Hello, I am new to the community and looking for some help and guidance. I can currently control my pool pump via my vera plus. What i and trying to do is get my pump to turn on when the water and or outside temp gets around freezing temps. This is just so i dont have to worry about lines a pump freezing. Again i am new and have little experience so please try and dumb it down if possible. Thank you!
Hi and welcome.
do you have an outside temp sensor?
if so this is faiely easy in scenes.
if not you will have to do a http request to get temp.
Do you have a temp sensor you recommend?
You can use sitesensor plugin to query openweathermap to return your local outside temp. No need to have one unless you want one.
sitesensor can be installed from apps>install section.
here is the site sensor docs.
http://www.toggledbits.com/sitesensor/
I would also recommend to install Reactor and use it instead of vera’s native scennes. As it is more reliable.
I will look at this thank you so much for the information!
you will need to register at openweathermap and obtain an access key. It is free
For ease, use vots plugin for vera. That’s virtual outdoor temperature sensor. It queries yahoo weather. Not great but close enough.
Reactor is the next vera plugin. Some learning curve (not huge) to trigger the scene reliably with notifications if you want and it survives luup reloads.
So i have VOT. I am currently trying to figure out how to setup the Reactor for it. I have done Reactor with a motion sensor but i followed a tutorial and have not be able to fine ine for temp.
I think i got it work. I will continue to monitor to be sure. I want to thank you guys you are great!
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I would recommend you use a web weather service and get an exterior temperature sensor. You don’t want an internet outage to result in frozen pipes.
You could combine it and get a qubino relay + temp sensor probe, or something like a FortressMiMo + temp probe or you could get a cheap multisensor and mount it somewhere dry but that has exterior temperatures
I use Virtual Outdoor Temperature sensor in conjunction with Reactor to set a heating schedule (ie, duration and frequency) based on outdoor ambient temperature. Control one of those outdoor 40amp GE/Jasco Zwave switches. Also have a monitor in place to turn the hot tub off if I am in it with the heater/jets and forget to turn off when I leave.
Sounds almost exactly like my setup.