Home Assistant Auto Config - only shows heat or off

[austwhite]

This is more a feature request I guess.
With Home Assistant, when the thermostat has the hardware mod, there is the option to show Heating or Idle when the device is on and Off when the device is off.
The current implementation only shows Heat and Off and does not indicate the idle time.

Would it be possible for this to be implemented? I do understand this may be tricky given the way the state attribute works in the firmware

I really appreciate the work you've done so far.

As a note, to do this in YAML manually, I had to use a script due to Klaus's firmware only using off and heating for the state. Below is the YAML I had to use to get idle status to show in Home Assistant.

action_topic: 'centralheat/stat/things/thermostat/properties'
action_template: >-
  {% if value_json.state == 'heating' %}
    heating
  {% elif value_json.mode == 'off' %}
    off
  {% else %}
    idle
  {% endif %}

[fashberg]

Hey @austwhite ,

hmm, i see one Problem: the "mode" is a read/write property. So you can set to auto, heat and off (or cooling modes on other models)

If you set mode to "auto" for example in hass then hass expects that reading this property it returns now "auto", not "idle". But "idle" is not a state which can be set by user.

In other words:

• state cannot be controlled by user
• mode cannot have state idle, because mode can be user-controlled

But, after some reading: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/climate.mqtt/

You are talking about action_topic - this is a read-only flag.
Then it makes sense.

So i will add another read-only property called "action" with values

• off
• idle (only with hardware-mode)
• heating
• cooling (only BAC)
• fan (only BAC)

Does this looks suitable?

Kind Regards
Folke

[austwhite]

@fashberg Yes I am referring to the action_topic and action_template.
I used the action_template I listed as it was the only way I could get the existing firmware to do it,

What you suggest could work very well with home assistant.
The other option, you are already using an attribute called "state" which is separate to mode,
This currently only switches between heating and off (if the hardware mod is done).
Would it be possible to make this state attribute multi-state so it can read heating/cooling/idle/off and save creating a new attribute?
I believe the state attribute is read only.

[austwhite]

Also, not sure how hard it would be to implement this. These thermostats also have "ecoMode" which could be classed as an "away" mode.

Maybe something like this could work to implement it in HA ?

away_mode_command_topic: "centralheat/cmnd/things/thermostat/properties"
away_mode_state_topic: "centralheat/stat/things/thermostat/properties"
away_mode_state_template: "{{ value_json['ecoMode'] }}"

[fashberg]

Hey @austwhite
Check out v1.10-fas

Feedback appreciated

[austwhite]

I'll check it out right now and let you know shortly :)

[austwhite]

Hi @fashberg
Just tried your new 1.10-fas and I have a little bug here. It has created the sensor automatically, but has not created the climate entity automatically.

I might have found the bug though.
With the new action addition it is sending action_state_tpl and action_stat_t
I believe, from the Home Assistant documentation these should be as follows:

'act_t':               'action_topic',
'act_tpl':             'action_template',

Documentation: https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/mqtt/discovery/

Thanks :)

Edit: There are some inconsistencies with Home Assistant's naming conventions.

[austwhite]

Just additional, The action attribute works perfectly, I have monitored it in a manual setup and I don't need to write any work around scripts. It just works with the json_value as expected. :)
Just need to work out the bug in the auto-discovery

[austwhite]

@fashberg I did note one other little bug. When the thermostat is changed from Auto to Manual and the targetTemp updates, the JSON still sends the old targetTemp until the temperature is changed either in Home Assistant or on the thermostat.
Example:
The current schedule has a temperature of 15 but the manual temperature is set to 26. When changing to manual mode (changing auto to heat) the Thermostat turns on as it is set to 26 now, but the targetTemperature still sends 15.

[austwhite]

hi @fashberg
I don't know how to make a pull request or anything to fix the issue, but I have tested it on my own device.
I changed action_state_tpl and action_stat_t to act_t and act_tpl in code and compiled it myself and it now works properly with auto discovery as well.

I am not sure how to fix the other bug ( targetTemperature not updating when changing from auto to manual heat ). Do you want me to raise a different issue for that one?

Edit: Worked out the pull request thing :)

[austwhite]

hi @fashberg
I've made another minor change to the Home Assistant Auto Discovery to add support for the ecoMode function in discovery. This is Away mode in Home Assistant.
Let me know what you think of merging this to fix the existing Auto Discovery and add the ecoMode function.

[austwhite]

Thanks for looking at this so quickly @fashberg .
Very much appreciated