Automating the Thermostat for Each Stay

Automating the Thermostat for Each Stay

The Thermostat automation moves your thermostats to comfort temperatures a few hours before each guest arrives, and to eco temperatures after they check out. During the stay the guest is in charge; Staykey only acts at the two edges.

For why this is worth doing and what setpoints to aim for, see the guide how to automate the thermostat between guests. This article covers the setting itself.

Requirements

• A thermostat connected through Home Assistant. Thermostats come into Staykey from the property's Home Assistant hub. Thermostats connected through a cloud account are not supported. See connecting your Home Assistant hub.
• Stays in Staykey. The automation runs from each stay's check-in and check-out times, whichever way the booking arrived.

Set it up

1. Open Properties and choose the property
2. In the settings sidebar, under Automations, choose Thermostat
3. Switch on Pre-condition thermostats
4. Under Thermostats to control, tick each thermostat Staykey should move. Nothing is controlled until you tick it. Hot tubs and pool heaters show up in this list too, so leave those unticked unless you mean it
5. Choose the Temperature unit: the one your thermostats display. Staykey sends the numbers exactly as you enter them
6. Fill in Before arrival and After departure (below)
7. Click Save

Before arrival and after departure

Each phase has the same fields:

Allowed temperatures are 50 to 90 °F, or 10 to 32 °C. When you fill in both, Heat to must be lower than Cool to.

Which temperatures you need depends on the mode:

• Keep current mode (the default) follows whatever the thermostat is already doing. Heating, it uses Heat to. Cooling, it uses Cool to. In heat-and-cool or auto, it sets both. Fill in at least one; fill in both if the thermostat switches between heating and cooling through the year
• Heat puts every selected thermostat in heat mode and needs Heat to
• Cool puts every selected thermostat in cool mode and needs Cool to
• Heat and cool needs both

What the automation will and won't do

• It never turns a system off. Eco means eco temperatures, not off
• It turns a system on when needed. If a thermostat is off at the time, Staykey switches it to a mode that can use your temperatures, then sets them
• It skips what it can't do. A thermostat in fan-only or dry mode, one that doesn't offer the mode you chose, or one with no temperature filled in for its mode is left alone. If every selected thermostat is left alone, the stay says so
• It runs once per phase per stay. A cancelled stay cancels anything still scheduled. If check-in moves later after the arrival temperatures were already set, they aren't set again

Checking that it ran

Open the stay and choose Automations in the sidebar, or look at the Automations card in the stay's details on the calendar. You'll see Thermostat: before arrival and Thermostat: after departure, each one of:

• Scheduled for a date and time
• Set a date and time: at least one thermostat was moved
• Skipped, with the reason
• Failed, with the reason

Troubleshooting

If a selected thermostat is removed from Home Assistant, the setting shows it as Unavailable thermostat. Untick it to clear it.

Need help? Contact support with the property and the stay.