Opentherm integration has empty HVAC property

jjvandenberg commented 1 year ago

The problem

the hvac_modes property is empty, it should contain (at least) the heat value to indicate this integration is able to control heating.

for example an airco unit has these: hvac_modes:

'off'
heat_cool
cool
heat
fan_only
dry

this is used by thermostat integrations.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2023.4.6

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Supervised

Integration causing the issue

opentherm gateway

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/opentherm_gw/

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

hvac_modes: []
min_temp: 10
max_temp: 30

# should be:

hvac_modes:
  - heat
min_temp: 10
max_temp: 30

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

home-assistant[bot] commented 1 year ago

Hey there @mvn23, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (opentherm_gw) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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mvn23 commented 1 year ago

Thank you for the report, but unfortunately this is done by design. The hvac_modes setting is a concept used by some thermostat and AC manufacturers to determine how the device controls the temperature. This setting only exists only in the controlling device and does not get transmitted to the devices it controls.

Since the OpenTherm Gateway is not a part of the thermostat, but rather sits between the thermostat and the boiler while listening to and influencing the communication between the two, it has no idea of any such concept. The best we could do in theory would be to make an educated guess as to which of the modes would fit the currently active control method(s). However, due to differences between manufacturers this guess would not always be accurate, especially since in most modes the allowed control methods are not necessarily always on. Finally, because these modes do not exist in the OpenTherm protocol used to communicate between the thermostat, boiler and gateway, it is impossible to determine which modes are supported on the thermostat. It is also not possible to set these modes on the thermostat from the OpenTherm Gateway. Due to the way the Home Assistant UI is designed it will always give the impression that this is a configurable item, rather than a read-only value.

Because of the above, the hvac_modes property was not implemented in the OpenTherm Gateway integration.

jjvandenberg commented 1 year ago

Thanks for the detailed and substantiated answer. I'm going to check with the developer of the thermostat to ignore an unset hvac mode so it doesn't result in an error. Keep up the good work :-)

mvn23 commented 1 year ago

For reference, which thermostat are you using that is giving you an error?

jjvandenberg commented 1 year ago

Hi,

It is the really cool work of https://github.com/joBr99/nspanel-lovelace-ui

It brings lovelace items to the Sonoff NS Panel

The thermostat doesn’t recognize an empty hvac property, so it gives an error in the gui, (first pic)

Second pic is seen after manual adding ”heat” to hvac_mode, but this is reset after a minut or so.

Third picture is a screendump seen from an airco unit.

Van: mvn23 @.> Verzonden: Monday, 1 May 2023 11:11 Aan: home-assistant/core @.> CC: jjvandenberg @.>; State change @.> Onderwerp: Re: [home-assistant/core] Opentherm integration has empty HVAC property (Issue #92300)

For reference, which thermostat are you using that is giving you an error?

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home-assistant / core