Good local-only/local-first wifi thermostat?

BK85, 8 months ago

Look into open therm gateway with something like a dumb Honeywell Round modulating thermostat unless your thermostat already supports open therm.

lemming741, 9 months ago

I got two Honeywell T9s with remote sensors for $150 each from my utility company. I’m happy with them.

MrNorm, 9 months ago

Recently I went through some pain with this myself. Had a full Heatmiser setup with wireless receivers in every room and 2 manifold controllers for our underfloor heating on two floors.

The devices ate batteries like nothing I’ve seen before and regularly dropped off the network and didn’t send call to heat signals properly, so I decided to switch out the thermostats for cheap ZigBee temperature sensors.

I then ordered a relay board from AliExpress with a baked in esp8266 cheap and flashed esphome onto it. These replaced my manifold controllers

After trial and error, I now have my heating system run by esphome and home assistant. It has been faultless! Will probably reinstall the Heatmiser kit if I sold the house though

local_taxi_fix, 9 months ago

I’ve used this zwave thermostat for a few years now and it’s done fine. Only really makes sense if you already have a Z-wave compatible hub though.

a.co/d/aEr4gaq

TheButtonJustSpins, 9 months ago

I don’t have any smart home devices yet. The replies to this question make me think it might be more complicated than I want to do yet. Doesn’t seem like there’s just a standalone unit that I could get.

local_taxi_fix, 9 months ago

Yeah, I don’t blame you not wanting to commit to a hub if you’d only have this thermostat.

Depending on what features you want maybe you could find an offline one with those features built in. I know there’s ones with schedules and presence detection that are fully offline.

CmdrShepard, 9 months ago

Don’t commit to a specific hub. You can setup HomeAssistant and use it to control most of these devices with a simple $20 zigbee or zwave USB donlge.

local_taxi_fix, 9 months ago

Absolutely, if full local control is what you want and you expect to get more devices then it’s worth either reusing an old computer for home assistant or getting a home assistant yellow.

segbrk, 9 months ago

Honeywell T6 ZWave is great. Simple, classic touchscreen controls, and local radio control that just works. No AI funny business either. Mine is hooked up to Home Assistant via a Zooz USB dongle.

I’ve greatly enjoyed ZWave things in general compared to the wild west of ZigBee and WiFi devices. They’re sometimes more pricey, but they pretty much just work.

theterrasque, 9 months ago

Do you control your thermostat via ir remote?

If so, an esp32 or esp8266 running esphome and an ir led connected to a pin might be a solution.

Would cost like 3 dollars in parts from AliExpress, and you could connect it to home assistant or node red for more control or automation.

You could also add a temp sensor like for example ds18b20, which are also pretty cheap, if you want to be able to read temperature remotely or automate based on temp

TheButtonJustSpins, 9 months ago

Nope, I just walk up to it and push buttons if I need to make changes.

modesto_hagney, 9 months ago

What’s the thermostat controlling? How is it wired up? I replaced mine with ram esphome with a temp sensor and a relay that bridges the pins when it wants to turn on. Mine is connected to home assistant but i think you can use esphome devices stand alone.

TheButtonJustSpins, 9 months ago

This is probably not a useful answer, but it’s the level of knowledge that I have: it controls the heating and cooling, and it just gets pushed into the holder on the wall.

lemming007, 9 months ago

I use ecobee and block it from the Internet. Works great with Home Assistant via Homekit.

CmdrShepard, 9 months ago

Same except I don’t bother blocking it from the internet in case I want to use their app instead of home assistant. Haven’t noticed any issues doing it this way. AFAIK there are no fees or anything associated with it and I can’t imagine my thermostat temperature data is making them any money.

btobolaski, 9 months ago

It also knows when you’re home based on the occupancy sensors. I’m also not worried with their data collection so, mine is also not blocked from internet access.

rambos, 9 months ago

Usefull recommendations here, Ill just add simmilar topic from HA Lemmy

thejevans, 9 months ago

I use the Sensi ST55 with the Home Assistant HomeKit integration. I got it from my utility company for $1 as part of an Earth Day promotion, but they sell it for $25 now. You might be able to find it pretty cheap where you are.

CmdrShepard, 9 months ago

I got my Ecobee from our utility company for like $25 and it comes with a remote temp sensor/mmwave radar sensor which is great for home assistant presence detection.

ostsjoe, 9 months ago

I’m pretty sure sensi thermostats, when controlled by home assistant, do what you want. I haven’t confirmed they don’t still try to phone home, but that could be dealt with by some firewall rules. Other thermostats that support homekit should also work.

NarrativeBear, 9 months ago

A ZigBee local control thermostat OTH4000-ZB. No cloud services needed.

thisNotMyName, 9 months ago

You can turn off the internet access at almost all Tuya devices by making use of the local tuya HACS add on in home assistant. Maybe that’s helpful for your research

eroc1990, 9 months ago

Tuya was also supposedly reworking their API/integration to allow for local control, though idk if that ever happened.

vapeloki, 9 months ago

Tuya requires cloud access and the API’s are on their way to be paid only.

Only use tuya zigbee. Keep away from wifi devices at all costs!

thisNotMyName, 9 months ago

The Hacs Integration makes use of the device’s API - don’t know if it is their intended use of it, but it works