INSTEON Thermostats and Thermostat Adaptors

Smartlabs makes several thermostats and adaptors. We'll use this page to discuss how the specific INTEON devices work with Indigo. See the Basic Thermostat Control wiki page for general information about thermostats in Indigo.

Discuss these devices

INSTEON Venstar Thermostat Adaptor (2441V)

This was the first available INSTEON thermostat. It's an adaptor for these Venstar thermostat models: T1700, T1800, T1900, T2700, T2800, and T2900. The adaptor plugs into the bottom of the thermostat so you can buy the adaptor separately from the thermostat if you wish. Venstar also shipped a thermostat (2491T7E) for a brief time which had the INSTEON adaptor built in to the thermostat but it works identically to the external adaptor.

Tracking Equipment On/Off State Changes

Indigo automatically tracks and updates its UI for mode, temperature, and setpoint changes as they are broadcast from the thermostat. Additionally, the thermostat supports the ability to track equipment operational states. During the Define and Sync process Indigo automatically writes controller links into the thermostat so that it can receive these equipment operation state changes. Indigo automatically interprets these commands as they are received and updates the states A/C Equipment State, Heater Equipment State, and Fan Equipment State:

  • Group 1 - Cooling change (ON or OFF) – Indigo updates A/C Equipment State
  • Group 2 - Heating change (ON or OFF) – Indigo udpates Heater Equipment State
  • Group 3 - Fan mode change (ON or OFF) – Indigo updates Fan Equipment State

Adaptor details

INSTEON Thermostat (2441TH)

This is Smarthome's wired thermostat. There really is only one trick to this thermostat: the Venstar adaptor has 3 program modes but this one only has one. If you want to run it's heat/cool program, you need to use the “Run Heat Program” action rather than the “Run Heat/Cool Program” action. Unfortunately, they didn't implement the commands to match the Venstar adaptor (which came first by a few years).

Tracking Equipment On/Off State Changes

Indigo automatically tracks and updates its UI for mode, temperature, and setpoint changes as they are broadcast from the thermostat. Additionally, the thermostat supports the ability to track equipment operational states. During the Define and Sync process Indigo automatically writes controller links into the thermostat so that it can receive these equipment operation state changes. Indigo automatically interprets these commands as they are received and updates the states A/C Equipment State, Heater Equipment State, and Dehumidifier/Humidifier Equipment States:

  • Group 1 - Cooling change (ON or OFF) – Indigo updates A/C Equipment State
  • Group 2 - Heating change (ON or OFF) – Indigo udpates Heater Equipment State
  • Group 3 - Dehumidification change (ON or OFF), high humidity setpoint – Indigo updates Dehumidifier Equipment State
  • Group 4 - Humidification change (ON or OFF), low humidity setpoint – Indigo updates Humidifier Equipment State

Device details

INSTEON Wireless Thermostat (2441ZTH)

This wireless thermostat talks to another 2441 wired thermostat to allow remote control of that thermostat. Indigo can catch the broadcasts from this thermostat when any of the following change: temperature, humidity, set points, mode, and fan.

Sleeping and Status Request Issues

Note that when this device is battery operated (versus wiring it to an AC adapter), it will go to sleep and not be able to respond to Indigo commands. Therefore, before you Define and Sync it you must wake it up by pressing the SET button for a few seconds until it beeps then wait for the LCD screen to flash. It will then be awake and you can proceed with the normal Define/Sync process.

Additionally, when operated via battery this thermostat does not appear to respond to status request commands (for mode, temperature, and setpoint states) correctly even if it is awake. If it is asleep then on status request you will get no acknowledgment errors and if it is awake incorrect values might be returned.

Indigo will still catch the broadcasts from the thermostat as the mode, temperature and setpoints change, and will use that information to update its device UI. You just cannot force an update by doing a status request – you have to wait for the thermostat to broadcast the changes when they occur.

Tracking Equipment On/Off State Changes

Indigo automatically tracks and updates its UI for mode, temperature, and setpoint changes as they are broadcast from the thermostat. Additionally, the thermostat supports the ability to track equipment operational states. During the Define and Sync process Indigo automatically writes controller links into the thermostat so that it can receive these equipment operation state changes. Indigo automatically interprets these commands as they are received and updates the states A/C Equipment State, Heater Equipment State, and Dehumidifier/Humidifier Equipment States:

  • Group 1 - Cooling change (ON or OFF) – Indigo updates A/C Equipment State
  • Group 2 - Heating change (ON or OFF) – Indigo udpates Heater Equipment State
  • Group 3 - Dehumidification change (ON or OFF), high humidity setpoint – Indigo updates Dehumidifier Equipment State
  • Group 4 - Humidification change (ON or OFF), low humidity setpoint – Indigo updates Humidifier Equipment State

Device details

Equipment State Out-of-Sync Issues

Some of you may notice that periodically some thermostat equipment states (mentioned above) get out-of-sync. The issue is that all the current INSTEON thermostat devices only broadcast out changes to those states. Indigo can't ask the thermostat what the state of those are - we just have to wait until the state changes so we can catch the broadcast. Why would Indigo get out of sync? A couple of possibilities: Indigo may have been shut down and would have missed the broadcast. Another possibility is that you have some signal noise that's keeping the broadcast message from getting to the PowerLinc (thus Indigo).

Modifying Energy Mode Setpoint Delta (2441TH and 2441ZTH Only)

When in Energy Mode (leaf on display) these thermostats adjust the cool and heat setpoints for greater energy efficiency. By default they are changed by 4°. There is no way to manually (at the thermostat) adjust this 4° delta, but it can be set by sending INSTEON commands to the modules. Indigo doesn't currently have a command to change this delta, but you can do if via a simple python script. To try it create a new Action Group and select the Type Server Actions→Script and File Actions→Execute Script then copy/paste the following script into the embedded python edit field:

degrees = 4
devaddr = indigo.devices["your thermostat device name here"].address
reply = indigo.insteon.sendRawExtended(devaddr, [0x2E, 0x00, 0x01, 0x07, degrees], waitUntilAck=True)
indigo.server.log(str(reply))

Note you'll want to edit the first 2 lines to reflect the delta you want to use (1 seems to be the minimum that works) and the name of the Indigo device for your thermostat.

insteon_devices/thermostats.txt · Last modified: 2019/01/26 00:10 (external edit)
 

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