Sensible brings the logic of a Sensibo with a room sensor to the heat pump you already have in Homey – without extra hardware or advanced flows. It also works with panel heaters and floor heating, so the whole house can be controlled the same way.
Install Sensible from the Homey App Store
Why
A heat pump measures the temperature up by the ceiling, right next to itself, so the rest of the room often ends up colder or warmer than you asked for. Instead of switching the heat pump on and off, Sensible works out how far off the heat pump’s own sensor is compared to your room sensors, averaged over time, and corrects the setpoint by exactly that. The heat pump keeps regulating on its own, just towards the real room temperature, so it can run steadily at low power where it is most efficient.
What it works with
Heat pumps / air conditioners already in Homey with a target temperature (any brand app) – this is what Sensible is built for. Used by testers with, among others, Toshiba AC, MELCloud (Mitsubishi) and Daikin Onecta. Mode detection for cooling also recognises the mode names used by apps such as Tuya, Hitachi, Intesis, tado, Midea, Samsung and Sensibo. If yours does not work, see Support below.
Also works with panel heaters and floor heating with their own thermostat (including Zigbee thermostats through the Zigbee2MQTT app), and panel heaters on a smart plug marked Heater – switched like a classic thermostat, at least 5 minutes between switches, and never left on without a working room sensor. Plugs marked Air conditioning or Heat pump are never switched, to protect the compressor, and water heaters are never controlled.
How it behaves
- Only the temperature is changed – fan speed, swing and operating mode stay yours (unless you turn on Emergency fan or Cold weather fan, see below).
- Switched off with the remote? While Sensible is on, it switches the heat pump on again when heat is needed (Override manual changes, on by default – can be turned off). When the Sensible thermostat itself is off, heaters are switched off once and then left to you.
- Runs steadily near the target – a heat pump is never set far below its own reading while the room is close to the target, so it keeps running at low power instead of stopping and starting.
- Off only as a last resort – a heater is switched off only when even its lowest setpoint would keep heating a room that is already warm enough. Status tells why and at which room temperature it starts again.
- Cooling – if the heat pump can cool, an Allow cooling switch appears. Sensible then works like the auto mode of a heat pump and keeps the room in a small comfort band around the target.
Features
- Room sensor control – one or more room sensors (average), optional humidity sensors.
- Learns your heat pump – the difference between pump and room, how much extra lowering it needs to really stop, its power draw (with a power meter), and how fast the room warms up. Readings from a stopped fan or defrosting are ignored. Everything learned survives app updates.
- Predictive brake – eases off in time when the room rises quickly towards the target.
- Power meter (optional) – a switch or plug in front of the heat pump lets Sensible know for sure how hard it works.
- Cannot keep up warning – if the heater works hard but the room stays below the target (low fan speed, an open door, a very cold night), Sensible warns you, with a flow trigger and condition. If the heater’s own reading shows it is not giving heat at all (off, wrong mode, defrosting), the warning says so.
- Room sensor lost – if no room sensor has reported for 2 hours, you get a notification (can be turned off) and the heaters regulate themselves until it is back. Flow cards Room sensor stopped reporting / is back.
- Heat pumps with limits – some units ignore half degrees or low setpoints although their app accepts them. Sensible knows this for Toshiba, learns whole degrees by itself when a heat pump app writes half degrees back as whole ones, and has settings for the setpoint step (0.5 °C or 1 °C) and the lowest temperature the heater accepts. It still regulates on the exact room temperature and only rounds what it sends.
- Emergency fan (optional, off by default) – when the room is far from the target (2 °C or more) or the heater cannot keep up, Sensible raises the heat pump’s fan speed step by step – faster the further away the room is – and turns it down gently again, one step every 15 minutes, once the room is close to the target – holding longer if it has learned the room falls back when it eases off too early. Auto is never touched.
- Cold weather fan (optional, off by default) – a separate switch: while it is colder outside than a limit you choose (default −8 °C), Sensible sets the fan to the highest speed or one step higher – all day, only at night or in your own time window. The fan goes back to the speed it had before afterwards. The outdoor temperature comes from the heat pump itself or from an outdoor sensor. Works together with Emergency fan.
- Room with fireplace – turn it on once; Sensible detects by itself when the fire is lit, lets the heat pump rest, does not cool the free heat away and does not learn from that period. Optionally choose a sensor near the fireplace – then that sensor decides, and its temperature is shown on the device. Flow cards The fire is lit/out override the detection.
- Away – manual or automatic when nobody is home, using Homey’s own presence, presence devices such as Smart Presence, or both. You choose who counts.
- Night program – separate times for weekdays and weekends. Optional Smart start begins heating before the night ends, from how fast the room has been seen to warm up, so it is warm when the night is over (handy for floor heating).
- Vacation mode – a return date; Sensible heats the house up again before you come home.
- Frost protection – keeps the room warm enough even when the thermostat is off (on by default, 7 °C). A switch on the device turns it on and off, and the status shows Frost protection while it is active.
- Comfort mode – takes humidity into account (feels-like temperature).
- Soft adjustment – lets the heat pump ramp up gently instead of jumping to a high setpoint.
- Window pause – pauses heating when a window or door sensor has been open for a while (default 60 s), or on a sudden temperature drop. The heater is never switched off: it goes to its lowest setpoint, or is lowered by a number of degrees you choose.
- Timers – a temperature for a while, or turn off later.
- Flows – away, temperature for a while, turn off after, allow cooling, soft adjustment, window pause, frost protection, emergency fan, cold weather fan, fire lit/out, cannot keep up, room sensor lost/back, frost alert while off and more.
Configuration page
Homey app → More → Apps → Sensible → Configure:
- Overview of all rooms with the status of each heater, and a knowledge bar that shows how well Sensible knows each room. Copy diagnostics puts everything in one text. Forget what is learned starts learning a room again, for example after moving the room sensor.
- Night program, vacation mode and the presence choice.
- Shared defaults (away temperature, frost temperature, override manual changes) for all thermostats at once.
- Language – Automatic (as Homey), English or Norsk.
- Voluntary data sharing (see below).
Getting started
- Add a device → Sensible heating.
- Tick the heater(s) and room sensor(s). Optionally humidity sensors, a power meter for the heat pump, a sensor near the fireplace, an outdoor sensor and window/door sensors.
- Use the new device like any thermostat.
Use Repair on the device to change or add heaters and sensors later (your current choices are kept), and the device settings to fine-tune the regulation.
Voluntary data sharing (off by default)
On the configuration page you can choose to help improve Sensible:
- Share anonymous data – a daily summary and short excerpts around heating up, braking and stopping, without id, names or times.
- Extended participation (pseudonymous) – measurements every 5 minutes under a random id, so I can follow how Sensible works in your home and help without screenshots. Data older than 90 days is deleted continuously, and you can delete everything yourself.
You can see exactly what is sent before switching anything on. Nothing is shared with or sold to anyone. Privacy statement: Sensible – personvern
Support
Please post in this thread. It helps a lot if you include:
- A screenshot of the device setting Status (Device → Settings → Status), or Copy diagnostics from the configuration page.
- Which heat pump/heater app you use.
- If you have Extended participation on: your participant id (shown on the configuration page).
Requirements
Homey Pro (local app).
Changelog in the next post, and updates per day further down.
