I’d been looking for a WiFi thermostat that was affordable for a while; most seem to be vaporware or very expensive – but the CT30 from the Radio Thermostat Company of America looks like it may just fit the bill. It apparently has a Gainspan low-power WiFi chipset, and the online store shows it at $99. Unfortunately, shipping is $53 – overnight from China! But they tell me they’re working on fixing that, and they should be available to ship by next month. Apparently there is also an API to talk to the device, but documentation on that doesn’t seem to be available yet either. I did manage to find manuals for the more sophisticated device, the CT80, so it appears to be more than vaporware – I’ll be keeping an eye on it for sure.
Update 3/4/2010: Now it’s $119 … still backordered, still listing $53 shipping. Argh.
Update 4/19/2010: Now it’s $119 … and still backordered, still listing $53 shipping. Argh Argh. Losing faith!
If you get this, you better make a PCP PMDA.
Take a look at this site.
http://www.intwineenergy.com/products.html
They appear to be the CT30 and CT80 rebranded locally. They are higher priced, but they are in stock.
Interesting; I wonder if they just OEM these things from somewhere after all…
Thanks Scott for the tip. Unfortunately the “CT30″ is backordered as of 30-Jun-2010. (Same as RTOA) Where you able to order one at the beginning of the month?
The CT80 (at least) is now available from RTOA again. Mine was delivered within 10 days of ordering, though the Thermostat shipped directly from China (!) and the WiFi module separately from CA. As far as I can determine from the (rather limited) documentation on the WiFi module, you can only control the thermostat via the internet (by Registering it at http://www.ourhomespaces.com). There is no apparent way of linking to it directly within your home network – or at least none provided with the device. Obviously, you can browse to the ourhomespaces site and login there when you want to do anything, and the display and control options there are reasonably comprehensive, but that seems like a rather strange way of doing things. I had assumed that there would be a documented direct HTTP or FTP interface of some sort, but browsing to the module’s IP address produces only a time-out error. I have sent email to the ourhome spaces people enquiring about this – I will post again if I get a useful response.
Peter, thanks for the update! Seems the cheap one (CT30) is eternally out of stock…
Yes, this device seems to be very focused on the subscription model, which kinda sucks, IMHO. RTOA / ourhomespaces / intwine / enphase are all following that model.
I’m of the firm belief that devices like this should have open data access; 98% of buyers aren’t hackers and would probably be glad to pay $20/year for pretty flash graphs, but folks like us would like the raw data too! Maybe the fear is that some other subscription service would undercut them for the masses if the access were open…?
It turns out that I was doing the RTOA/ourhomespaces folks something of an injustice. I initially had trouble with a Yahoo Widget that you download from the ourhomespaces website and thought that its only function was to hook up the WiFi module with the site (their documentation needs serious work!). In fact, once I got thiings working properly, it turned out that the widget also allows you to do from the desktop most of the things that you can do from the control panel on the website. I also made contact with someone at ourhomespaces, who has offered to send me the protocol definition for the device. The widget’s JavaScript code isn’t encrypted in any way, but it might as well be for all the sense I can make out of it!
Also in fairness to the ourhomespaces folks, they haven’t asked me for a subscription (yet?!).
Having said all this, I, too, would like to have direct access to my data, and look forward to seeing the protocols.
Peter – cool, keep me posted!
Hello there. Dropping in on the conversation. I have been on the lookout for these things for a loooong time. Even let go at one point, but I’m picking it up again. Thanks for your info, let us know how your stuff turns out ! I will experiment on my end, will let you in on what I find.
…here’s a little note : I’m from up north, were most thermostat are high voltage in-line units. Hence, not only am I looking for what looks like vaporware, but even more so since high voltage will most likely
Well, I do have the documentation, and I now have a VB.NET Class to read and control the Thermostat about 80% completed. The device’s (UDP) interface takes me back to my days of programming real time data acquisition and control applications for DEC micros under RT-11! Because it is a UDP interface, you need to be able to program in a language that allows you to get down and dirty with sockets – you can’t just use HTML and JavaScript and/or WScript, so there is no straightforward way of writing a freestanding Windows Sidebar gadget (which is what I had hoped to do). I will be using an approach that I use to summarise and display the output of my TED whole-house power monitoring kit – run a VB.NET application in the system tray to do the data-acquisition and processing and use the Registry to transfer the data to be displayed to a simple sidebar gadget.
On the high (I assume that means mains level) voltage thermostat issue, one approach would be to install an appropriate 24 VAC transformer near your furnace, with adequately rated relays set up across the mains control lines – then you can use any 24V thermostat to switch power to the relay coils.
The VB .Net Class is pretty much done, and it (and the hardware, of course) allows you to write to the Thermostat’s screen, as well as read from it and change its settings. See http://www.fletchers-uk.com/images/ConfiguredStat.jpg for an image of the Thermostat showing (bottom of screen) my PV Solar production and (top left of screen) the current real time electricity price data.
Peter, that’s slick! Too bad it’s VB / .net but still
I see RTCOA has more (vaporware?) models on their homepage; at least only 1 (the CT80) is available to purchase, as it’s been for a year or so…
I may just get tired of waiting for all these clowns and make my own…