Are there any centralized residential HVAC/Dehum & Ventilation control systems for multiple zones?
I recently retrofitted a ranch-style house to a 3 – Zone ducted Mitsubishi system. While it works great I’ve come to realize that I need a stand-alone dehumidifier and likely some improved ventilation as well.
In the process of educating myself on the topic I’ve been watching some CERV2 webinars and come to understand the value of being able to measure what is going on in specific rooms when it comes to temp, humidity, CO2 & VOC.
As it currently stands the HVAC systems need their thermostats, Dehum would need it’s control system & ventilation unit would need a control system.
Without going down the rabbit hole of specifics I was curious if there was any type of scalable centralized control to be able to monitor various sensors for the different units and make intelligent decisions?
I know Mitsubishi has their Kumo cloud system but so far as much as I love the actual equipment, I have been less than impressed with their control systems … and that is not even factoring in the $$$ premium you pay for them.
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I found your post while searching for info on the Kumo system and see you never received a response.
After far too much time researching this, I settled on a Hubitat controller. It is not for the faint of heart, but I am able to monitor my sensors. As far as making intelligent decisions, that is limited to the "rules" I write, and I'm not sure ow intelligent those are, but I set my dehumidifier to go on when the crawl space humidity reaches 51% and run until it gets to 47%, rinse & repeat. Runs about 4 times per day for 30 minutes or so each time. I don't yet have it making other decisions, but the monitoring works. I have a dashboard on which I can display results from a few Zooz Zwave temp/humidity sensors (which operate on a plug, and also sense motion and lux), my Mitsubishi MRCH1 thermostats, and track the operation of my dehumidifier.
There is not yet a driver to collect data from my Airthings Wave air quality monitor, but it seems probable someone will release one soon.
It also connects to my z-wave digital door lock to allow me to enter codes, to a few inovelli switches and to my security system. It allows me to use the security system sensors to automate various lights.
I appreciate the all in one consolidated interface. Getting the connections set up is sometimes challenging.
There are lots of choices in the home automation market. I would stay away from cloud solutions and use one with dedicated hardware—that work when the internet is down. For HVAC, I would look at a PLC based system where you can actuate valves and dampers. Carel and Dixell appear to offer robust solutions. Belimo appears to have good actuators or valves. For the DIY, a CoDeSys based solution also appears doable, it looks like there are function blocks for humidity control.
Agree entirely that you need solutions that work when the internet is down, especially mission critical. That is the beauty of the Hubitat - it can pull data from the cloud but does not need the cloud to work. It is a standalone system. All critical automations occur locally - it picks up data from a zwave humidity sensor, and processes and sends commands locally to turn the dehumidifier on and off, the leak sensers do the same.
The Mitsu ducted minis are highly sophisticated equipment, so replacing the controls on them is not ideal. It is best to use the OEM Mitsu controls and then try to integrate the data from those into another system. The Mitsu controls are also local and work when the internet is down.
The challenge is getting all that data from various monitors into one system, that still operates when there is no internet. A local Mitsu Redlink system for the minis, and a local zwave / zigbee system with local controllers for all else is working great for me.