Dumb TRVs with call for heat

as does my Horstmann one

My point was that an unknown DIY system would probably frighten-off a potential purchaser, whereas a recognised smart system might not.

That doesn't change the fact that someone else (a mere mortal?) would have difficulty maintaining it.

Wonderful

You aren't alone. I'm not going to start willy waving but can probably out-qualify you in a number of areas, especially when it comes to Electronic Engineering.

That's a slightly aggressive, offensive, inappropriate (and inaccurate) response to something that wasn't aimed at you. Please try to remember that it's possible to disagree without being aggressive, even on t'internet.

Voice control is an interesting one. I think it could solve the problem of having to use an awkward UI.

I think there are some problems with Alexa specifically. The first is that Amazon has been cutting back because they were making huge losses on Alexa - it turns out to be quite hard to make revenue from it, since people don't actually use it to buy things. I think it quite likely they'll try to monetise it in the not too distant future. That could be directly a subscription, but probably more likely is it'll gain increasing numbers of ads (of the form "did you know you can stream The Rings of Power now on Prime Video? Sign up today!") and then some kind of ad-free subscription.

The other is that now every room now needs both a smart TRV and an Amazon device to listen for voice commands, which bumps up the cost a bit. Maybe a collection of used Echos can be had for cheap, I don't know.

There are also the privacy issues which are well documented.

Something to think about though...

Theo

It has some limitations when used with heating, but you can use it for automation as well BUT you do need to use the Alexa app to do some essential things. The way each heating system reacts to commands and how these commands interact with the inbuilt settings might be different.

Its a whole new minefield.

I think so too. We seldom buy anything via Alexa. We do use

There are other ways to contact Alexa as well as Amazon devices. You can run the Alexa app on a PC, Android or IOS device which offers full control. Alexa also knows room names so you can change any rooms settings from any other room.

Of course...

I think its great when you have schedules and you want to make the odd change. Not sure about as a primary controller.

I've not entered the realm of Dockers - they look to be a nightmare - at least conceptually, to me at least.

I've noticed the frequent updates, but I only bother every month or so.

All I can say it's that mine's been running a year on a Pi with no noticeable failure.

Yes, I agree on the hobbyist aspect, and it's a steep learning curve for people like me with very little tech knowledge. I'd like to get everything onto HA, but I've stumbled at the remote access using a VPN (docker . . . ).

The clock on my HeatMiser programmable stat drifts by a minute or so per day, so I have a cron job that re-syncs it every night using curl, thereby solving the GMT/BST issue.

Yeah. That's the only thing my controller needs the internet FOR.

I sure don't want to control it from Australia - or have the opportunity open for someone else...

Or have it talking to random ALEXAs etc.

It depends on how much you travel. Having a Son who lives in Qatar and a Holiday Home in Spain I often turn it down, but set it back to normal the day before we return, to get the house warmed through.

Why should it talk to RANDOM Alexas....

Dave

in the cloud, anything is possible