Greenhouse and indoor zones

ZoneFlow 1.6 can run the climate of a greenhouse or an indoor grow space as well as water it. It switches fans, vents, misters and a heater from your sensors, and it keeps going safely when a sensor or a device lets it down.

Three kinds of zone

Outdoor is how ZoneFlow has always worked, with the rain gauge and the forecast. Every zone you already have is an outdoor zone and nothing changes for it.
Greenhouse and Indoor zones can control the climate. They have no rain gauge and no forecast, because there is a roof. If real rain does reach your plants, set the zone up as outdoor.

Pick the kind under Where it grows when you add a zone. You can change it later under Configure → Zone type. Nothing is deleted when you switch: settings a zone doesn't use are hidden, and they come back when it needs them.

What you can connect

Everything is optional, and you can add or change it any time under Configure → Valve, sensors and climate devices, without setting the zone up again.

Fans, vents, misters and a heater, as many of each as you like, and mixed kinds are fine. A simple space heater on a smart plug or relay counts as a switch. A heater that is a climate device is switched between heat and off.
Inside temperature sensor. Needed before ZoneFlow will switch any device.
Backup inside temperature sensors, humidity, light and outside temperature. See What each sensor adds.
The valve is optional. A zone with climate devices and no valve is a climate-only zone, and all the watering settings are hidden for it.

What it does

Every 30 seconds, and whenever a sensor changes, ZoneFlow compares the inside readings with the zone's settings.

Too cold: the heater comes on below Heater On Below and goes off a little above it. While it heats, vents and fans stay closed.
Too warm: vents open at Vents Open At, and fans join at Fans On At. Damp air above Ventilate Above Humidity opens things up too, but not while heating and not when it would chill the space.
Outside air check: vents and fans only open when the air outside is cooler than inside, so a hot afternoon never pulls in hotter air. Without an outside sensor this check is skipped.
Misting: short pulses when the temperature, humidity or light trigger is met. It never mists below the minimum temperature, when it is already humid enough, while the heater is on, in frost, or at night unless you allow it. Max Misting Per Hour is a hard cap.
Minimum run times stop devices from switching on and off in quick bursts.

Your climate choice at setup fills in the starting temperatures. Tropical starts the heater at 15, vents at 28, fans at 31 and misting at 32 °C. Temperate is 10, 25, 28 and 30. Hot summers is 8, 27, 30 and 30. Cool summers is 8, 22, 26 and 28. Every one of them can be changed, and the settings form refuses combinations that contradict each other.

When you switch a device yourself

If you switch a device by hand, in Home Assistant, with a wall button or in the device's own app, or another automation does, ZoneFlow leaves that device alone for Manual Hold Time (an hour by default) and says so in the status. A device that comes back from "unavailable" is not mistaken for you. There is no resume button, the hold simply ends.

Protecting your plants

If the inside sensor fails, meaning it is unavailable, has not reported for Sensor Offline After (4 hours by default) or reports an impossible value, ZoneFlow waits 2 minutes and then switches to its failsafe. Misters go off at once. Vents and fans follow your Sensor Failsafe choice: open and fans on, closed and fans off, or leave as they are. The heater follows Heater Failsafe: off, on part of the time (10 minutes in every 20), or on part of the time only while it is cold outside.
You get a phone message when the failsafe starts and when it ends, and a Repairs issue after 10 minutes. Shorter dropouts change nothing.
Backup sensors take over automatically, and you are told if the main sensor and a backup disagree by more than 5 °C for 30 minutes, because one of them is wrong.
Misting is cautious by design. It runs in short pulses and each "off" is confirmed. A mister that won't switch off is tried once more, and then misting stops with a Repairs issue and a phone message until you press Reset Irrigation Lock.
Nothing switches during Home Assistant's first couple of minutes after a start. A heater that ZoneFlow switched on is switched off again if the zone is unloaded or Home Assistant stops.

If you have a heater

Switching a heater from Home Assistant is convenient, but it is not a safety system. Please do both of these:

Put a hardware frost thermostat in the heater's power line, or use a heater with its own thermostat and over-temperature cut-out, so frost protection and a hard maximum still work if Home Assistant crashes, the Wi-Fi drops or a sensor fails.
Add a backup temperature sensor placed away from the main one: the other end of the house, at plant height, out of direct sun and away from the heater and the vents. One stuck or badly placed sensor can otherwise blind the whole control.

What you see

Each climate zone gets a Greenhouse Status sensor that says what it is doing and why, Inside VPD (for information), Misting Today and Ventilation Allowed. A Greenhouse Control switch pauses the whole climate engine for maintenance; devices are left as they are, except a heater ZoneFlow switched on, which goes off. About 20 climate settings appear, but only the ones for the hardware you have set up. The dashboard cards show all of it.

If something looks wrong

"Starting" in the status is the startup pause and passes in about 2 minutes.
"A fan, vent, mister or heater needs the inside temperature sensor": add the inside sensor first.
A device is not responding (Repairs): ZoneFlow asked twice and the device never reported the change. Check the device.
Misting halted (Repairs): a mister did not switch off. Check it, then press Reset Irrigation Lock.
A device is left alone for an hour: you switched it, or something else did. See "When you switch a device yourself" above.
Failsafe when nothing is wrong: a sensor that only reports when its value changes can stay quiet for hours in a steady room. Raise Sensor Offline After.