Has anyone ever used a temperature sensor and smart relay to control electric heat without having a smart thermostat?
I have a cabin that has about a dozen baseboard heaters. Some of the heaters have wall mounted dial type thermostat, some just have a knob on the front.
I’d like to avoid adding 10 or so new thermostats, so I was thinking about, at least in some of the rooms, just using a temperature sensor and a smart relay to control the heaters.
Basic logic would be: Set room set point based on occupancy, then turn the heat on if (temp < (set point - .25 degrees), turn off heat if (temp > set point + .25 degrees).
I assume the real downside would that loss of connectivity would break the system and the heat would be stuck on or off, but I also considered just doing this on for the rooms that only have the baseboards that have the knob on the heater itself, and wiring the relay control in parallel with the knob which is set to a minimal temperature. If the smart relay fails and the temp drops, the old built in thermostat will kick the heater on.
This brings me to another question - if I have basic automation rules in my smartthings hub, will they still work if sharptools isn’t connected? If so I could have a shut off rule at a higher set point in the smart things hub so if the heat is stuck on due to loss of connection to sharptools and the temp gets high, the relay will be turned off?