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, second after Home unless you have moved it in Design Mode. It is there even before you have added a heater or an air conditioner. 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: decides when an 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 chosen, the outside temperature is left out: the air conditioner heats on batteries whenever the charge is at least Heats above, and the Air conditioner box hides its outside line. If you have chosen a sensor that has not sent a reading yet, the diesel heater does the heating on batteries until it does. 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 is not offered as a SensaClimate heater. It already holds the room at the temperature you set on its own card, and it makes your hot water too, so SensaClimate switching it on and off would fight it. If you had picked a Baltica before, that heater box is now None.

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.

Beside the thermostat:

• Diesel left shows how many days your diesel lasts at the average of all your heaters together. It stays hidden until your heaters have run enough to give a figure of a year or less.
• Diesel cost shows what your heaters' diesel costs a day, at the price of the nearest fuel station that lists diesel. It needs the internet and the van's position to find that price.

If a heater has not reported its diesel use yet, Calculation does not include missing data appears underneath. See How much diesel it is using.

History

The graph button in the thermostat's box opens History, with a tab for each graph:

• Temperature: the van's temperature over the last 6 hours, 24 hours or 7 days, coloured by the unit that was running, with your target as a dashed line and a strip for each unit showing when it ran.
• Off target: how far the van was warmer or colder than your target, with a line wherever SensaClimate raised an alarm.
• Diesel cost: what each heater's diesel cost over the last 7, 30 or 90 days, at today's price.
• Diesel days left: how many days of diesel you had left, over the same periods.

The two diesel tabs appear only when you have a diesel heater.

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.