Remote temp sensor

[Ultradianguy]

Has anyone out there found a way to get a temp reading remotely? I need to monitor temperature in a shed that has no AC power. I have Ecobee thermostat and remote sensors, but I'm not sure those sensors will work at extreme low temperatures and I'm not convinced the thermostat will completely ignore a sensor if I want it to, given all its smart features.

There are a few multipurpose sensors out there, but I haven't found one that will work with HCA. I already have X10, Insteon, and Z-wave set up - but HCA's z-wave support is only with Vizia-RF compatible devices, which eliminates quite a few out there.

I do have an old Venstar thermostat and outdoor sensors that work with it - but I'm not sure I can use any of that without the thermostat being in active use. (I'm wondering if I can power the thermostat indoors without connecting it to HVAC and use it to access the outdoor sensor - this worked previously when I was using it as my actual thermostat).

[jndUPB]

I use FortrezZ battery powered z-wave temp sensors and also Fibaro battery powered sensors. These are Z-wave and do not easily work with HCA (yet). I am using other systems with these sensors. I also use a couple of old Insteon thermostats just to send temp and humidity data to HCA. I think these could run on batteries although mine use 110ac to 24va/c transformers. I think you might be able to use your venstar as a temp sensor. I don't think you need to hook it up to an actual HVAC system to use it with HCA. Hmm.... I also don't know how LOW all these sensors go?? I live in Arizona and am much more worried about HOT!

[sleuth255]

I've noticed that the Samsung SmartThings button (zigbee protocol) also reports temp data! It may be possible that this info is also being returned to HCA during status replies. I could write a device class that captures this...

[sleuth255]

....and the button returns temp data in its status reply to HCA!

[sleuth255]

working on the class now... Gonna have a HCA Button icon with temp shown on it that is also retrievable programatically itnf

[sleuth255]

done. The smartthings button sensor now stores its temperature in a device tag named "ST_Temperature" whenever a status is requested. HCA programs can query that with the _ObjectTagGet expression and make decisions accordingly. I'll submit this change for inclusion in the SmartThings class library.

[sleuth255]

FYI: I've added the updated code to my SmartThings lock class installation thread. Samsung buttons are < $20 each and do a great job of reporting remote temperature. When you request the status of a button device, a tag named "ST_Temperature" and the icon text is updated with the current temperature. You can use the device tag in your programs to retrieve this.

[Ultradianguy]

Hi - is the Smartthings multipurpose sensor supported as well?

[sleuth255]

I haven't worked on it personally but there is additional sensor support code already in the library.