For years, there was no way to fully integrate and control floor heating systems with home automation systems. The closest floor we came to was with the dry contact capability of SunTouch’s programmable thermostats. This allowed home automation systems to bypass the ‘Auto’ mode to ‘hold’ a temperature for a certain amount of time.
Most people end up setting their preferences on their programmable thermostat once and never changing them at all except to set the systems on hold if they go out of town.
In the last several years, Nuheat’s SIGNATURE thermostat has been made compatible with the Nest and Control4 home automation systems, but many of our customers prefer using SunTouch programmable thermostats and simply integrating them into their home automation system using dry contact.
What is dry contact?
Dry contact is not a wireless connection. Instead, it is a low-voltage wired connection that allows the HAS to switch the thermostat between the Heating setting and an ‘Away’ setting to help the system operate more efficiently when no one is home.
How do I connect my thermostat via dry contact, and how does it work?
Connect the HAS via the dry contact relay input (see your thermostat manual). When the HAS sends a signal (e.g., the remote signal “closes” across the remote terminals), the thermostat goes into Setback mode. All programming and schedules remain intact and in place. The remote signal just overrides them. (The same thing happens if you simply press Setback.)
When the remote signal from the HAS releases or “opens” the contact, the thermostat goes back to its normal operating schedule.
For more details on how to program your system, see your thermostat instruction manual.
Looking for additional installation/connection tips? Check out the excerpts in the SIGNATURE manual.