Abies Tech BACnet WiFi thermostats.

[MaxBurn]

Anyone hear of these guys? Just stumbled on them after looking over the ashrae presentation list, they have a Monday afternoon slot.

Seems to be what we are looking for on tiny sites.

http://www.abiestech.com/product_list.php?item=10

[klrogers]

Don't see any UL or BTL listing mentioned, that would be a concern for us.

[MaxBurn]

A lot of these emerging things don't seem to have that when they first get to market. I'm not sure if the HVACR BACRouter got BTL yet or not for example.

[amigo]

And for that router and its price point might not make sense to pay min of 50 times its price to get BTL.

[orion242]

NFPA/NEC requires "approved" devices, approved by the AHJ. Might fly, might not if they are being a hard a$$ or if their are specific requirements elsewhere.

Ripping out a router or two, annoying. Ripping out a hotel worth of stats, day wrecker.

Getting support from across the globe might be a PITA as well. If they won't lay down a few grand to get some listings, are they going to pickup the phone?

[MaxBurn]

And for that router and its price point might not make sense to pay min of 50 times its price to get BTL.

Given the prices of these stats it's a very similar situation.

NFPA/NEC requires "approved" devices, approved by the AHJ. Might fly, might not if they are being a hard a$$ or if their are specific requirements elsewhere.

Ripping out a router or two, annoying. Ripping out a hotel worth of stats, day wrecker.

Getting support from across the globe might be a PITA as well. If they won't lay down a few grand to get some listings, are they going to pickup the phone?

I'll mention it to our parts people and see if they get challenged on things like this, but honestly I think the market for this is not new construction.

We plan to put some in our office and see how they work out.

[MaxBurn]

They do have some MS/TP equipment on BTL. Maybe it's just a matter of time before they submit this one.

https://www.bacnetinternational.net/btl/index.php?m=144

[amigo]

I think, not 100% sure, at some point contemporary controls was considering rebadging some of their mstp tstats, but they never showed up on their website.
if you have any connection at CC, may be ask them what their experience was.

[orion242]

And for that router and its price point might not make sense to pay min of 50 times its price to get BTL.

Yea well maybe on a parts only outlook. I however may be on the hook to replace unsaid number of these, labor and replacement with a listed device. So if the replacement costs on a single job is more than a vendors listing cost, the risk is all mine IMO. No warm and fuzzies there.

If a vendor isn't willing to shell out a few grand, neither am I unless its a near one off item at incredible deal.

Not saying I wouldn't try something like this, but it has three strikes out of the gate. No BTL/UL listing and the support is likely a total PITA or zero. That said, I have pounded on the cheap BACnet router and just started to put a few on real sites to see how they do "outside the lab".

[MaxBurn]

I think, not 100% sure, at some point contemporary controls was considering rebadging some of their mstp tstats, but they never showed up on their website.
if you have any connection at CC, may be ask them what their experience was.

Good catch, do these two things look familiar?

https://www.ccontrols.com/pdf/ts/BASstat2018.pdf
Unfortunately the URL mentioned in that brochure is 404 on the main site. I'll message Diego.

[control$]

Another good reason not to buy them..more Chinese and Chicom junk!

Factory Sites：
Taipei：No.168, Liancheng Rd., Zhonghe Dist., New Taipei City 235, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
China：No.12, Shuang-Fu Rd., Tong-An Dist., Xiamen, China

[orion242]

yea well, you should take a look around. Just posting here almost certainly involves several devices that the vast majority of the components, the PCB and its assembly where all done in China. Sure they might be able to slap a USA sticker on it, but just putting the the last screws in on the case doesn't really constitute a US made product in my mind. Those factories all left along time ago and aren't coming back.

[MaxBurn]

Just talked to Contemporary Controls. They WILL be selling these, they currently have them in stock and are putting together literature now. Should be listed for sale mid December. Specifically asked about the IP variant being BTL listed and he mentioned that Abies put them through BTL, not Contemporary Controls.

So if you feel better getting a china product through Contemporary Controls that avenue will be available. I honestly DO like their support. Personally I don't shun China/Taiwan products at all, regardless of the current political climate. Having a rep in your time zone, language, and currency is rather nice though.

[MaxBurn]

Have some of these in to review for a while now.

Looks; they look pretty good, they are a bit on the thick side but display is large and pretty informative on what is going on. Color is white, not tan.

Issues below I've identified. Overall I don't get the impression this stat has benefitted from any integrator feedback, these are pretty low hanging fruit type of issues. I look forward to stopping by the Contemporary Controls booth and discussing these to see how they are addressing it, or not.

1. The stats we were sent appropriate for a single stage heat pump with electric strips do not have any way to change the function of the reversing valve. Seems like they can add this to the engineering menu when I asked about that, maybe in a firmware update we can do ourselves with a chip programing tool they shared info on.

2. Heating setpoint issue, when in heating mode and adjusting the setpoint the displayed setpoint is meaningless to the operator because it is the cooling setpoint (shown). The actual heating setpoint is the cooling setpoint minus the deadband (hidden away in the engineering menu) which the operator won't know about. Picture below. Might be a firmware change we can do also.

2a. Alternately they do have firmwares available for dual setpoint functionality where the heating/cooling setpoints are different points and there is no deadband point. I rather like the current stat function though as it maintains whatever seperation you select to start with, the dual setpoint model wouldn't do that.

3. Included setpoint overall limits don't take into account for max heating min cooling limits that some stats have and I prefer as energy savings points. While we can handle that in the front end by overwriting what the operator did after they turned their back I would prefer to handle it in the stat because the limit would be obvious to the operator when they can't go any further. Currently all the operator knows is it changed while their back was turned. Because we want these as BACnet points that apparently can't be done in a firmware change. Reading between the lines I got the impression this would not be able to be done with a firmware update because the BACnet stack is on a different chip.

4. Fan speeds / continuous run. If you have the lowest fan speed set to something other than stop (like in commercial setting) the fan will not stop in unoccupied mode. While we can handle that programmatically in the front end while writing OCC changes I don't recall another stat I've had to do that to.

5. Remote sensor is an either / or situation, no provision for averaging. I haven't asked about this yet. What you can do though is attach a remote sensor, use the local sensor for temp control and monitor the remote sensor through BACnet as a discharge temperature. It also appears you can order the stats with additional analog inputs to do remote temp sensor and discharge.

[MaxBurn]

Also CC did get them up on their web page;

https://www.ccontrols.com/enews/2018/1218story1.htm
https://www.ccontrols.com/basautomation/basstat.php

[orion242]

1. The stats we were sent appropriate for a single stage heat pump with electric strips do not have any way to change the function of the reversing valve. Seems like they can add this to the engineering menu when I asked about that, maybe in a firmware update we can do ourselves with a chip programing tool they shared info on.

One would hope. In the cold north its 99.9% rev valve off = heat. The more south you go, its a total grab bag and adding relays to deal with this is a PITA.

2. Heating setpoint issue, when in heating mode and adjusting the setpoint the displayed setpoint is meaningless to the operator because it is the cooling setpoint (shown). The actual heating setpoint is the cooling setpoint minus the deadband (hidden away in the engineering menu) which the operator won't know about. Picture below. Might be a firmware change we can do also

Would have thought they would show the midpoint between hgt/clg setpoints. That's just going to be a confusing mess for end users. Has to be a simple software tweak.

[MaxBurn]

One would hope. In the cold north its 99.9% rev valve off = heat. The more south you go, its a total grab bag and adding relays to deal with this is a PITA.

Funny thing, our Rheems are energized for heat which I thought was the minority but we lucked out that's what the stat is.

Would have thought they would show the midpoint between hgt/clg setpoints. That's just going to be a confusing mess for end users. Has to be a simple software tweak.

Midpoint wouldn't work either because if you have your deadband set to 5°F you would only ever get 2.5° close to the displayed setpoint and never achieve setpoint. So now your operators would be complaining the system shuts off too soon, or be trained they need to put the stat excessively high/low to force it to do what they want. Been thinking about this for a while and it's actually pretty complex to present to the user a simple single setpoint number but still meet the dual setpoint with 5° deadband that ashrae wants, and maintain that deadband as users adjust things.

[orion242]

Midpoint wouldn't work either because if you have your deadband set to 5°F you would only ever get 2.5° close to the displayed setpoint and never achieve setpoint. So now your operators would be complaining the system shuts off too soon, or be trained they need to put the stat excessively high/low to force it to do what they want. Been thinking about this for a while and it's actually pretty complex to present to the user a simple single setpoint number but still meet the dual setpoint with 5° deadband that ashrae wants, and maintain that deadband as users adjust things.

Heat ON = setpoint - 0.5 * deadband
Heat OFF = setpoint
Cool OFF = setpoint
Cool ON = setpoint + 0.5 * deadband

Expose the hgt/clg ON setpoints as the active setpoints, the median as the occ setpoint and the deadband all as BACnet points. End user isn't confused as hell, cannot cross setpoints, and one can get any hgt/clg setpoint they want with just the setpoint + deadband.

What's wrong with that?

[xarralu]

I ended up ordering one of these from Contemporary Controls and have been playing with it for the past week. Setup is pretty easy, works as expected I think as any 2 stage stat.

BUT, I have been going back and forth with Mr.Mateo with tech support on how to lock all of the buttons and be able to occ/unocc it through BACnet. I've got the Wi-Fi version. He has sent me a few things to try but still doesn't work right.

So far there is no way to do that unless you put "Lock" (AV18) back to default which is 64 (unlocks everything), then occ/unocc (BV14) it then put AV18 back to 63 which locks the buttons.

So...I think it still has some kinks in it, but I think once this is figured out it'll have its place.

[orion242]

Sounds like the typical VRF system. It "can" do anything if you try hard enough. BYOL, aka Bring Your Own Logic...labor and engineering. Is it worth the hassle though.

Seems like it only covers the absolute basic apps, so how hard is that to bung up? Without sequences for some of the easy energy credits, looks like just a down and dirty dirt simple stat...with headaches.