HVAC Modes

[caribo]

Hi Daniel

I would like to know when my heaters are actually heating as opposed to being turned on with a target temperature.

I've accomplished this with changes to climate.py to set mode HVAC_MODE_HEAT only when heatingEnabled and targetTemperature > temperature, and to set HVAC_MODE_AUTO when heatingEnabled and targetTemperature >= min_temp. In all other cases the entity status defaults to HVAC_MODE_OFF. The use of AUTO seems appropriate as the heater is using logic to determine when to switch to HEATING as opposed to being in standby. It is actually the same case whether the target temperature is set manually or via a schedule.

As a new HA used I'm not 100% familiar with the climate entity states, but the above approach seems to work for me and tells me when heating is actually taking place.

Is this approach something that you have considered and rejected already? is there a reason why doing this is a bad idea? would it break some underlying functionality?

I'd really like to see this functionality included in the addon, but admit I don't know enough about HA to know whether it's the right approach or not.

What do you think?

P.S I've just seen that HVAC Actions contain CURRENT_HVAC_OFF, CURRENT_HVAC_HEAT and CURRENT_HVAC_IDLE, although I have no idea if these are of any use or would provide an indication that the heater is actually heating....

[acseven]

Sorry if it this isn't useful for what you're looking for, but I'm using scheduler-card (link) to replace the ADAX app scheduling system, which allows actual "OFF" setting and much finer scheduling control.

"Desligar" in the screenshot below means "Turn Off":

[caribo]

Thanks for the tip @acseven , I will take a look at the scheduler-card, although I'm not sure it will help identify when the heater is actually heating (i.e. the element is on and is trying to attain target temperature) if the underlying climate entity doesn't report it..

[acseven]

Ah, if it’s just information, you can get that from the entities card or a gauge card. The screenshot below shows mine when off, but I don’t think I could do this with the app scheduling. With the plug-in I can specify hvac_mode to off.

[jchasey]

Agree some more granularity to the mode would be useful. Currently shows HEAT as state whatever is happening, even when not heating or even when radiator is turned off. The Adax app shows either 'Heating' or 'Idle' if the desired temperature is met.

So the obvious mapping to HA should be to HEAT, IDLE or OFF as appropriate.

[cortado]

Wondering about the same, to be able to measure energy usage.