Set Insteon Thermostat to specific temperature with Switch

Setup, Configuration and Use Scripts & Rules
1

I am very new, but have successfully set up my Insteon light switches and thermostat in OpenHab 2.5. I am using BasicUI and I want to set a scene to turn off my lights and set the thermostat to 64 degrees when I click a button in my sitemap. I am able to adjust the current temp by way of a SetPoint line, but how do I set it to a specific number. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

I do something similar. I created a scene with my set back overnight temp., 62F, link an item to the scene and trigger it at 11pm. Could be manually triggered with a button linked to item. I also do this with an away-vacation button to set the temp when gone from the house

3

Any chance you can explain how you did it? Thank you.

4

I’d be happy to share. I have an ISY994 hub that makes creating and managing Insteon devices and scenes very easy. Are you using a hub of any kind, or relying strictly on terminal programming?

If u are serious about using and growing your installed base of Insteon devices, I highly recommend a hub, and the ISY994 in particular. I’ve used other Insteon hubs but the hardware failed and where not as versatile as the ISY

Your approach may limit how much I can help. I assume you are using a Venstar thermostat. Mine has separate heating and cooling Setpoint. My scene sets the heat Setpoint to 62F. I use OpenHAB rules file and Cron to trigger an event at 11pm then I call the linked item to my scene. I’m not at my computer right now but it goes something like this.

when
cron 0 0 23 ? *
then
sceneItem.sendCommand(ON)
end

If u use an ISY to create the scene, it will be auto discovered by OpenHAB if you are using the market place binding.

5

To do anything from a sitemap UI, you need an Item.
So, you might create a dummy Item of some kind, and give it a control using a sitemap Switch type widget.

As you want that to “do something”, you’d probably create a rule triggering from commands to your dummy Item. Then the rule can take whatever actions you want - like sending a command to your thermostat setpoint Item.

6

Basically you’ll want to do something like this:

  • Create a new switch item, with no binding attached to it. You’ll use this to trigger your scene.
  • Put this switch item onto your sitemap
  • Create a rule that triggers when that switch is changed
    • Your rule will then turn off each light you want off using the sendCommand(,OFF) command
    • Your rule will then also set your thermostat to your desired temp using the sendCommand(,) command

This is where I would start. Once you have that working you can look into groups, and rather than turning off each light one at a time, you could send the off command to the group instead and let OH handel turning off each member of the group

Going a step further, since you use Insteon, you could use Insteon-Terminal to create a new Insteon Scene that turns off all of your lights at once, and send that group message to turn them all off at once. This is - by far - the best way to go, but you’ll have a learning curve with Insteon-Terminal.

7

Thanks for the feedback. I got it working with your suggestion along with some of the other tips. I am setting the dummy switch item state to OFF and a sitemap button changes it’s value to ON. This triggers the rule which turns off the group of lights and sets the thermostat temperature. Works like a charm. My problem is getting the dummy switch item back to a default state of OFF, so this trigger can work again when needed. I tried with the expire tag, but once changed to ON, it stays that way. Here is my item attempt.

Switch tempSwitch “AWAY [%s]” { expire=“1m”, command=“OFF” }

Any thoughts? Thanks again for the help

8

I just figured out that my so called default value wasn’t working and that it was the wrong approach anyway. I just changed the rule to “item received command” and it is all working as it should. Thanks again for all of the tips.

9

One further things you can do to make it “pretty” is set some mapping to your dummy switch on your sitemap. I have a dummy switch that I only ever turn “on” so I only map the “On” function so then I get more of a push button effect on the sitemap rather than a switch:

from my .sitemap

Switch item=tvMode mappings=[ON="TV Mode"]

Also, I do often use the expire rule for this exact thing. You could also update the switch back to off in the same rule you are using to turn off the lights etc.