SensaClimate

SensaClimate holds the van at one temperature for you. You set the temperature you want, and Sensa decides when to heat, when to cool and which unit to use, from up to three heaters and an air conditioner. It comes with Nomad Pro and above, on a van with at least one heater or air conditioner.

Setting it up

The Habitation dashboard has a SensaClimate tab beside the Climate tab. It draws SensaClimate as a diagram: the temperature sensor on the left, the thermostat in the middle, the outside temperature on the right, and the units it can run underneath. Each box holds its own settings, and its (i) button explains exactly how that part behaves. A box lights up while its unit is running.

Pick, in the boxes:

• Temperature sensor: the one reading SensaClimate judges the van by, for example the sensor in your living area. A temperature probe wired to one of your heaters is offered too, once it is reporting.
• Heater: the heater it uses first.
• Secondary heater and Third heater: heaters that join in when one is not enough. Leave them on None if you have only one.
• Air conditioner: an air conditioner to cool the van, and to heat it when it can.
• Outside temperature sensor: shown once you have an air conditioner. It decides when the air conditioner may heat on batteries.

The settings on this tab are behind the Settings PIN when Admin Lock is on. On a phone the boxes stack in a list, and tapping one opens its settings.

Using it

Once a sensor and a unit are picked, a Climate Control card leads the Climate tab, and the same thermostat sits in the middle of the SensaClimate tab.

• The power button turns SensaClimate on and off. Turning it off stops every unit it was running.
• The dial sets the temperature you want. Drag round the ring, or tap − and +. Now beneath it is the reading from your sensor, followed by what SensaClimate is doing: Heating, Cooling, Holding or Off.
• While it heats or cools, the name of the unit doing the work appears under the dial.

The lowest temperature you can set is the lowest your air conditioner allows, or 10 °C without one.

It takes charge of the units you pick

While SensaClimate is on, it runs the units you picked for it, so a change you make on their own cards is undone within a minute. To take a unit back, turn SensaClimate off.

How it decides

• Heating starts below your temperature and stops 0.5 °C above it. Cooling starts 1 °C above and stops 0.5 °C below. Heating and cooling never run at the same time.
• A diesel heater starts only once the van is 2 °C below your temperature, because every start draws a lot of power for its glow plug. Change this with Restarts in the Heater box (0.5 to 5 °C). Once lit, it runs for at least 10 minutes before Sensa switches it off. A heater that can take a target temperature is given yours; a water heater is only switched on and off.
• More heaters join when one is not enough: the next one joins straight away when the van is 3 °C below your temperature (6 °C for the third), or when the unit before it has run for 30 minutes and the van is still 1 °C below. Each one stops again within 0.5 °C of your temperature, once it has run its 10 minutes.
• When you turn it on, a unit you picked that is already running is kept if the van needs it and switched off if not. Any other heater set to the same temperature sensor is switched off once. A heater on a different sensor, such as one heating the cab, is never touched.
• If your sensor stops reporting, nothing is changed until it comes back.
• If your crypto miners are set to replace the heater, they heat the van and SensaClimate does not light a heater.

Every start and stop is written to the Intelligence log.

Heating with the air conditioner

An air conditioner that can heat does the heating instead of your diesel heater:

• on shore power, or
• on batteries, when the charge is at least the Heats above level in the Air conditioner box (80% to start with) and it is at least 10 °C outside. An air conditioner heats poorly in the cold. Once heating, it carries on until the charge is 5% below that level or it is 3 °C colder outside.

Set Heats above to 0 to heat with the air conditioner on shore power only. With no outside temperature sensor, the diesel heater does the heating on batteries. The Air conditioner box shows the shore power, battery and outside readings, and whether the air conditioner can heat right now.

If shore power arrives while your heaters are warming the van, the air conditioner takes over straight away, and a heater stays on beside it only while the van is still well below your temperature.

You can also pick an air conditioner that heats in one of the heater boxes. It then heats whenever that box calls for heat, whatever the power or the weather.

Autoterm Baltica

A Baltica keeps its own water hot, and SensaClimate heats the room through it. The Baltica heats the room only while it is on and set to Water+Heat; on Hot water SensaClimate leaves it alone.

On older Baltica controller firmware, SensaClimate runs the Baltica's circulation pump through a relay instead. To set this up, open Settings, choose the Devices tab, tap the cog on the relay controller's row and set the pump's channel's Device Type to Circulation Pump. The pump is kept off while the Baltica is off or on hot water only.

Diesel

The box of each diesel heater has a Diesel tank setting: pick the tank that heater draws from to see its level in the box.

Under the thermostat, Diesel left shows how many days your diesel lasts at the average of all your heaters together. If a heater has not reported its diesel use yet, a line underneath says which heater is not counted. See How much diesel it is using.

Alarms

The Alarm box sets when SensaClimate raises an alarm, which also reaches your phone:

• No closer after: the van has not got 0.5 °C closer to your temperature in this many minutes (30 to start with). A slow warm-up on a cold morning does not count, as long as it is getting closer.
• Further away by: the van has moved this far further from your temperature than when it began (3 °C to start with). This alarms at once.
• Low diesel below: a heater's tank has fallen below this level (10% to start with). Sensa switches that heater off and uses the next heater, or the air conditioner, instead. The heater is used again once the tank is 5% above the level.

The temperature alarm clears once the van is back within 1 °C of your temperature, or when you turn SensaClimate off.

Frost Protection

Some heaters can protect the van from frost themselves, even while your Sensa unit is off. See Frost Protection. While SensaClimate is on, it looks after the van and Frost Protection waits. Frost Protection takes over again as soon as you turn SensaClimate off, and within five minutes if your Sensa unit stops, so the van is never left without either.