Smart Thermostats

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Simon
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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DeskJockey
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by DeskJockey »

The power supply for the Evohome controller failed on Monday. First I noticed was a beeping I didn't recognise, turns out it was the controller begging to be connected to power.

Didn't think it was a massive issue as the heating is off anyway. Except, this morning all the TRVs suddenly defaulted to the reset value of 20°c and fired up the boiler. As the controller is the gateway there's no way to control the heating, so we've turned the boiler down to the lowest setting.

I've ordered a new power supply (was going to anyway), but the quickest option of just ordering a new table base and supply was dropped as that is £78 :shock:

Luckily it is a fairly generic 5v power supply, so I've ordered a similar one for £8 delivered.
Last edited by DeskJockey on Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JonMad
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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GG. wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 2:34 pm Only have experience with the Nest but to be quite honest, its wank. Turns on in the middle of night, too early in the morning (even with "time to heat" turned off) and seemingly the recorded temperature difference between feeling freezing cold and warm is about 2 degrees C in our draughty Victorian house, so not enough range to helpfully set any high/low limits to maintain an even temperature.

Turning it on and off from your phone is the only discernible benefit. If it had a boost function as Rich notes they have on the hive, that would be a lot more useful.
Just discovered this thread, what with the recent post above. We had a Nest installed with our new boiler in March of this year. It looks nice but the app connectivity is temperamental (though we've more recently updated our router and tbh that may have helped things). We've turned off all the learning stuff and just have it on a schedule, so being able to manage that on the phone is great. Mainly I like it because I can integrate with it using a Google API and see what the temp is on my own dashboard. I have it showing set as well as actual temps and a history of when the heating has been on.

The fact you can only do a hot water boost and not a heating boost is pretty crap. So I've implemented that myself through said dashboard*
Screenshot 2022-10-05 at 13.34.11.png
Screenshot 2022-10-05 at 13.34.11.png (262.07 KiB) Viewed 2191 times
*well, the UI is done, I've not hooked the Boost button up to the Set API yet.
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dinny_g
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by dinny_g »

DeskJockey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:22 pm all the TRVs suddenly defaulted to the reset value of 20°c and fired up the boiler.
Why the hell do they do that - boggles the mind.

The old system in our old house used to default to "constant" after the power came back on after a Power Cut. We discovered this after returning from 2 weeks summer holidays to find the heating blasting out the heat. Checking with the electric company, power went out for 10 minutes on day 3 of our holiday meaning the system was running full heating, 24 hours per day for 13 days - during a heat wave... :roll:
Last edited by dinny_g on Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
JLv3.0 wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:26 pm I say this rarely Dave, but listen to Dinny because he's right.
Rich B wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:57 pm but Dinny was right…
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Jobbo
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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I hadn't appreciated that the PSU for the Evohome controller failing would cause that, DJ, but I can see that it would now. Mine's getting on for 5 years old so perhaps I should buy a spare just in case.

Fitted a Drayton Wiser to my other house recently; I was wondering which smart thermostat would be easiest and cheapest to fit in order to control remotely and cut gas consumption when not using it this winter. The boiler is a Vaillant combi, and the wiring is hidden away inside, not as nicely documented online as a standard S-plan system. However, it turned out that the existing dumb room thermostat was a Drayton so I got the Wiser thinking I could simply swap the unit attached to the standard back-plate.

Well it fitted but seemed to be firing the boiler constantly so I turned the boiler off and had a proper look at the wiring over the weekend. Turned out that I needed to remove a link inside the boiler which was dead easy. Also turned out that whoever installed the previous thermostat had wired connections 1 and 3 the wrong way round - those are the only two control connections anyway, so the dumb thermostat - acting just as a switch to connect the two together to fire the boiler - didn't care. However, the Wiser did seem to care but it was easily fixed by swapping them over. Simples.

I'd tried a Wiser with TRVs 5 years ago and found it unreliable then. It's obviously had firmware updates since, and the wifi signal where it's installed is way better, I'm only using it as a single room thermostat with passive TRVs anyway and it seems fine so far. Ultimately being able to turn it off and on when I'm not there is what I wanted to do and it will do that fine.
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McSwede
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by McSwede »

I have Drayton wiser for nearly 2 years and it's been fault free and really easy to use. Even the wife can use the app 'nuff said 😂😂
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DeskJockey
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by DeskJockey »

I can understand losing control of the heating without the controller, that makes perfect sense, but why would you set a timed reset of the TRVs? Makes no sense. Just leave in whatever state it was last.

@Jobbo It is a DVE DSC-5CA-05 if you want the exact model supplied. Only the one on eBay is black, not white.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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McSwede wrote: Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:07 pm I have a Drayton Wiser smart thermostat with a couple of smart TRV's. It all works well with no bother. Never use the smart stat to be fair. Everything gets done on the phone.
Thread resurrection time 😂

My Drayton Wiser smart thermostat has packed up after a couple of years which is a little disappointing.

I have replaced it with a Netatmo smart thermostat and smart TRV's. Much nicer to use and a better interface/app. It's really nice stuff.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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I found my Wiser dead when I wanted to turn the heating on a couple of weeks ago. New batteries and havimg to factory reset and re-pair was a pain; I wouldn't buy another. But it is working again and since the programmes are stored remotely it didn't lose any of the stored settings.

That's not our main house though, in which Evohome is working fine. The question is: do we sell with the Evohome kit fitted or do I stick normal TRVs back on and sell the Evohome separately? I have to confess that while it's all very well having the room by room control, I don't think I'm going to bother at our new house. The TRVs needing battery replacements every 12-18 months, the noise from them - is it actually worthwhile?
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McSwede
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by McSwede »

Jobbo wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 10:07 am I found my Wiser dead when I wanted to turn the heating on a couple of weeks ago. New batteries and havimg to factory reset and re-pair was a pain; I wouldn't buy another. But it is working again and since the programmes are stored remotely it didn't lose any of the stored settings.

That's not our main house though, in which Evohome is working fine. The question is: do we sell with the Evohome kit fitted or do I stick normal TRVs back on and sell the Evohome separately? I have to confess that while it's all very well having the room by room control, I don't think I'm going to bother at our new house. The TRVs needing battery replacements every 12-18 months, the noise from them - is it actually worthwhile?
Not sure yet what battery life will be but the valves are incredibly quiet. So much so that I haven't noticed them, even in the bedroom.
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DeskJockey
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by DeskJockey »

Apart from the noise (they're quite noisy indeed) it has definitely been worthwhile for us to have them, but it depends on how your home is used. If someone is around all day using all or most of the spaces it is probably less useful.

The main thing that annoys me with Evohome is how dated it is. In the 8+ years we've had it, there's been no UX updates. The controller and app are exactly the same in use, and it is rather clunky.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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I've got a load of Netatmo stuff now as it's easy to install and use. I have two smart smoke alarms and a smart CO alarm that self test and report. There is also an internal and external weather station that links up with the smart thermostat for real-time weather at home and how it heats the house. Very happy so far.
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Simon
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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I thought I'd be getting Evohome years ago but we had Hive fitted for cheap when we had a new boiler a couple of years ago and TBH it's all we really need. I WFH and there are no rooms we don't use so simply having standard TRVs on all the rads is enough.

The only place where we kinda need more is the downstairs loo, which can get a little colder than the rest of the house at the extremes of the day as it's 'forward' of the lounge and so loses heat to the outside quicker. It's be nice for the loo to be able to call for heat by itself without the whole house needing it, but it's not worth investing in whole home smart TRVs just for that.
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Jobbo
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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DeskJockey wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:10 pm The main thing that annoys me with Evohome is how dated it is. In the 8+ years we've had it, there's been no UX updates. The controller and app are exactly the same in use, and it is rather clunky.
I've seen plenty of people say that. The fact that it hasn't changed and is solid and reliable is really quite appealing.

I'm just not sure I can be bothered to move it, or to buy a whole new Evohome setup from scratch.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by DeskJockey »

@Jobbo fair point. But I wouldn't mind better overview functions and the ability to display data in different ways.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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Jobbo wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:42 pm
DeskJockey wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:10 pm The main thing that annoys me with Evohome is how dated it is. In the 8+ years we've had it, there's been no UX updates. The controller and app are exactly the same in use, and it is rather clunky.
I've seen plenty of people say that. The fact that it hasn't changed and is solid and reliable is really quite appealing.

I'm just not sure I can be bothered to move it, or to buy a whole new Evohome setup from scratch.
As someone who does this for a living (well, hard wired using KNX), zoned control for radiators is not important in a normal size house if you want all of them to be heated most of the time. Splitting zones upstairs/downstairs and towel radiators is definitely worthwhile if you can simply do it with your pipework infrastructure If you have underfloor heating then I'd consider it essential. If you have more zones or area than one hub can handle (heatmiser or similar), don't do it wirelessly as zones will drop off.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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Jimexpl wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 3:06 pm As someone who does this for a living (well, hard wired using KNX), zoned control for radiators is not important in a normal size house if you want all of them to be heated most of the time. Splitting zones upstairs/downstairs and towel radiators is definitely worthwhile if you can simply do it with your pipework infrastructure If you have underfloor heating then I'd consider it essential. If you have more zones or area than one hub can handle (heatmiser or similar), don't do it wirelessly as zones will drop off.
I'm not sure what the new place comes with other than having a Worcester oil boiler, normal TRVs on rads and underfloor heating in the kitchen. I'm hopeful there may be zones for upstairs, downstairs and kitchen but I doubt it - so long as the kitchen is separately zoned that will do for me.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by duncs500 »

Sounds like we've got the right skills and experience in this thread to help me.:D I need to sort a few irritations in my house (underfloor heating downstairs, regular radiators upstairs):

1.) Towel rails - need to make it so that these work without the rest of the heating going on.
2.) Our thermostat is in our bedroom and it clicks so loudly when the heating goes on, sometimes it wakes me up.

I was considering a smart thermostat thing, but reading this thread I'm wondering if it's really worth it. The thermostat is a Danfoss one, I think it has wires into it from behind. It has to go, it's horrible.

What do I do gang?
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Jobbo
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Re: Smart Thermostats

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Two simple answers, Duncs:
1. Towel rads: if they are plumbed as part of the heating circuit, you can't get them to go on without the rest of the heating being on unless you turn off every other rad (do you have TRVs on each radiator? You could achieve this by turning them all off manually). Possibly easier to replace them with electric ones, or combo electric/heating circuit ones.
2. Replacing a thermostat with a new wireless one is pretty easy assuming you have a relatively standard installation. Drayton for instance use standard back plates so you can (probably) get a new Drayton thermostat and simply replace the front plate near the boiler to take the old wired thermostat out of the system. Make sure you turn it right down or up so it doesn't still click as the room gets up to temp. Probably worth putting the wireless themostat part in the hallway not the bedroom too.
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Re: Smart Thermostats

Post by jamcg »

Wot he said ^
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