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Venmar K8 HRV - Can I make this thing smart?

Ariyala

Hey,

 

I moved into a new house with a Venmar K8 HRV System recently.

The thing is tucked away into a corner of one of the closets and somewhat hard to reach and only has one button to toggle between three states: Off, Low, High.

 

Below that button there are a bunch of connectors for wall control units. However, none of the ones they offer are smart capable.

 

But before I continue, here's what I got, this is the HRV Unit itself:

https://www.venmar.ca/50-air-exchangers-k8-hrv.html

 

And this is one of the compatible wall control units:

https://www.venmar.ca/219-accessories-constructo-wall-control.html

 

And here's the user guide for the HRV unit:

https://www.venmar.ca/DATA/DOCUMENT/1504_4_en~v~user-guide.pdf

 

Now, if I look at that user guide on page 13 (7.1.4) it seems like that wall control unit is connected via two cables to the G and B connector.

This probably means I could also hook up some smart relay or switch to those two connectors to control it remotely, right?

 

The only thing I wonder is, how can just two wires control three states? Wouldn't two wires be just on/off? But the wall control unit clearly has a switch for all three states.

 

Does anyone have any ideas or tips?

Maybe also some recommendations on what smart switch/relay to get and test for this?

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Cheers,

Ari

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Those Y, R, G, B look like they might be standard HVAC connections that almost all thermostats connect up to. It might be worth just buying a smart thermostat and connect it up and see what happens.

Just buy it from a store with a good return policy and if it doesn't work you can take it back. 

 

I have an Ecobee3 that seems to do a pretty good job for me. I have it integrated into Home Assistant.

 

 

 

 

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-> Moved to Hobby Electronics

^^^^ That's my post ^^^^
<-- This is me --- That's your scrollbar -->
vvvv Who's there? vvvv

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Using a real thermostat like Ecobee or Nest could work I guess, since the connectors are very similar. But I feel like it'd be a bit overkill to hook a Nest or Ecobee to it, since I really only want to remote-control the on/low/high state from my phone manually 🙂

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