Unhide a Hidden Accessory about ring HOT 3 CLOSED

As far as I can see this is not a bug, but rather is by design as the current thermostat implementation does not use the thermostat-operating-status virtual device and thus it will always be hidden (it's hidden for my Honeywell thermostat as well).

Right now the way Current Heating Cooling State is updates is that it uses the current temperature, mode and set point to algorithmically "estimate" what the current operating state is likely to be. In other words, if the mode is "heat" and the current temperature is below the set point, then it assumes the state is "HEAT", if the mode was "cool" and the current temperature is above the set point, then it assumes the state is "COOL". The logic is a little more complex than this, but that's the jist of it, it doesn't use the actual reporting mode.

This is not a perfect implementation as it will not reflect the current operating state 100% of the time. For example, on my thermostat the Homebridge operating state will switch to "Off" as soon as the temperature rises to be the same as the set temperature, however, my thermostat will keep the unit running for quite a bit longer to get closer to the mid-point.

I'm not sure why it was implemented this way vs using the thermostat-operating-status. If I remember correctly it was contributed by another user many years ago (2020) and it doesn't appear to have had any significant changes in that time, so I assume it is mostly good enough for most users.

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Took another quick glance through the code and verified that the behavior above is correct/expected as the code is written today. The thermostat-operating-status will always show as a hidden accessory because it is not listed in ignoreHiddenDeviceTypes but it has no specific class handler so it will be logged as a hidden accessory, however, as it is not used in the thermostat device this has no impact.

What probably should happen:

1. Add a device RingDeviceType to ring-client-api for thermostat-operating-status
2. Add this type to ignoreHiddenDeviceTypes
3. Modify thermostat class to actually use thermostat-operating-status instead of ignoring it (should be ease as device is available via onComponentDevices which is already used for the Temperature Sensor

I know this works because I already use this same basic logic in ring-mqtt. I'll try to do this for the next version, however, that probably won't be until sometime next month as I have limited time available at the moment.

For now however, I'm going to close this issue since, as currently written, it is expected that the thermostat operating status is a hidden accessory so the request about unhiding an the accessory is invalid.

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Thanks, @tsightler for the looking into this and the explanation.

I had an IFTTT plugin and automation set up to log every time the thermostat changed current operating status to "heat" or "off". It was working in that it the current operating status would come on and the go off in 2 minutes even though the boiler was still heating. Based on your explanation, I now understand that to be by design or a function of the algorithm estimating the current operating status.

Thanks, again.

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