Hoping someone can help here. I have an American Flame remote 4000HHS02. It appears that the remote and fireplace communicate every 10 minutes or so, and that overwrites whatever status it was in from the Bond.
For instance, this remote has three “states:”. OFF/ON/THERMO. When Bond turns on the fire etc, the remote doesn’t change. So if the remote is in off, and i use Bond to turn the fire on, after a short time it turns back off.
Anyone have any experience with this and have a work around? I was thinking I could just take the batteries out of the remote, however my wife prefers the remote.
The trouble is, the fireplace remote is designed to transmit a “keep-alive” signal. If the fireplace doesn’t receive it, it shuts off.
Details differ between remotes, but either we’d need to implement a “keep-alive interval” for a raw-recorded device or add this fireplace remote to our database (and implement the required keep-alive there).
What happens if you turn the fireplace on with the remote, then turn it off with the Bond. I assume the remote is still in ON mode and sending keep-alives. Do the periodic keep-alives from the remote end up making the flame come back on even after you sent the off command from the Bond?
Using two different controls (Bond/Remote) with a keep-alive function could introduce a dangerous situation in this regard.
If I do this, it will stay off for a random time (usually less than 10 minutes) and then turn back on. Essentially it “pings” between the remote/fireplace and creates alignment based on what the remote is on.
I’m thinking I could remove the batteries and potentially get a different remote for the fireplace that just has a simple on/off button.
Thanks for the clarification. This bond device is amazing. Bought it for a ceiling fan, had no idea it would also do my shades in the master bedroom and my fireplace as well.
Is there any update on supporting these keep alive signals? My Heat N Glo remote is doing something similar. It turns off randomly when turned on with the bond.
It’s also a pain to record commands because the remote only has one button and you have to rotate through thermo/off to get back to on for example.
Following… I have that same remote (the supposedly supported version), and I’d love to get it reliably added to my Bond. I can get the On command added easily, but with the single-button on/thermo/off cycle, getting Off successfully programmed has eluded me.
Then I realized the whole keep-alive thing was going to be show-stopper anyway, so I just gave up on it.
I’m very glad to see this remote on Bond’s radar overall (that’s encouraging!), but I don’t see how it can be considered “supported” given the programming and keep-alive hurdles currently faced.
I agree, I would automate continuous on commands, but it’ll kill the receiver battery much faster probably. Also the beeps are annoying to have them occur every few minutes.
The keep alive problem just kills my homeassistant automation because it thinks it is on when it isn’t.
So I was able to disable the keepalive functionality by removing the batteries from the remote entirely. The behavior seems to be every 15 mins on the hour of the remote’s time (e.g 12:00, 12:15, etc.) it does some sort of keepalive check. If the fireplace was turned on from the bond device, it would turn off at those times every time for me. It’d be great if the bond device could replicate whatever happens at these times so it just works as a 0-15 mins run time is barely enough time for the fan to kick on for these fireplaces (in my case anyways).
Does the fireplace still turn off after you turn it on via Bond Bridge? Or does it stay on?
There’s really two related issues: keepalive timer in the receiver (fireplace controller) which will turn the fireplace off if it doesn’t receive a keepalive transmission, and the conflict between Bond Bridge transmissions and the keepalive transmissions from the factory remote control which still thinks the fireplace is in the previous state.
It isn’t turning off on its own anymore after removing the remote batteries.
It might be less a keepalive thing, but rather that the remote checks every 15 mins based on its time and syncs the receiver to its state. I was able to reproduce this by programming the remote time to 12:14 and it would always turn off right on the tick to 12:15.
Makes sense. Alas, the designers of these r/c systems didn’t foresee the use of RF bridges, so we end up with these awkward situations. This is why in recent app versions we’ve added a warning to always remove the batteries from the remote controls of the fireplace remotes.
I have a different Heat&Glo fireplace which uses a remote with supported FCC ID: K9L5001 and the problem is not only the fireplace seemingly randomly turning off, but also seemingly randomly turning itself on, when using the Bond. Guessing that there is a keep alive being sent by the Skytech-5001 remote I removed the batteries and while it changed the timing of the behavior it still occurs.
I would love to see this work reliably tough in the mean time I have sadly had to stop using the Bond as I can’t chance the fireplace being on when I am not aware of it, or even at home. I’d be ok with the Bond periodically sending an off signal every 30 minutes or hourly if the fireplace was not turned on using the Bond (and being able to configure a turn off limit as well, say after 6 or 8 hours).
Just chiming in with some updated findings I’ve had on this “keep alive” issue for a gas fireplace since going down the automated smart home route.
I’ve passed all of the details below onto Bond support, but I thought it may assist if I shared these here in case it helps others in any way (currently there is no “fix” available in the Bond app, but it is fixable based on my findings).
In my situation, I have a Coonara Hermitage gas fireplace, a Coonara T8000 thermostat remote control, and a Bond Bridge (non-pro).
The logic I have identified is as follows:
If I turn on the fireplace with the remote control, the on command appears to be resent every 1min from the remote control.
If turn off the fireplace with the remote control, the off command appears to be resent every 2mins from the remote control.
I have confirmed the above remote control command intervals by performing the opposite action via Bond Bridge and timing how long it takes for the current remote control setting to override the Bond Bridge command.
If I remove the remote control batteries altogether, the fireplace inbuilt shut-off timer will kick in, which causes the fireplace to turn itself off if no command has been received after 30mins.
If I ask Bond Bridge to turn on the fireplace (even if the Bond Bridge has already turned it on and it is still in the “on” state), I can confirm the fireplace remains on for an additional 30mins after this follow-up “on” command.
Further, if I ask Bond Bridge to turn the heat up or down, I can confirm the fireplace remains on for an additional 30mins, which implies that any command will keep the fireplace turned on as long as it is not related to the “off” command.
What all of this means is that there is no special “keep alive” command being sent, but instead it is simply the “on” command being sent. I cannot speak for all fireplace models out there, but I imagine that many others would at least function very similarly to what I have identified.
To alleviate this issue, without being able to identify a method to work around this in the Bond Bridge API, I believe the following would greatly assist if the Bond developers could look into it:
In the Bond Bridge App settings of a fireplace device, add a checkbox for “Requires keep-alive repeated commands to stay on”
If checked, prompt the user to record at what interval the keep-alive command should be sent (“1min” can be the default selection)
If checked, and as a future proof suggestion, you could ask which command needs to be repeated, or whether a special command needs to be recorded for this specific purpose (the “on” command can be the default selection)
Again, the Bond Bridge is able to send the “on” command despite the device already being in the “on” state, but if Bond could add a feature that would enable repeated “on” commands to be sent every 1min while the device is in the “on” state that would completely resolve the issue (at least in my case and likely many others).
I am available to assist with testing this out behind the scenes if needed, so please reach out if you need any more details from me.
Many thanks in advance and I hope this information is useful to someone out there!
Thanks for the good details, @DJ_GLiTCH – I’m sure the Bond team will find this interesting.
If you have a central smart home controller (such as Home Assistant, ISY, etc), these keep-alive commands should be able to be automated via integrating with Bond’s local network API. It could track the interval and on every X seconds/minutes, tell the Bridge to send a command.
It may be dangerous in some people’s eyes to constantly send a keep alive (“on” with a recurring schedule) infinitely / until the off command is sent – likely the Bond team will have to weigh what is responsible for them to offer.