Flair/Nest Configuration Suggestions
I live in a townhouse with a single zone and my Nest thermostat on the main floor. On the 2nd floor, I have 3 bedrooms where the vent duct flows from the front bedroom back to bedroom at the back of the house. During the winter the front bedroom is very hot from getting the blasted with the hot air, while the bedroom in the rear of the house is the coldest because it's at the end of the duct run. I've installed flair vents and pucks in all the bedrooms AND I have Nest sensors in the bedrooms too.
My main goal is to keep the 2nd floor as temperature as stable as possible. I'm trying to figure out the best solution. Since the bedroom is at the end of the run, I have the Nest thermostat using the sensor in there to run the heat. I have set up all the Flair pucks with a schedule and the I've set the Flair app as the Set Point Controller. With that said, should I even keep using the Nest sensors and only use the Flair pucks? Also, I really don't want the Nest thermostat in the 1st floor even turn on the heat because I only want the pucks or Nest sensors to control it for the bedrooms.
I know this is kind of a specific setting, but any help with setting this up would really helpful. Thank you.
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Regarding your Nest Thermostat: My suggestion would be to have the Nest thermostat continue to use only the Nest sensor located in the far bedroom to determine when the set point has been reached.
Regarding the set point controller: I'd actually set this to thermostat instead of the Flair app (I'll explain more later on).
Overall setup:
With the far end bedroom being your problematic room, you will need to base when to start/stop heating based on the readings obtained from the Nest sensor located in that far bedroom. Since you know that the other bedrooms get hotter faster than the far bedroom, you don't want your thermostat to use the temperatures in those rooms - If you were to do this, heating would stop before the far bedroom has reached the desired temperature. Be sure the Nest thermostat uses only the reading from the Nest sensor in the far bedroom (exclude even the temp reading from the thermostat itself as you don't want the "current" temperature reading to be an average of the two).
The reason I would use the thermostat as the set point controller and not the Flair app is because Flair as a set point controller does not mean the set point that you see in the Flair app is the set point that is set on your thermostat.
According to Flair: "When Set Point Controller is "Flair App", you may notice that your smart thermostat and Flair show different set points. That means Flair is writing to your smart thermostat to better manage your home temperature."
I personally want to be in control of the set point which is done by having the set point set to thermostat.
I would then create comfort settings on your Nest Thermostat (Home, Sleep, etc).
For example, a "Home" setting that has a heating set point of 73F and runs between 7AM to 10PM and a "Sleep" setting that has a heating set point of 70F and runs between 10PM and 7AM.
You may or may not need to set up schedules within the Flair app. See scenarios below.
If you want all three bedrooms to follow the same set points:
No need to set schedules as the set points for each room will change as your Nest Comfort setting changes from Home to Sleep and Sleep to Home.
If you want different set points:
Example- Let's say that:
- During the hours of 7AM and 10PM, like the "Home" comfort setting on the Nest Thermostat, you want the closest two bedroom to close their vents when the temperature in those two rooms reaches 71F instead of the 73F Home comfort setting set point.
- During the hours of 10PM and 7AM, like the "Sleep" comfort setting on the Nest thermostat, you want the closest two bedrooms to close their vents when the temperature in those two rooms reaches 68F instead of the 70F "Sleep" comfort setting set point.
You will need to create one Flair schedule that runs from 7AM to 10PM and choose ONLY the closest two bedrooms to be part of this schedule event with a set point of 71F. What will end up happening is those two bedrooms will close when 71F is reached in each one of them while the furthest bedroom will remain open and following the Nest "Home" comfort set point of 73 degrees. Also, since you're using the Nest thermostat as your set point controller, you DON'T need to create a new event that involves the furthest bedroom - this bedroom is following the set point from the Nest Thermostat "Home" comfort setting.
Create a second event in that same schedule that runs from 10PM to 7AM and choose ONLY the closes two bedrooms to be part of this schedule with a set point of 68F. What will end up happening is those two bedrooms will close when 68F is reached in each one of them while the furthest bedroom will remain open and following the Nest "Sleep" comfort set point of 70 degrees. Also, since you're using the Nest thermostat as your set point controller, you don't need to create an event that involves the furthest bedroom from 10PM to 7AM - this bedroom is following the set point from the Nest Thermostat "Sleep" comfort setting.
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Exactly.
In this case Marcus has both flair pucks and nest sensors in each room. Sell the nest sensors on FB as you have redundant room sensors.Flair pucks let you adjust the temperature without an app. They also provide humidity data, a display, and extend the range of your flair network so your vents have good reception.
I believe you are over-thinking and over-complicating this Robert. I never look at my nest thermostat.
Simply set the temperature you want at the flair puck or app. I promise you it will work great lol. -
I was never suggesting removing the pucks from the equation.
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here (I'm assuming I'm not), but I'm not constantly changing set points since I have schedules set up on my Ecobee. Having Flair control the set point would not work with my thermostat schedules.
I get that you can just use Flair schedules + Flair as the set point controller, but again I'm not trying to add more cloud-service reliance when all of that can be handled locally by the thermostat.
To each their own, I guess.
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My approach would be the opposite.
Since you have a flair vent and puck in each room, you don't need Nest sensors.
Change the set point controller to "Flair" and each puck to 70 degrees (hold until cleared).
Flair will use the average temperature of all pucks to turn the furnace on/off by changing the Nest thermostat.
Flair will close vents as the room temperature reaches 70.5, directing heat to the other rooms until the average is 70.5.
Flair uses a hysteresis of +/- 0.5 F so that the furnace doesnt cycle too many times.
If you want control of your system, change the temperature in the flair app or on the pucks. -
My question is, if you don't use the nest sensors then what will the Nest thermostat be using to determine when the set point is reached? By default it would use the temp sensor on the thermostat itself....and that is where you'd have a problem. Based on Marcus' post, the problematic bedroom takes much longer to reach the target temperature. So, if only the temp sensor on the thermostat is being used, the thermostat would reach the 70.5 set point in your example and stop heating - the bedroom he is trying to get to that 70.5 would never reach it with his system off.
I may be wrong, but, with the Flair app as the set point controller, I don't believe Flair turns on/off the system. It just sends the set point to the thermostat and the thermostat is in charge of turning itself on and off based on said set point. In this case, it will be using the temp sensor on the thermostat itself to measure when the set point is reached without taking into account if the set point was reached for the problematic bedroom.
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Hi Robert,
I believe you are indeed wrong. I currently have Flair as the set point controller and a Nest thermostat.
Flair will adjust the nest so that the house stays at the flair set point.
Flair doesn't just send the 70F set point... it sends set points which keep the furnace on until flair is satisfied, then sends a low set point to turn the furnace off. -
Ah, right...their comfort setting which they explain as the reason for the set point in the app being different than what you see on the thermostat. I can see this being useful if an individual didn't have remote nest/ecobee sensors, but why would you want to rely on another middle-man to continuously change the set point on the thermostat until the desired temp is reached if you already have the sensors necessary that can communicate locally to the thermostat?
For example, if I have a downstairs thermostat that reaches 70.5 much sooner than an upstairs bedroom, and have a remote sensor in said bedroom, why would I want to have Flair keep sending increasing set points to the thermostat in order to keep the furnace running until 70.5 is reached in the bedroom when I can simply rely on the locally connected bedroom sensor to tell my furnace when the set point is reached?
The way I see it, using Flair's set point algorithm would make sense if I don't have any nest/ecobee sensors, but using it when I do is just adding another 3rd party into the mix (that depends on cloud connectivity) to help me reach the set point in the bedroom.
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The key in all of this discussion is this statement "Flair app as the Set Point Controller".
In all Flair setups, there's 2 systems trying to control things, the Flair and the smart thermostat it's connected to.
If thermostat is set as the set point controller, the two control systems are working independently. The settings for each will impact how the other works, but they are each trying to achieve their goals on their own. It's how each impacts the environment and how each responds to the environment that links them, not some direct control or integration.
If Flair is set as the set point controller, then nothing set in the thermostat matters. You've told the Flair to override and completely control the thermostat. There's no sense looking at any values on the thermostat, as they'll only reflect the values required so it will take the action Flair wants it to take. Any programing in the thermostat is also a waste, as Flair will override that. After all, you've told Flair that it's in charge of control.
Neither options is necessarily better than the other, they're just different. There's different trade offs and goals that can be achieved with each method.
Back to the original question, this is a problem: "I have the Nest thermostat using the sensor in there to run the heat. I have set up all the Flair pucks with a schedule and the I've set the Flair app as the Set Point Controller." Those two statements conflict with each other. The Nest will not determine when to run if the Flair is in charge. One them must change. Either ignore (and remove) the scheduling from the Nest and let Flair run the entire show, or tell Flair that Nest is running the show for when to run and Fair should only concern itself with how to operate the vents based on environmental conditions. Either could be configured, each requires a different combination of sensors. Since you have all the sensors already, it'll be other trade offs for which way works better for you.
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