Open-close vent with alexa – Flair

Guglaw

What I mainly want to do with vents is to open them when I want heat in a room and close them when I don’t want heat in a room. Therefore, the first feature that should be in a smart vent is the ability by voice command (Alexa) to open and close the vent. All the other features would just be extra. You should develop this binary feature to open and to close a vent immediately and I would think it would be easy to program.

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16 comments

Flair Customer Support

Hi All,

I checked on this and, currently, for Alexa, when Flair is in Manual mode, turning ON or OFF will turn on and off a mini split, if available. We currently do not operate Smart Vents with Alexa when Flair is in Manual Mode. I removed the earlier post that said we did to avoid further confusion.

I'll definitely add this as a feature request because of its value to our customers. I can't give a timeline, as all feature requests are prioritized by management for inclusion in the product.

All the best,

Finn

Guglaw

Telling Alexa to turn off a room sets it to Away and telling Alexa to turn on a room sets it to Home. This does not necessarily result in the vent closing or opening unless other settings are in place. You should be able to use Alexa to say open/close vent in a room without changing any settings. It should be like an on/off switch for a light switch operated by Alexa.

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Purchases

Not doing this myself, but it looks like you already can. Have you checked this out? https://flair.co/pages/flair-and-amazon-echo-alexa

Looks like you can tell Alexa to turn off a room which should close the vent for that room. The Flair App must be in Auto mode to use this integration.

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Guglaw

I would like to emphasize that despite some misunderstandings about how the vents and pucks work together, the puck is the device that has a wifi chip and (for wifi purposes) has a constant power source from a USB adapter. The vent is generally speaking powered by batteries, and therefore does not connect directly to wifi. The vent does have a 24volt hardwire option, but the vent does not have a wifi option and therefore needs the puck to run in Gateway mode to receive commands via the app/web.

So I understand why you need the puck, to some extent, and that the puck is its own thermostat that can control mini split units and other IR controlled climate systems.

My concept regarding "open/close" commands would be for mini split systems it would indeed turn them on or off, but that would be an expectation for a binary choices command. Having the "open/close" and "on/off" sets of commands do essentially the same things would cut down on the feature needs considerably. It would also align with the thermostat functionality, as many thermostats still have an "off" setting for those who want a system disabled, for any reason.

Finn, if you're still working here, would it be possible to get feedback from management on where they see this in their pipeline as a feature request?

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Troy

I am very sorry, but I have been meaning to post this for a long, long time (well over a year). I have managed to work around the limitation of the direct Alexa Command to Open/Close a specific room vent by voice, at least in my configuration. I know this works if you have a room sensor/puck paired with your thermostat in every room with a vent you want to control. If you don't, it might still work since the room is in "manual mode". My Thermostat (Honeywell T10) with RedLINK 3.0 room sensors in every room.

Here is what I did

1). Obviously, enable and link the Alexa Flair skill to your Flair app account.
2). If you haven't already added the devices, go to the Devices tab in Alexa mobile app and click the + sign to Add Device. Scroll to the bottom and select Other and WiFi. After some time, this should find your vents. Note: If you have already added the vents as devices, you may just need to rename them if you used the word "vent" in the name (see step 3). 3). When adding your vents to Alexa, DON'T call them " Vent" and DO NOT add them to any Group/room. Apparently "Vent" is a reserved word in Alexa. I called mine " Register". I'm sure there are other words that work and other words that are reserved, but "register" worked for me. 4). Once you have all your vents, I mean Registers, added as devices, it's time to create the magic Routines. 5). For each register, you will need to create 2 Routines. I called mine " Vent - Open" and " Vent - Close" (yes you can use the word "vent" in the routine name, just not the device name).

Routine Details

WHEN: Anyone says "Alexa open Vent or "Alexa open the Vent". You can add others.

Alexa Will: Click the +, then click Custom and enter "Turn on Register" (to open the vent)

WHEN: Anyone says "Alexa close Vent or "Alexa close the Vent"

Alexa Will: Click the +, then click Custom and enter "Turn off Register" (to close the vent)

It's a little bit of up-front work to create all the routines. I have 13 vents, so it was 26 routines, but you only have to do this once. The key is DON'T use the word "vent" in the Device name or it simply won't work. Trust me, I tried over and over. As soon as I switched to using "register" it started working and I haven't had any issues since.

As you know, sometimes with Alexa you have to clearly annunciate your words to make sure "she" hears correctly. Note: If you upgrade your Routines to Alexa+, you will get a prompt something like: "I've turned on/off the register" or "I've set the register to on/off", otherwise (non-Alex+), it just beeps if you have Alexa brief mode turned on.

I issue these Alexa "voice" commands via automation multiple times daily from my primary smart home hub (Homey) and the main issues I have had are Alexa is offline (happens way too often) or the Flair bridge has lost connection to the particular vent. I have one that is right at the limits of the bridges connection range.

Notes: 1). If you add your vents to the same Alexa group that has other smart devices in it, when you Say close Vent, it might turn off all the other smart devices in that group/room. Took me awhile to figure out why that was happening. Removing the registers from the group/room solved it. 2). Be careful using the Set temperature Alexa commands if you are using your thermostat as your Set Point Controller. My Thermostat uses the exact same phase "Alexa set the temperature to xx degrees" to set the thermostat temperature instead of adjusting the Flair vent threshold. 3). The "Device" that is added to Alexa, is actually your room sensor and not the vent itself. 4). Therefore, asking "Alexa, what is the temperature in the " will give you the temperature of the room sensor and not the actual vent temperature. 5). When you open the vent via voice, it puts a HOLD on that room until the next scheduled event in your Flair schedule. You can open the Flair mobile app, go to that room and cancel the Hold if you like.

That's my brain dump of my knowledge/experience! I hope it helps everyone wanting this "feature".

Again, sorry it took so long.