff when it first came out and how easy that made things vs the older hacked ways of doing voice control that were around before. But I discovered long ago that I don't really like talking to my house to control things. Useful I suppose in some cases because you don't need to pull out a device or touch anything else but I don't really want to be doing much active control as far as home automation goes other than to handle exceptions. Ideally, it should all just kind of work behind the scenes with schedules and sensors without my intervention. I do use the Alexa devices to do announcements but I don't recall the last time that I asked it to do something.

I agree that voice command is kind of a gimmick and I don't use it for most automation stuff. That being said, I am surprised at how often I use Alexa to control my lights. It is very handy to simply "speak" my wishes instead of having to get up and turn a light on/off (usually I'm turning them off), especially if I am in another room from the light switch.

 

[David L]

I agree that voice command is kind of a gimmick and I don't use it for most automation stuff. That being said, I am surprised at how often I use Alexa to control my lights. It is very handy to simply "speak" my wishes instead of having to get up and turn a light on/off (usually I'm turning them off), especially if I am in another room from the light switch.

Being in our new house almost two months now I have not set Home Assistant back up yet nor installed any WiFi and Z-Wave switches, plus some of these j-boxes are very shallow. Been busy still unpacking/rearranging things plus getting old house ready to put on the market.
Anyway, in our old house I had smart switches in almost all the rooms for lights and fans. Over time we got lazier and asked Google for light/fan On/Off/Dimming alot. Every night we asked Google to adjust our fan and turn off the bedroom light. Or we would say Good Night to run a Routine turning all lights out.

When we first got Google Home we were just using it to ask questions, get weather, scores, etc., just really playing around with it. Over time we bought more speakers during Christmas sales and filled our house with them. Our grandson asked Google to tell jokes, he played games, used the Broadcast to blast all speakers to annoy us

We are really not missing it.