If i’m right you set the on/off z-wave actuator by your max! thermostat (ON when there is heat demand, OFF when not) and through the control software in OH.
I mean to set a GPIO from the Pi high (when there is heat demand) or low (when there is not) with the Max! room thermostat. The GPIO will be connected to a digital input of a PLC. The PLC gets the high or low output from the GPIO and decides to set on the heating program or not. Did i make it more clear now? Is that possible?
Not at all. What’s PLC? How do you mean to set GPIO high based on Max! room thermostat ?
(well of course you can do that based on the temperature it shows, but you can use any thermometer for that purpose …)
And you cannot turn the MAX! valve. It has no electrical input, you can just control non-MAX thermostats (valves) through either GPIO or zwave.
Hi Markus,
I have the same configuration installed (Actuator-connected motor valves to control my floor heating) and I'm looking now to create my own thermostat.
I will appreciate if you can send me your OH configuration (items, rules ...) in order to have an idea what and how to do it.
Best Regards,
Marian
maryantudor@gmail.com
Items depend on the actuator/sensor tech you’re using. I’m using zwave actuator to control the valves via 220V actuator switches, and (multi)sensors to (also) deliver temperature values. See zwave binding docs for examples.
Rules, well, they’re individual.Something with a core like if (temp < threshold) valve.sendcommand(ON), but you’ll have to do the programming on your own.
Hello,
Does anybody integrate MAX! Thermostat and MAX! Cube LAN Gateway in an water based Underfloor Heating System. I want to be able to modify the Thermostat Setpoint temperature of each room (4 rooms) via Openhab and from MAX! Thermostat Device and also to change the Thermostat Modes (Auto, Manual, Comfort).
Until now I achieved a Heating System that is controlled excursively via Openhab. I’m using a relay, and GPIOs of RP3 to send a signal (ON/OFF) to remotely controllable electric valves and heater pump. The Rooms Temperature is provided by z-waves sensors… I can change the setpoint of each rooms by using the Openhab Android application.
I’m looking now to extend my system with a physical thermostat in each rooms. I want to be able to control the rooms temperatures via Openhab and also via physical thermostat.
The cheapest solution that is already integrated in OH (MAX! binding) is provided by MAX! company.
I bought a MAX! Cube and 4 x MAX! thermostat yesterday and I tried to integrate in my system. Unfortunately I found 2 possible major issues:
in all 3 solution provided (MAX! Radiator solution, MAX! Room solution, MAX! House Solution) a MAX! Radiator is involved. After some tests I concluded that a MAX! Radiator is mandatory for a functional solution. I was not able to change the Thermostat Mode/SetPoint/Heating Schadule via MAX! software or Mobile Application.
MAX! Cube Operation Manual:
http://www.eq-3.com/Downloads/eq3/downloads_produktkatalog/max/bda/en/BC-LGW-O-TW_UM_EN.pdf
because I want to control all the thermostats from each room, the MAX! House Solution It should be implemented. But in this solution all settings of connected devices in the house can be made via the MAX! software. And as far as I sow, not directly via MAX! Thermostat (physical Thermostat). Maybe because of MAX! Radiators missing… Hope I’m wrong…
Wall Thermostat operation manual:
http://www.eq-3.com/Downloads/eq3/downloads_produktkatalog/max/bda/en/BC-TC-C-WM-4_UM_EN.pdf
The questions now are:
It is possible to use this solution without MAX! Radiators.
If the answer of the first question is affirmative can I control the GPIO of the raspberry pi with the Max! Thermostat (via MAX! Cube) by setting up a rule through OpenHAB?
Do you know an alternative solution that will fit a low budget ? I was looking to Z-wave thermostats, because I already use this technology, but is more expensive and I don’t have many options (I’m not happy with the design. Looks to classic :)). Only one option that I sow: http://www.vesternet.com/z-wave-heatit-thermostat-white
Thank you very much,
Marian
Can you tell me which thermostat you are using? I’m trying to find a good cheap thermostat to play with.
Sorry for answerring that late. I am using two items of this: “Homematic 132030 Funk-Wandthermostat für Smart Home / Hausautomation” and they are doing a great job combined with:
-
Homematic 105155 Funk-Heizkörperthermostat für Smart Home / Hausautomation
-
Homematic 130297 Funk-Tür-/Fensterkontakt, optisch für Smart Home / Hausautomation
I would suggest, look first into thermostats with a protocol you already use.
So for exampel if you have z-wave running already with other devices, look for z-wave devices first. This makes your life easier.
Does anybody integrate MAX! Thermostat and MAX! Cube LAN Gateway in an water based Underfloor Heating System.
Not exactly. But I’m using those MAX! Thermostats with Openhab. And I can do what ever I want. Setpoint physically on the device itself but also set it from openhab (together with the mode auto/manual).
The trick is NOT to use the Cube but a different “Gateway” hardware. That is a RPI (Zero in my case) together with a little RF module.
The required software is Homegear.
For OH integration you can choose between the homematic binding or MQTT. I’m using the latter. Works fine.
Small drawback: Once you change the target temp (or mode) on the thermostat it takes a while (1 minute or so) until data is published from the thermostat to Openhab. I think this is a limitation of the MAX! hardware. And not every feature is available to be controlled. See reference.
Maybe a bit of a late and slightly off-topic reply but indeed, some 9 mo after Google bought Nest, Nest stopped the Revolv service (from an other takeover), making their 300USD hub useless for the owners.
Also, due to a glicth with the NEST, about a year ago, users were literally left in the cold. Inconvenient enough when you are at home, but what if you are on holiday and see your house is freezing.
That is why I -be it for heating or something else- don’t like to use items that depend on the Iot service of a third party.
As far as my own thermostat… I have an old Chronotherm for back up, but built one with a Wemos that takes things like presence, open windows, holiday etc into account
I did mention I have other mitigations. In this case, I block the Nest from communicating on the Internet when I’m away from home. It works just fine disconnected and if it can’t communicate to the Internet it can’t install and updates. I can’t control it remotely but I don’t need to. I just need it to keep the house above a certain temp.
And if my other sensors report the house is getting too cold, I can get friends or family to come over and check on things.
Nothing is allowed to update when I’m not home. Those devices that are known to be flakey are powered with a controllable power supply so I can just bounce the power to reset them when they get stuck.
1 Like
Good idea! 
Appears that you outsmart the smart thermostat
I have a CT101. I’m still trying to figure out how to control it. I can read some of the parameters, but I’m still working on it. Since we haven’t been using our heating and air, it hasn’t been a priority.
Most of the replies on this thread are 18+ months old. Anything new that changes the scenery? I’m looking at equipping a vacation home that has several zones; would like to be able to use the 'stats own app as well as OpenHAB to keep an eye on things while we’re not there. I’m not interested in learning features or occupancy detection. I’m also planning a couple independent temperature sensors (esp8266-based sending data to OH via mqtt) in case the thermostat vendor’s cloud isn’t working.
We have Nest at our main home, but I’m not sure I’m happy with the direction Google is taking with the API there, otherwise, I’m happy with them.
I have 3 MCO Home Zwave stats (MCOEMH7H-WH2). Integrate nicely with OH2. Working on having them “read” properly in the Alexa app (and control them from there also).
When playing around with them I had them upload their temps to Influx/Grafana and have graphs now showing temperature history over the last few months. Pretty neat overall. They were also straightforward to setup in OH2 and discovery in Zwave was easy too
A bit of bad news. I was also using the cheaper MAX! basic thermotats with the LAN Cube. I was looking for a few more but couldn’t find them. I email eq-3 and they informed me they don’t make them anymore and I should use the Homematic IP.
Thank you for your inquiry and your interest in our products.
Unfortunately we do not produce the MAX! products anymore.
On condition that you would like to install a new system, we could recommend our system Homematic IP, which includes all the functions of MAX! and besides some more.
We are sorry that we cannot help you any further at this point.
We remain with best regards
That was really a bummer. 
Hi all - I have an outbuilding which has a simple thermostat that turns a wall-mounted electric heater on and off. The heater is line voltage (either 120V or 240VAC; I think 240 as it has its own double-pole breaker). The room this thermostat is in is my home office, so I’d like OpenHAB to be able to change the thermostat setpoint… primary use case being “pre-heat the office on winter days so I don’t freeze my buns off every morning”.
Can anybody recommend a smart thermostat which can work with high/line voltage loads like this?
I have considered rolling my own with an IoT Arduino + 2 relay modules talking with OpenHAB via MQTT, and while this would be a fun project, I’d prefer to use something off the shelf if possible.
I came across this Stelpro unit in some other posts:
… although I would pretty strongly prefer WiFi rather than Z-wave, as I don’t have any other Z-wave devices at this point and the outbuilding is far enough from my current OH server that I’m doubtful it’ll communicate consistently or maybe at all. (I do have a mesh WiFi network that reaches)
Appreciate your input, thanks!
The very first question would be if you need a full scale thermostat at all as you can make OH be the thermostat.
You need a thermometer and a valve it doesn’t necessarily have to be an autonomous device (that’s better as it’ll keep working when OH is down, then again OH shouldn’t be down let alone for long so it’s well worth a consideration). This in particular if you don’t need a valve but just a switch for an electrical heater. And do you need a handle or other means to physically input ? You will be having the OH automation and UI at all times… you can add a temp sensor to a Shelly Wi-Fi switch which then is $25 or so.
Ah, right, the Shelly stuff.
I have 2 x Shelly 1PMs that I have used in the past, and they have worked well for me. I like that they’re WiFi devices. This is an interesting possibility.
I’d have to write some good thermostat code in OH rules to ensure I don’t get chattering on the Shelly relay. I imagine there are some good examples out there?
In case OH does die while the heater is on and I’m away from home, I guess I could fall back on the Shelly app itself (or VPN to home network and access local Shelly web page) to turn the heater off… but I might not know that OH has died…
This is a pretty good alternative option, but I think I’d still prefer something COTS if there’s something out there that folks have had good experiences with.
Yeah, line voltage limits your options a lot. The only connected WiFi options I’m aware of are Mysa and Sinope, which are both Canadian companies (we have a lot of baseboard heaters in Canada).
There’s a Sinope binding, but it appears to only support two models using an RF bridge. I don’t know if they can work with 240V.
Mysa works with HomeKit and SmartThings, but there’s been next to no discussion about them in this community. They appear to support 240V though, since they show how to install.
Does it really matter that your outbuilding’s thermostat is connected to OH? It’s certainly better if it is, but if this one thing doesn’t really impact anything else, maybe it’s fine for it to be standalone.
If you just want to be able to turn the thermostat on or off via openHAB, you could connect it to IFTTT and then use webhooks to send commands. Then you’d just have to rely on the Mysa app to know the actual temperature. Again, that’s not ideal, but maybe it’s enough.
And hey, while that’s in place you could put time into developing a Mysa-to-openHAB solution. 
1 Like