Air con auto switch off

I found this company mentioned on another forum. They sell a sensor to automatically switch off your air con when the room is not being used, ideal for those of us renting out in the summer who have guests that leave the air con on 24/ 7. I have looked into these before, but they had to be wired into the air con unit and it was found that they weren't up to the job. Theses units look to be about the size of a smoke detector and operate by sending a switch off signal to your air con unit, mimicing the signal from your remote control. I have just bought one (be careful of the £8 postage cost!!), to take with me next time I go to Spain to try. They have assured me that if it doesn't work, I can have a refund. I have ordered mine today and they reckon I should have it by Thursday.

I have nothing to do with this company, it is something I thought may be beneficial to others.

Mark

That sounds an excellent investment, Mark.  Can you let us know how effective it is, when you get it installed?

Many thanks!

(Maybe you should post this somewhere in the general/living in spain forums.  I'm sure it's of interest to many others, also.)

But what's to stop your tenants from removing the unit's batteries if they so wish, in order to override this, Mark ? If they're intent on leaving the aircon/heating on for no good reason (going out for example) they'll surely do what suits them.

Yes, perhaps they are just overlooking the fact that they've left it on but I know, from experience, how hot places can get without aircon &, more to the point, how cold places get without heat if you are out a few hours. We were in a 5 * hotel in Spain September 2003 & the only time the aircon was on in our room was when the keycard was put in the slot on the wall so we baked in the heat if in there at times. As we'd paid quite a sum we requested a card for each of us & used one for leaving in the slot.

In our place in Spain it's very cold if we turn the heating off for a few ours & go out for the evening so we leave it on. (Granted, we turn the temperature down to just keep it ticking over but then it's US who are paying the bills). In the case of aircon on the cold air setting it cools fast but, as you have realised, tenants don't worry about being wasteful, they're not paying your electric bill.

You do have a point there, More.  I was thinking more along the lines of just forgetting to turn it off when you go out!  For us, coming from Dubai, having the aircon on during the day isn't really an issue in Spain - we really just use it at night (although did set it to heating when we were there in April a couple of years ago!!  It was freezing for us!!).

And, if left for a long time, I believe it can use more electricity to cool a place that's really hot, rather than leaving it on auto (bit like heating up a tank of water each time you want a shower, if you keep turning off the heater!).

But thought it was good for those (like us!) who go out for the day and forget to turn the a/c off.  It would be useful then!  And also, if you're sat on the terrace with the door open - as someone on another thread asked! - better to turn off the a/c.  Obviously, it will just keep cooling if the door is open.  So it has some very real advantages too.

Hi Jan

I will certainly let everyone know how it works. I didn't post it anywhere else except a development forum as I didn't want to spam the forum. Hopefully most people wil see it when they use the last 30 threads button

Hi More

I'm hoping that not everyone will be savvy enough to know what the sensor is, at I think it may look like a smoke detector. If only some of them leave the batteries in it will be a saving. There are fans in the apartment, so there will always be air movement if needed. To be fair, we aren't a 5* hotel, merely a 1 bed apartment and it doesn't take much to lose what little profit margin we have.

There is a night time setting to allow comfort cooling during the evening, so it isn't all bad. I don't like the heat myself, but to have the a/c on just before bed was enough to allow me to get to sleep, I won't need to worry about it then. I didn't slep very well last year as I kept waking up to turn it off after a couple of hours!

Mark

Hi Mark

I like the sound of this and would like to know how you get on with it. I cannot rememeber the name of my aircon unit but i will check when there again.

Jan...can you remember who makes the units?

I can't, John.  And for sure you'll get to check that before I do!!  Do some of the blocks have units from different manufacturers?  I recall someone mentioning that before.

i will have a search and also will contact Brain and jeff as they are there now. I will recognise the name when i see it.

They did tell me that the units don't work with some (can't remember which of the two) Hitachi or Mitsubishi units. I can always ring them again tomorrow and ask if you want me to check your units as it is a Freephone number?

Mark

Hi all

Well, the idea certainly IS a brilliant one I agree. It does indeed look like a smoke detector.

If tenants use the aircon sensibly it's not an issue anyway.

Hope it works. Mark. good luck.

0800 9172659

View Compatability List.

Ecocense 2000

We have Daikin air conditioner units fitted. Inverter models.

They also sense body heat and automatically revert to a low setting when the unit senses there are no people in the room.

Upon a persons return, the unit picks up again to the previous setting.

I have no involvement with the company. I just thought it worthwhile to post.

Hi all we have 2 Panasonic inverter units we fitted a 1 euro coin meter to the air con supply the 1 coin gives 80 mins of use with both on full which more than covers the power they use it also means if they want the place really cold when they come back from the beach they can only we are not paying for it they it has been fitted for a year now and has been really good its fully adjustable and will run up to 3 units

Hi    really interested to hear how you get on with this.  Can you tell us anymore about it and desperate to try and cut down electric bill when renting Apartment out.  Its either that or prepaid meters, anybody got an gen on those.

Thanks

Hi Valjean

Marksfish gave you the link to the website in his first post. Click the link 'this company' in his sentence.

Hi    thank you for that have looked again so got to check the compatability.

To JPD

Hi   could you please let me have info on your euro slot meter, was it bought in Spain, cost etc

Thanks

This is a company in Spain called Euro Meter  that sell euro coin operated meters that can be wired for the air con unit  or to the whole house.  I cant post a link cause im new you will need to google...

So I took my new toy with me this weekend and opened it as soon as Saturday morning arrived. A quick glimpse through the instructions and I had set the self teach function to switch off my unit, I had set it to switch off after 30 minutes of inactivity and had tested it. All that was left was to fit it.

The unit on the ceiling looks like this:

and put into context with the unit it is runnig, looks like this:

So far so good. It does what it says on the tin, so lets see if it can save me any money this year .

There is one annoying thing with it though. I left the unit on the table overnight on Saturday when we went to bed. Because I hadn't set the unit to operate in the night setting mode, every 30 minutes a signal would be sent to the air con unit to switch off. Our air con emits a bleep every time a signal is received from the remote. Can you imagine how frustrating that is?  Problem solved by using the night setting before our keyholder fitted it to the ceiling.

Mark

Hi Mark,

     Is this device only used for switching off the air cond & not turning it on at certain time of the day? How does this unit detect if the air cond is inactive?

Thanks.

Yes, the device will only switch off the air con, you can't set it to turn on at certain times. The unit also isn't clever enough to know if the unit is running or not, so during the day when it senses no motion an off signal will be sent to the unit every 15/30/45 minutes (depending on how you have set it). This is why you want to make sure the night setting is activated to prevent the unit sending the signal in the hours of darkness.

Mark