So many sensors, so many directions
My career as a control systems programmer always leaves me thinking of in the realm of digital logic. A high enough form of programming that alleviates me from thinking of voltage and circuit boards but low enough that inter connectivity involves more than off the shelf cables and example code off of Stack Overflow.
Coming from that angle, I've had gripes with the lack of flexibility of hard wired thermostats in homes. Specifically, thermostats register temperature readings from their physical locations, locations that are likely not ideal for comfortable or efficient readings. The market is just starting to introduce remote sensors into the hardware lineups, allowing averaging of sorts, but they are quite expensive and have way more features than most people need.
For various reasons, i'm leaning towards the idea that the most flexible and cheap solution for do-it-yourself retrofit projects would be to make a transmitter/receiver hardware concept to transmit the digital logic for the HVAC contact closures. Reusing the thermostat one already owns, wire it to this transmitter device and place your thermostat bedside/console table if you like instead of by that drafty window it was previously next to. Wire the receiver unit directly to the HVAC system using the same wires the thermostat had previously been connected to. Pair the two, perhaps low-powered bluetooth.
If price could reach $50 or lower, I'm thinking it could be extremely useful and viable.
So idea aside, the raw concept is digital I/O -> Transmitter, Receiver to digital I/O and/or relays. Perhaps backup logic on the receiver side to handle loss of pairing. It should be universally compatible with all low-voltage HVAC systems where there is not some proprietary data connection to a BMS/control system.
Coming from that angle, I've had gripes with the lack of flexibility of hard wired thermostats in homes. Specifically, thermostats register temperature readings from their physical locations, locations that are likely not ideal for comfortable or efficient readings. The market is just starting to introduce remote sensors into the hardware lineups, allowing averaging of sorts, but they are quite expensive and have way more features than most people need.
For various reasons, i'm leaning towards the idea that the most flexible and cheap solution for do-it-yourself retrofit projects would be to make a transmitter/receiver hardware concept to transmit the digital logic for the HVAC contact closures. Reusing the thermostat one already owns, wire it to this transmitter device and place your thermostat bedside/console table if you like instead of by that drafty window it was previously next to. Wire the receiver unit directly to the HVAC system using the same wires the thermostat had previously been connected to. Pair the two, perhaps low-powered bluetooth.
If price could reach $50 or lower, I'm thinking it could be extremely useful and viable.
So idea aside, the raw concept is digital I/O -> Transmitter, Receiver to digital I/O and/or relays. Perhaps backup logic on the receiver side to handle loss of pairing. It should be universally compatible with all low-voltage HVAC systems where there is not some proprietary data connection to a BMS/control system.