HVAC Automation Not Working

[johannesparty]

HVAC control working well in HomeKit generally, but Automations not working. For background, I have three HVAC controllers in Heat-Only Mode.

Manually changing in HomeKit or Lutron App shows changes on the opposite as well as the wall controls. However, when I set up an Automation at a particular time to change temperature, it does not work. When I run the Lutron App and hit "test" on the autonmation, I can see the temperature briefly change for Lutron App, but then immediately reverts.

I am happy to provide additional logs, screenshots, etc. if it helps, but maybe you already know about this problem. Note that I can't say for sure if this is a problem with this plugin, with home bridge, or HomeKit itself. I have Kumo/Mitsubishi through HomeBridge and it also acts wonky (but different from this plugin) with HomeKit automation.

Let me know what I can do to help. Thanks!

[senorshaun]

Personally, I've never had HVAC controls, all that code was written with a sample thermostat, and some trial and error. If you can turn on debug mode and then test the automation, we may be able to see what's going on. It could be a callback not executing properly, or maybe an intent not happening. I really am not sure.

[johannesparty]

I've done some more research and have some conclusions. TLDR HomeKit automations do funny things (looks like wrong things) with HVAC, but there is a workaround. If you want to turn this into a FAQ or something, that might help others (let me know if you want me to draft something).

Background

Using this plugin on several RadioRA2 HVAC controllers to change temperature twice a day. The automations did not work consistently (actually, it was consistent but just wrong). For example, setting "Living Room" to 72-degrees Heat would not work. BTW, using the HomeKit GUI works fine to set and see temperature.

The HomeBridge logs reflected RadioRA2 doing this. On a whim, I looked at what the 3rd-party HomeKit "Controller" app showed for the automation. Instead of a single temperature set (as shown HomeKit GUI), I saw a set of actions:

• Target Temperature: 72.0F (seems good)
• Target Heating Cooling State: Heat (seems good)
• Cooling Threshold Temperature: 60.08F (odd but harmless I guess)(my HVAC does not have cooling BTW).
• Heating Threshold Temperature: 55.04F (very wrong and appears to be the problem)

Workaround

You can't edit automations in Controller (HomeKit API limitation). However, you can

• Create scene in HomeKit setting temp to 72F Heat
• Create automation in HomeKit to trigger the scene at a particular time.
• Run "Controller" and edit the Scene (yes you can do this)
• Delete all the commands except the Target Temperature and Heating/Cooling state.

This seems to work reliably for me. If you edit the scene with HomeKit, I'm not sure if you have to edit it again with Controller.

Conclusion

While it is possible this is a bug in this plugin or HomeBridge, I am increasingly convinced this is a bug in HomeKit. The workaround appears to work reliably, but given the steps required, if all you want is to change temperature at a time, then using the built-in functionality from RadioRa may make more sense. The manual temperature control does work great with this plugin though and can be used even if you have RadioRa schedule set up.

PS: Much thanks to sensorshaun for creating and maintaining this plugin.