Dumb Thermostat integration question
I do not use a 'smart' thermostat and am unwilling to switch to one. I'd like to invest in Flair vents for my two story house with a single zone heat pump. But I have been unable to find data on 'dumb thermostat' support. Where can I find information on how regular thermostats are supported?
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Official comment
Thanks for writing in. Lots of good feedback in here.
Flair Pucks and Smart Vents work alongside every thermostat, adjusting airflow and evening out the temperatures in your home by closing Smart Vents when there is too much heated or cooled airflow in a room and opening them when there is not enough.
In your particular situation, I think Matt gave you a good suggestion. If you were to install an ecobee thermostat where your current thermostat is and had at least one ecobee remote sensor or Flair Puck in the upstairs rooms that are too warm you would be able to have your thermostat continue to cool until the two upstairs rooms reached your desired temperature. As part of this solution, it would also be helpful to have some Flair Smart Vents downstairs in rooms that get too cold so that cold air could be pushed to other areas of your home when the A/C is running.
One thing to keep in mind when deciding which Smart Thermostat to purchase. Flair can read sensor data from the ecobee and Honeywell remote sensors and use them in your Flair home to make the Flair solution even smarter. Flair CANNOT use the sensor data from a Google Nest thermostat. At this time Google does not make that sensor data available to us.
I hope this was helpful. If you have any other questions please let us know.
Regards,
The Flair Team
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I may be wrong, but from what I've experienced, I think there is no such capability. If you are looking to be able to open and close the vents remotely on demand, I don't think that is a feature. I think the system only works if it integrated with a smart thermostat. I was not interested in a smart thermostat, but very interested in the flair system, I eventually pulled the trigger and got the Honeywell T9 eventually, 2 flair pucks and 10 vents and a bunch of Honeywell remote sensors, I'm glad I did.
I think the reason given fort not being able to open/close the vents on demand is to prevent you from manually closing too many vents and causing damage to your system from back pressure. (Of course, with dumb vents, there is nothing to keep you from closing too many already..). Anyway, I am very happy with how flair has worked to improve comfort especially in my rooms that had poor air previously.
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What are you trying to accomplish? Meaning, what types of things would you like the system to do for you?
You can use a bunch of Flair vents and pucks without connecting them to a thermostat at all. Happily set a schedule for them with temp settings, and they will open and close based on the room temp. They can even determine if the system is heating or cooling as part of knowing when to open and close.
What they cannot do in this setup is manage when the system runs or not. Even with a smart thermostat, they can be configured this way to let the thermostat control when to run. One advantage of a smart thermostat is adding its own sensors so it knows when to run or not if it is in control. But, it's not required.
If you have a room that over heats when heating or over cools when cooling and you just want to limit it, this solution can work completely fine. Since it is easy to close a vent and limit a room while the system keeps running until it reaches temp someplace else. If it's a room that under performs, it's doesn't work as well this way, or really it's that you need to limit all the other rooms.
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I have two upstairs rooms that tend to get too warm. I live in the south, so it is completely a cooling problem.
I can limit other rooms to cool upstairs, but I’d really like the upstairs to be able to keep the A/C running. Currently, I have a thermostat downstairs, but it can be upgraded and/or moved. I need ensure the system runs extra time to cool the upstairs before turning off.
if I just put a bunch of vents in, the vents upstairs may be open in too hot of a space, but the system may still shutdown. The downstairs cools very well and may shutdown the A/C even with several vents closed.
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That's an "under cooling" problem, which is difficult to solve.
With just a smart thermostat, say an Ecobee or Nest, and a remote sensor in the upstairs room you could keep the system running. Setting the thermostat to use the remote sensor only and not the temp where it is located. I know Ecobee does this, and I would bet Nest has something similar, or any of the others with remote sensors.
The side effect of that will be that the existing downstairs is likely to over cool now instead. You can add Flair vents and pucks to the downstairs to open close those vents as they arrive at temperature. That should limit the over cooling and direct more air flow to the upstairs rooms. Actual performance will depend on how many overall vents you have, how the system is laid out, and how different the temperatures are. I use the system close to this. You may be able to do other things too, but using Fair would automate opening closing as needed.
Alternatively, with a smart thermostat without remote sensors, and Flair vents and pucks in every room. You could give temp control overall to Flair and it will try to balance all the rooms for you.
There are some subtle differences in how things work, how temps are averaged, how adjustments are made, number of required devices, and exact features available for control depending on which system you make the controller and how you configure it. There's no "right" answer, just different trade offs.
The root issue is always that you have a single source of temp change an each of these solutions is trying to fake it to appear to give more direct control.
My Flair system has been working great to balance our house, but it did take some thought to get configured. It also needs some different external duct settings in summer vs winter where the difference is larger.
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Got it. It looks like I’ll need to upgrade my thermostat after all.
I’m also considering an ultra-quiet fan that moves a bit of air (8” duct) from the upstairs hallway to the downstairs hallway if there is a temperature split; this is independent of the HVAC system. This may be overkill though. -
I use an Ecobee with a remote sensor in the room that under cools and Flair vents and pucks in the rooms that would over cool by the time the other one gets to temp. 3 pucks and 9 vents. In my system, Ecobee is the controller and Flair limits rooms. Flair is scheduled and each puck has a different set temp.
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