A cozier and a more energy efficient home - air conditioner support published!

It is great to publish heating and energy efficiency related new features in autumn. Controlling an air conditioner using a Cozify Hub has been on our customers' wish list for a long time. Now it's possible! I've pointed out here the basics of how to take AirPatrol into use, and what kind of new and exciting features we support for it.

AirPatrol WiFi

Ultimately the decision to user AirPatrol was easy. AirPatrol WiFi supports over 700 different air conditioner models from several different manufacturers. With one integration we were able to reach a truly comprehensive support for a wide selection of air conditioner models. Already own an air conditioner? Check the complete list of supported models here. It is important to take into account the fact that the support was implemented for only the AirPatrol WiFi version. SMS controlled GSM versions are not supported.

Setup and installation

Setting up the AirPatrol Wifi is easy and straightforward, and is done according to the instructions of manufacturer found in the AirPatrol WiFi sales package. Ensure that during the setup, the AirPatrol WiFi is connected to the same home network where Cozify Hub is connected to.

Tip: Always before pairing 3rd party devices with Cozify hub, ensure that the device is working as expected using the manufacture's own mobile application.

When the AirPatrol WiFi is installed, you can pair the device with Cozify Hub.

Pairing is done by following these steps:

• Initialize the pairing by selecting the (+)-icon at the right top corner of the Devices screen
• Select ADD MANUALLY button
• Select Add WiFi devices (by technology) or AirPatrol (by manufacturer)
• Type in the AirPatrol WiFi serial number from the back of the device, and select OK
• Press the pairing button on the right side of the AirPatrol WiFi device
• And finally select the OK button

Tip: If you don't want to type in the lengthy serial number using your phone or a tablet keypad, write down the number using your laptop and send it to yourself via email, and copy-paste it directly into the input field.

The manufacturer of the climate control unit is copied from the settings you made in the initial setup. Name the device and define the room the device is in, and you are ready to go!

Use

Basic controlling of the air conditioner is done using the Cozify application. You can

• Turn air conditioner on and off
• Set the mode to cooling, heating, fan, dry or auto
• Set the fan speed
• Turn swing mode on and off

These are the basic features, but the real value comes from the fact that Cozify Hub allows you to control air conditioner automatically using motion detectors, door and window sensors, wireless temperature sensors, and several other Cozify Hub supported devices. Different modes of the air conditioner can be stored into a theme, allowing you to take your own preferred setting into use with a press of a single button. For example, you could have separate themes for cooling and heating without need to remember the setting you had before.

Tip: Schedule cooling or heating to begin 30 minutes before you wake up or arrive home from work or school. What a nice wake up or homecoming treat!

Tip: Set the air conditioner to begin the heating or cooling automatically when you arrive home (rule: when mobile at home, turn scene on). Or control the heat pump manually using a wall switch.

A few examples of the rules

"Turn off the air conditioner if any of the home's exterior doors are open for more than 3 minutes. And turn on the heat pump when the door is closed."

When in a hurry, the front door is easily left open by accident. I love the possibility to leave it to Cozify Hub to automatically take care of controlling the air conditioner: It's rather expensive and frustrating to heat or cool the outdoors. Adjust the delay the way you want.

To create this rule, you need a door/window sensor for example from Centralite.

Another nice rule that adds the comfort of your home, is turning the air conditioner on only when someone is in the room.

"Turn on the cooling when motion is detected. And turn the cooling off when the room has been empty for 5 minutes."

Like in the previous example, you can adjust the delay the way you want.

To create this rule, you need a motion sensor for example from Centralite.

Other examples of possible air conditioner related rules:

• Turn on the air conditioner (cooling or heating), when certain room temperature is exceeded or fallen below (the level can be defined freely)
• Turn on the air conditioner, when certain relative room humidity level is exceeded or fallen below (the level can be defined freely)
• Send notification (push, sms or email) when certain room temperature is exceeded or fallen below (the level can be defined freely)
• Send notification (push, sms or email) when certain relative room humidity level is exceeded or fallen below (the level can be defined freely)
• Turn a theme on or off based on the room temperature
• Turn a theme on or off based on the room relative humidity level
• Turn the air conditioner off automatically after 2 hours of use (set the time freely)
• Turn off the air conditioner if smoke is detected (requires smoke detector) 
• Turn off the air conditioner if water is detected (requires water leak sensor)

Order the AirPatrol WiFi from Cozify Store from here.

If you don't yet own a Cozify Hub, a nice way to start exploring how your smart home could improve your home safety and energy efficiency, is to begin with one of our well thought starter bundles.

Cozify User Story - Home of a young couple

We've been using Cozify in our home for a little bit over a year now. I’ve grown to like the convenience that when the morning or night comes, I don’t need to walk through all the rooms to switch on or off all the individual lights separately. Especially for us who prefer atmospheric lighting, Cozify has given a flexible and convenient way to use individual lights in selected locations.

We have currently a total of 7 different individual lamps across the rooms and balcony in our apartment. This gives us creative and flexible possibilities to use lighting as part of decoration which is constantly evolving. If I’d need to manually to go to turn them on and off every time I 1) wake up, 2) leave the house, 3) return to the house and 4) go to sleep, it would require me to visit to switch those lights on and off 28 times during one day. If we left the house two times per day instead of one, the number would be a total of 42 times switches of lights per each day. It is 2016, and it should be easier, and it is.

You can automate traditional “non-smart” lamps ON and OFF via a smart power socket

Once we leave the house empty, we turn on the AWAY mode on our way out, and all the 7 lights go off + the Sonos music speaker if it’s on. Once we return home and open the door, the Nyce contact sensor tells Cozify to turn on the HOME -mode, switching on all the lights we want with desired settings regarding the time of the day. Once we go to sleep, I will set Cozify to NIGHT mode at the same as I put on the wake up for the next day from my mobile. In the morning as I shut down the phone’s alarm, I turn OFF the NIGHT mode, and all the lights are back on + music/radio in bathroom for a morning routine if we feel like it.

While still in AWAY mode, when you enter your home (by opening the door), the Nyce door sensor turns automatically ON the HOME mode

Of course, as soon as we’d get geo-location tags attached to our keys, going away from home could be also detected automatically, and I believe the geo-tag device support is coming still during this year to Cozify. But meanwhile, I will take the manual AWAY-switching using Cozify application anytime over the manual light switching across the rooms.


Another convenient use of lights in addition to switching them and off, or changing the mood according the time of the day, is at night. If there is movement in the hallway at night time (detected by the Nyce motion sensor), the desired set of lights turn ON and OFF automatically (dimmed at 20% brightness not to blind you in the dark) if one of us visits the bathroom.

Proove outdoor power socket enables controlling also your balcony’s traditional lights and for example heating.

It's also possible to decide when the lights are off, even if someone is at home - I’ve used Cozify’s timer function to turn off the balcony lights when there’s enough light outside. Proove‘s outdoor smart power socket does the job beautifully. Cozify knows when the sun rises and falls, and the balcony lights and some of our indoor lights’ timings are based on that. I have added one hour buffer for those events through Cozify, being: the lights go off 1 hour after the sunrise, and 1 hour before the sundown as the sun in Finland doesn’t often tend to be too bright.

Another fun example we have connected to Cozify is the Sonos wireless speaker which is located in the bathroom. With Proove remote switch I’m able to change a Spotify-playlist or radio channel in the speaker depending on what kind of mood I’m having - without the need to have my phone and Cozify mobile app there with me. Enjoying sauna is often an essential part of a Finnish house party and for that it is also convenient to have switchable music at hand at the sauna premises. I have three dedicated playlists attached to the Proove remote switch. One of them being called “saunaChill” which contains chill out songs to be played in random order while having sauna or in the mornings. If I've been listening music/radio, the speaker goes off automatically with the lights via Cozify’s AWAY-mode as we leave the house for work.

If we are on a holiday elsewhere, we know that everything in the house is fine. In case the front door would open while we are on holiday, or if the temperature or moisture levels (detected by the NyCe multi sensor) would change unexpectedly, Cozify would send us an sms or push notification to our mobile notifying about it. As the camera device support is about to be included to Cozify, via a video camera we will also see then remotely exactly what is happening in the house.

As we’ve grown to the convenience of having Cozify, it definitely is giving added value and convenience to our home experience making every day living more convenient and enjoyable. We’ve just scratched the surface so far regarding the possibilities Cozify. Cozify Hub will introduce a bunch of new features still during this year, such as the video camera support etc.

Here is our Cozify setup:

Cozify Hub 249.00 €	Philips Hue Bloom x2 69.95 €	NyCe Multi-Sensor - Ceiling 55 €	NyCe Door/Window Sensor 45 €
Sonos Play:1, white 225.00 €	Proove wall plug x3 9.90 €	Proove Outdoor wall plug + 8-button remote 17.90 €	Osram Lightify Smart Bulb, Color 45 €

The total cost of this home automation setup of ours is 806.5 € . What is to be noted though is that over half of the price is formed by the powerful high fidelity speaker of Sonos and the decoration lights, which cost always - them being smart devices or not. The difference in them compared to traditional solutions is of course that they bring now more value and convenience as I have them all working and connected together through Cozify in the house.


One cool aspect is that once you’ve gotten your basic home automation up and running, adding affordable new features to it little by little makes the future of your home and living gradually even more convenient and evolving. Next I am waiting for the camera, and a way to more precisely detect when someone is at home and when not. In the near future I’m considering adding probably a couple of affordable 433 MHz wall switches to control the Cozify’s currently manually controlled AWAY and NIGHT modes. There's also newly added security devices such as water leak detector, which as a home owner I'm motivated to setup next to our washing machine and fridge.