I have finished integration of TR-16 with Elk M1 Gold. I thought i would share my experience and get feedback from people who done similar integration.
The integration was not easy. The documentation is confusing and technical support does not seem to provide detailed answers, but i partially blame it on myself because good answer should have properly formed question and i might have failed to be specific.
Is it worth 200+ dollars? I do not think it is. The old thermostat had more functions built in, but had no integration with Elk. The TR-16 has many hidden features but one must have the tr-16 connected to a pc in order to gain access. One feature that i miss is a schedule, which really can be achieved by Elk, but why would RCS hide these features from the ordinary user?
Anyway, the integration is done and here is what i wanted the tr-16 to do? When the system is armed i want to shut the thermostat off. Its simple and very cost effective - you are not home then why would you need to have heat on. Ok, this might be not the case in Chicago where winters are cold, but in San Francisco I really do not care - I have no plants in the house that require room temperature to stay above some magic mark.
When system is disarmed I want the thermostat to kick in and heat up the room to 70F. I created a task to do just that and disarmed the system. The TR-16 wall display unit showed 70F but furnace did not kick in. I realized that the thermostat is OFF, which is correct since it was turned off when i armed the system. I need to add another step to the task to turn the thermostat to heat and then set the temperature to 70F.
I have a gas furnace and it will take a while before i fully trust my installation so i want to dial in to the Elk and check the thermostat reading. Apparently that is not possible. I should be able to get temperature reading, but for some reason mine always returned an error.
Anyone wants to comment on this?
The integration was not easy. The documentation is confusing and technical support does not seem to provide detailed answers, but i partially blame it on myself because good answer should have properly formed question and i might have failed to be specific.
Is it worth 200+ dollars? I do not think it is. The old thermostat had more functions built in, but had no integration with Elk. The TR-16 has many hidden features but one must have the tr-16 connected to a pc in order to gain access. One feature that i miss is a schedule, which really can be achieved by Elk, but why would RCS hide these features from the ordinary user?
Anyway, the integration is done and here is what i wanted the tr-16 to do? When the system is armed i want to shut the thermostat off. Its simple and very cost effective - you are not home then why would you need to have heat on. Ok, this might be not the case in Chicago where winters are cold, but in San Francisco I really do not care - I have no plants in the house that require room temperature to stay above some magic mark.
When system is disarmed I want the thermostat to kick in and heat up the room to 70F. I created a task to do just that and disarmed the system. The TR-16 wall display unit showed 70F but furnace did not kick in. I realized that the thermostat is OFF, which is correct since it was turned off when i armed the system. I need to add another step to the task to turn the thermostat to heat and then set the temperature to 70F.
I have a gas furnace and it will take a while before i fully trust my installation so i want to dial in to the Elk and check the thermostat reading. Apparently that is not possible. I should be able to get temperature reading, but for some reason mine always returned an error.
Anyone wants to comment on this?