My Smart Home is Stupid - HVAC Update

My smart home has some interesting HVAC control systems, but unfortunately, we never got around to setting them up and with temperatures dropping into the negatives... it's time we finally set them up.

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FOLLOW US
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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:25 How it going to work
3:16 How to setup Tasmota in Home Assistant
6:13 Testing the control boards
6:45 Thermal camera phone
7:52 Ecobee wiring & setup
11:58 American standard foiling our plans
12:30 Setting up a different one instead
13:55 Hacking the mainframe
15:45 Does it work?=

[LinusTechTips]

ps. We know that the Ecobees can actually be wired into the zone valves directly, but this setup gives us much greater flexibility with full HomeAssistant control, and the potential for configuring the Ecobees and American Standard thermostats to work together better.

[forgotten]

Linus's smart home series is the best ad against smart home lmao

[pappaslivery]

I remember working in HVAC and we had a house that we installed AC in and The homeowner complained that it would freeze her out in the afternoon. We asked her what time and she said around 3:00 so made an appointment to be there the next day at 3:00. The light would come in from the window and hit a mirror and get reflected onto the thermostat like it was Indiana Jones finding the room where the ark of the covenant is held. We just tilted that mirror bit, problem solved

[bittrippn]

If Linus ever sells this house, they're going to have to write a massive technical manual for the new owners and be on call for tech support just to turn the heat on.

[snootbooper]

I feel like the amount of effort that goes into fully setting up this system so that you never have to touch the thermostat again is equal to the amount of effort you'd spend over a lifetime adjusting the temperature valve on your radiators manually.

[adrianmalkovich]

"Dad, my room is cold!"
"Okay, let me just quickly reboot the house."

From the wireless speakers to all of the thermostats everywhere to the light switches that don't work, this house is absolutely hilarious.

[chuckmaster]

After watching this, my conclusion is that "smart homes" and "home assistant/homekit" are all so insanely complicated that it only works if have Jake come over to your house to install it.

[leifbergman]

I’m sure someone said it already, but ecobee’s have a setting where you can do temperature corrections for each thermostat. If it’s not reading correctly due to another heat source (like another thermostat below it), you can adjust the value displayed to what it should be in the room. Had to do this with my ecobee (with the motion sensor) in my last house. Works like a charm!

[jmd]

My take on smart home systems is that they should always only help automate or more easily control things, but not be the only way to control things. That's the downside of these fancier systems vs aftermarket add-ons, you don't have still the manual controls in place in case things stop working. Most everything in my house I can now control from my phone, yet my wife who can't be bothered can still do things the old school way.

[astronemir]

The dual thermostats with neither actually doing a full job is killing me 😂

[bgezal]

It was in 2023 Linus' house became self-aware. In June it launched a full scale attack on its occupants. Some say it was all because of a missing semicolon in a heating script written by Jake.

[kairon]

I love how much tech your house has, and I enjoy that you know enough to keep the interface communication well in-house.
Thanks for making this a YT series by the way, I'll never own my own home so it's cool to see what a fellow tech nerd would be able to do.

[jibinful]

I had this same setup using ecobee as a simple thermostat. Eventually switched to just using a thermostat on homeassistant and having a tablet on the wall with a custom home assistant dashboard. I stopped using the ecobee since I kept having weird bugs/disconnection issues. Great setup now with homeassistant! Thanks for the video.

[seanm]

Blaming Jake, always a good way to go.

[thebuleon]

I like how every new episode of this series is a new argument against smart homes.

[michaelbuehler]

Ecobee room sensors can be added to each zone for about $50 a pop, and can be easily configured to be the primary temperature sensor instead of the thermostat. This would be a lot easier than swapping the orientation of the thermostats.
I love seeing this type of content as an hvac contractor, thanks and keep up the great work!

[jamesborb]

My computer science professors all warned us against home automation and IoT. Linus's videos with his smart home convinced me

[TheGuyFromDenmark]

Imagine if Jake one day really wanted to prank Linus. The extend he would be able to go to. He basicly knows everything there is to know about Linus' house 😄

[Flame]

If Linus ever sells this house the new home owners are going to have to watch these videos like Tutorials on how to use the house

[Whimsical_Ravioli]

You can offset the temperature sensor in the ecobee thermostat by looking for an option called thresholds in the installation settings and offset the temperature accordingly. I had a similar issue with my thermostat incorrectly reporting the temperature.