[vcf-midatlantic] VCF Repair workshops and keeping the costs of HVAC down

[Neil Cherry]

On 5/11/22 1:11 PM, Ethan O'Toole wrote:
>> I have my ZigBee interface at home working. Z-Wave will be next and I can dump
>> the SmartThings hub. Home Assistant will handle the automation and interface.
>> I can run plenty of scripts from cron (Perl, Python, bash, etc.) And I have
>> node-red (node.js). Plenty of tools from Linux.
> 
> My friends run HA, but I was always an AMX fan. I run ZWave for the arcade power controls at home and it seems to struggle a little 
> even on short distances. Might be my hardware or an interference source. I should have coded it to to set state on AMX via

You probably need powered Z-Wave modules in between to act as routers (repeaters). They
should be good for about 20ft.

> touchscreens, then change state on device then interrogate device before being satisfied state is set. But instead I just broadcast 
> the on/off command and sit with that. Sloppy on my part and could probably fix it.
> 
>   You could monitor the doors if there is mag switches + alarm panel + RS232 or network option on the alarm panel at the venue. Also 
> might be able to get read only access to thermostat (depending on proprietary it is, my assumption is meet-me in the cloud + API key 
> like Honeywell) and toss alerts if conditions are say door open and outdoor temp extreme and hvac on.

IT will be a while before we're that far along. Remember these are historic buildings
so we need to tread carefully. The good news is that there are a lot of technologies
available that give us 2 way communication. This isn't you're X10 automation. ;-)

-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry at linuxha.com
http://www.linuxha.com/                         Main site
http://linuxha.blogspot.com/                    My HA Blog
Author of:    	Linux Smart Homes For Dummies