Support for "range" style thermostats in auto mode

[rogersmj]

I have an ecobee 3 thermostat, and the current Climate tile doesn't work with it because the "temperature" attribute on the ecobee in HA is null if the thermostat is in Auto mode (more info here):

I am working on a solution for displaying the range of temps; I altered the climateTarget function to do this:

   $scope.climateTarget = function (item, entity) {
      var value = entity.attributes.temperature;

      if(value == null) {
        //This is a thermostat that has high/low target temps
        value = entity.attributes.target_temp_low + " - " + entity.attributes.target_temp_high;
      }

      if(item.filter) return item.filter(value);

      return value;
   };

Which works fine. The problem is handling the temperature adjustment. In Home Assistant it looks like this:

I don't think cramming two "+/-" button sets onto a single tile is a good idea. Too many opportunities for accidental taps. Interested in everyone's ideas on how to handle this...perhaps a popup with the adjustment buttons?

[resoai]

I have never seen such thermostats. What is the purpose of having a range? How does it work?

[rogersmj]

Lower and upper bound. Lower bound is what the heat will cool up to, upper bound is what the air conditioning will cool down to. Then you leave the thermostat in full auto all the time — not explicitly set to just heat or cool.

Because of how our bodies perceive temperature this is often considered more comfortable and more energy efficient than having a single target temperature.

[cgarwood]

Nest operates the same way if it’s in auto or eco modes. I had an idea for the tile layout in that mode. I can try to make a mock-up when I’m home later but basically the two aetpoints would show up stacked in top of each other on the right side and the large temperature on the tile would switch to the current temperature instead of the setpoint.

[resoai]

Could you please post state dump of you thermostat?

[cgarwood]

max_temp: 90
fan_mode: on
min_temp: 50
unit_of_measurement: °F
operation_mode: cool
temperature: 72
current_temperature: 78
supported_features: 1223
operation_list: off,heat,cool,auto,eco
fan_list: on,auto
target_temp_high: null
target_temp_low: null
friendly_name: Hallway
away_mode: off

when operation_mode is eco or auto (for Nest thermostats atleast), the target_temp_high and target_temp_low attributes get populated and the temperature attribute becomes null

[cgarwood]

here's an idea for the tile if its on auto mode. Probably wouldn't fit in a single-wide tile though.

The 72 would be current_temperature, 70 would be target_temp_high, and 65 would be target_temp_low

[rogersmj]

Here's all the attributes for my Ecobee 3. Currently in Auto mode (pretty much always in Auto mode at our house).

current_temperature: 74
min_temp: 45
max_temp: 95
temperature: null
target_temp_high: 74
target_temp_low: 69
fan_mode: auto
fan_list: auto,on
operation_mode: auto
operation_list: auto,auxHeatOnly,cool,heat,off
hold_mode: null
away_mode: off
aux_heat: off
actual_humidity: 48
fan: on
climate_mode: Home
operation: cool
climate_list: Sleep,Home,Away
fan_min_on_time: 10
unit_of_measurement: °F
friendly_name: My ecobee3
supported_features: 3575

[resoai]

Wow, that looks complicated :)

[resoai]

Some climate modes can be rather long (like mine). We could probably hire + - buttons for range thermostats and show the range on the front side of the tile for a start and maybe add two sliders for high and low as we did with the light? It is still an ugly solution though.

[cgarwood]

I'm not a huge fan of sliders on thermostats, hard to get the desired precision vs tapping a + or - icon a couple times. Perhaps a long press on the tile brings up the high and low setpoints with up and down arrows above each of them in place of the sliders?

[resoai]

It would be good to keep UI consistent (we have + - buttons on the right side at the bottom). Let's leave it for a few days, maybe we will come up with something better.

I've added initial support for range thermostats (I'm hiding + - and am showing a range). Could you please check if that works?

[stephenmetts]

This last edit works for display purposes, but doesn't provide the user the controls necessary to make any adjustments to the upper and lower bounds. Many users have Nest thermostats, and this is a standard feature. In the next iteration, user controls would be much appreciated, as is all your hard work on this awesome UI.