So, I have an ASI1600MM-C and in the Main Control tab there is a temperature setting:
I once set that to -10 and then clicked Save in the Options tab. Ever since, when I connect the camera and start Ekos the cooling will automatically start and the camera will cool to -10º. Maybe it works differently for your camera and in that case I wouldn't know, sorry.
Setting a temperature in the driver does not work on my ASI294MC Pro either, it is not saved. Wouter, are you using a nightly version? I'm using Kstars stable Feb 23 2020.
AFAIK, this is not supported by INDI. It was discussed before and it was decided it would be a good idea to automatically do that. Maybe it should be supported at the client level, but Ekos does not do that now. Some cameras do remember last temperature but they use their own files/method to remember that, INDI is not involved.
Interesting. I could have sworn that I enabled and saved that. It was a LONG time ago though. And now I have checked the ASI1600 xml file in the .indi directory and it indeed doesn't have any setting there. Then perhaps my camera remembers this itself...
I think indeed this is a camera feature, I have a 1600 as well (the one before the 'pro' version) and whenever it is connected to a computer, and has power to the cooler, it just starts cooling down.
It is a nice feature though, because then it's already cooled down when I start the polar alignment procedure.
Bart, what I notice is that as soon as the camera has power and gets connected to a computer, the fans start working. But it doesn't start cooling until I start Ekos. That's why I assumed that Ekos was activating the cooling of the camera.
There is an easy way to check this. Connect the ASI1600 to your pc/laptop/SBC/RPi/WhatEver, start Ekos and wait until the camera has cooled down. Then stop Ekos but leave everything connected. Note that the fans don't stop. Start Ekos again after 2 minutes and you should see that the temperature of the camera is high and going down again.