Combi Controller With WiFi?

[Anthony R. Gold]

Is a heating/hot water controller with WiFi a thing? I can't find anything like that.

I'm looking for a two channel (heat and hot water) programmer that can turn those two functions on an off to a programmed schedule that can be altered or over-ridden remotely. I do not want any type of temperature sensing or temperature control, just control from the programmer's clock with remote override or remote re-programming.

If anyone knows of such an appliance please share.

Thanks,

[Andy Burns]

Heatmiser used to sell wifi thermostats, but due to lax programming were unsafe if mad available over the internet. They now sell thermostats that require a hub to connect them to the internet and use mesh networking within the house.

I can't see any of the old models still on sale anywhere, they're fine if you don't do any port forwarding to them, or use them over a VPN.

[The Natural Philosopher]

raspberry pi with a mains relay module on it? And a bit of coding....:-)

[David Wade]

Why would any one make one? Most modern systems use a combined timer/thermostat. They are small enough to fit where the old timer went. Once you have the WiFi its so trivial to add temperature sensing so why would any one leave it out? Especially as these things sell on "tick lists of features".

I think the nearest you can get is Drayton Wiser with a single thermostat? Stick the thermostat some where cold...

Dave

[Anthony R. Gold]

I can't speak for why anyone would make one any more than that Honeywell and Drayton definitely do make non-thermostat controllers, and it is one of those (a Honeywell ST9400C) that I'd like to replace with something similar but that can also be remotely controllable.

Thanks for the suggestion Dave.

[Michael Chare]

According to Which the problem they found with the Heatmiser has been fixed with an upgrade to the App. There is no need to configure port forwading to use the app remotely.

I would think that both the Heatmiser itself and the app make contact with a central server that enables the app to contact the Heatmiser. I have had one for about five years. Sadly they are no longer for sale.

It is only a single channel heating thermostat controller. The Combi boiler we have does have a timer for when the hot water can be on or off. It is not difficult to buy switches which can be operated remotely via the internet.

[Andy Burns]

They didn't so much fix it as obsolete them; with the old versions the app contacted the thermostat (either locally over wifi, or from the internet with port forwarding). With the new versions the hub contacts out to a server, and the app rendezvous there, so there's no inbound port forwarding - but i think you need the hub, the thermostat can't directly contact out, I might be wrong, I have the old ones.

That's the new method, of course you're vulnerable to their server "going away" leaving you in the lurch. Have you got v3 stats? Mine are v2.

[Michael Chare]

How would I know if it is V2 or V3 stats? Yes there was another device where the server was discontinued.

[Theo]

The point is that once you've got a controller that does wifi, adding support for remote (wireless) thermostats isn't a lot more work. So the manufacturer is likely to support that, and insisting on a product /without/ thermostat support is likely to limit your options.

That said, perhaps some have support for wireless thermostats in addition to existing wired ones? In which case you might be able to configure which thermostats drive which zones, and assign the wireless ones to zones which aren't connected on your unit.

(Confusingly, the rest of the world says 'thermostat' when they mean 'controller'. In other words the box which tells things when to fire with timers, programmes etc, rather than a simple open/closed contact for 'room is too hot'. So you're probably looking for a 'thermostat' even though you don't want it to sense temperature)

I don't have any suggestions of models, but only to note that this database of Zigbee devices:

some controllers/thermostats, and they could be controlled via a Zigbee hub. The advantage of Zigbee is it's all local, so you aren't dependent on an internet connection or a cloud service sticking around.

I did see if I could find a similar database of wifi devices but didn't manage to find one. Wifi ones are likely to be infested with 'cloud' issues.

Theo

[David Wade]

I can see why you make "dumb" replacements. They just drop in where the existing boxes. But if you are going to control things via an APP then I would have thought temperature was the critical thing, not times.

Dave