Home heating controllers - RF and Smart types

I'm still looking for a narrow band digital thermostat which is mains powered to replace a bimetal. The thought of internet connected fills me with dread. Next doors wireless thermostat is a nightmare already, without making it even more complicated. I get the feeling these new systems are designed for low thermal mass houses where rapid response is necessary.

Not necessarily. They could be useful in cases where you can't accurately predict when you're coming home - but do have *some* notice. For example, remote operation could be useful for heating up our holiday flat before we arrive - which takes several hours in the winter if the heating has been off for a while. Even if we don't know at the end of each visit when we'll next be there (in order to use the programmable stat's 'holiday' function) we do at least know a day or two in advance.

I'll be very interested in any responses to the OP by anyone who has first-hand experience of any of these (or other similar) systems. I would want something which I could install for myself.

They all seem to have self install - even Honeywell who are notorious for not liking the plebs installing their precious products are quite well served by sellers of Evohome products.

Trouble with Evo and HeatGenius is the outlay is high - 500 for a flat and 1000 for a home if you have most rooms with at least one RF TRV.

I'm sure the Evo is polished and reliable - Honeywell are good at that - and their ergonomics are good - want more heat, twist the knob on the top of the TRV to locally adjust. People expect that - not poking buttons or fumbling for an app.

The HeatGenius is as expensive, but goes for the ZWave approach which means you have some possibility of dumping their controller for your own if their service goes t*ts up, without loosing ALL your investment.

The Tado is all about the house being warm when you get back - a feature I can appreciate having put some plug in electric heaters under ZWave control.

And the NEST is just a smart very Star Trekky programmer/stat - but really only works if you have a regular schedule it can learn.

Only several hours? That's "low thermal mass". This place takes

All you really need is a remote switch in parallel with the programmer. Could be a simple phone/DTMF activated jobbie.

-by-telephone-kit

You can also get various web operated switches. I use something similar. Useful for turning the heating on before we return from winter holidays.

It's quite a few hours actually. If we arrive at lunchtime, it's just about comfortable by bedtime. If I could control it remotely, I'd turn it on the day before travelling there.

Thanks for the links. I think I probably need a bit more than any of those offers. The landline telephone-related ones appear to get a bit messy when you've also got an answering machine on the line - as I have.

The GSM-based one may possibly be a contender - but isn't cheap (£109 + carriage + VAT - no prices on the site, I had to email the supplier!)

Ideally, I need something which integrates a bit more with the heating system so that I can set and monitor the target temperature remotely. I currently have a Honeywell programmable wireless stat which acts as a frost stat when the flat is unoccupied, and maintains comfortable temperatures when we're there. Switching between these two states requires either the use of a slider switch or using holiday mode to tell the heating to come on after X days. The slider switch can't be operated remotely, and holiday mode is only any use if I know when I'll next be there - which I don't always. If I could achieve the equivalent of this remotely without costing an arm and a leg, it would be great. I'm not bothered about remote control of individual radiators (they have TRVs anyway) - but just of the whole system and central thermostat.

I've got an always-on broadband router in the flat, so control over the internet is a possibility.

Although the NEST thingy looks very appealing, I can't help having reservations about anything that relies on someone else's 'free' external server to operate. Being inherently cynical, I can't help wondering how long it will be before they decide to 'upgrade' the system such that the first generation hardware loses functionality, forcing replacement and wiping out any financial benefits. It's almost inevitable this lies buried within their business model. Of course, there's always a good chance someone will hack it and set up a pirated alternative server, saving the day. I'm would also be surprised if it could learn my schedule. Presumably, it works out where you are from the location of the device running the associated app, so leaving your phone at home could be an expensive mistake, while app-free visitors would start to shiver if you went out and left them at home for the day in winter. So probaby great for energy-efficient well-off single person households but maybe not optimal for the rest of us.

can't see how these hive thingies are any good anyway, if you turn your heating off it takes longer to warm up. You are better off leaving it on permanent and thermostaticly controlled, unless you are going away for more than a few days.

Indeed. It's not like Google ever get bored and shelve projects...

NEST uses a PIR detector to learn it's schedules.

I *think* it will operate with Google - but you will lose the ability to remote control it without their portal.

I very much doubt it, Google don't need to do that.

AIUI it does have a published api and there are a variety of thrid party devices arriving on the market to take advantage of this.

I think the idea it can use multiple ways to work out if the house is occupied, but yes, I wonder how good it is.

But you can program schedules into as well

As long as it comes on early enough it doesn't matter.

They are thermostats, basically fancy programmable ones. So you don't need to turn it off, just a lower temp.

A leaving it on at the same temp costs money. I can see the difference if our heating is runnign at a lower temp when we are out, but we have a variable schedule, so a pragammable stat isn't that good for us.

Make sure it supports 3G/4G

I believe not all UK mobile suppliers support the lower GSM protocols. I have a GSM alarm based card which texts via the mobile phone network which doesn't work on the Three mobile network.

A bit OT, but I've noticed that whereas in times gone by if my phone reported a GPRS signal it worked, rather slowly. Now the same phone doesn't work at all no matter how long I wait. I wonder if something has been disconnected somewhere.

Are you using EE? Because EE does not support data over anything less than 3G (or it didn't)

Yes, they'll fight over who answers but for basic CH control you only need to ring it. Say twice in 30 seconds to swich on, 3 times in 30 seconds to switch off. It calls you back once to confirm on, twice to confirm off.

I didn't think it would be cheap...

Attach it to a servo or solenoid, control the servo/solenoid remotely. TBH thats probably a bit hard to do neatly and reliably. So investigate how the switch operates it might just be a single pole n position, cut track from the "normal" position insert SPCO relay, C to the slide switch side of the cut, NC to the circuit side and NO to the Frost position. This fails to heating on, swap the NC NO connects for fail to frost protection.

Personally I'm a bit wary of things that are visible from the net. You never know what bug is going to pop out of the woodwork. Recently the "Misfortune Cookie" vulnerabilty in many embeded system webservers (such as those found in routers) was uncovered. If your bit of kit is more than a couple of years old it may well be now considered "unsupported" by the maker...

I'd also steer well clear of anything that needs a 3rd party "portal" or server to function. I can see why makers go that route, avoids having to support, directly, users with dynamic IPs and the problems that NAT raises.

Sorry, I should have said. O2.

It does *not* support 3G. But there's no data involved, as such. In its crudest use, you simply phone it and it rejects the call (so there's no cost) but uses the call's existence to switch the thing on or off. That's pretty useless because it's open loop - and there's no confirmation that's it's done what you wanted.

But you can also send it commands by text message. When you do that, it sends a text back to tell you what it's done. You have to provide your own SIM and you have to have some method of paying for any texts it sends.

If I go down this route, I have a redundant Orange OVP-Virgin SIM which I could use - and any use of that would be automatically paid by DD - with no need to top up and no risk of it dying if not used.

Totally impractical, I'm afraid. The slider is on the portable part of a wireless programmable stat (which we sometimes move between rooms) - and has five positions - DATE, PROG, AUTO, MAN, OFF. In the OFF position it acts as a frost-stat - so it needs to be moved from OFF to AUTO when normal heating is required.

TBH, I rarely use the frost stat and normally turn the heating off completely when we're not there. The flats above and below are permanently occupied, so there's not too great a risk of a freeze-up - and my contents insurance company has relaxed the rules about water leakage and now only requires the water to be turned off rather than needing to maintain a minimum temperature.

So the option remains to leave the stat in the AUTO position and to use the GSM device to operate a switch in series with the stat - so that the heating will only actually come on when the remotely operated switch is closed - regardless of what the stat is doing. That wouldn't allow me to monitor the temperature or change the target temperature remotely - like some of the more complex systems do - but would probably be sufficient.

Of course, there's always the low-tech option of getting one of the neighbours to turn the heating on for us!

I reckon that's much more reliable. My experience of 21st century electronics is of totally unpredictable reliability. The PVRs here lose their settings on a weekly basis and similarly the remote controlled power switches magically change their settings. The wireless thermostat next door works when it feels like it and digital television is so poor on sound and picture quality that I really want analogue back! One of my phone apps ceases to work whenever it feels like it and requires an uninstall/install sequence to get it back. The thought of a computer controlled home is a nightmare. It's just like installing a modern boiler which claps out after 5 years and vast amounts of money spent on maintenance. Using remote CCTV has been an interesting experience, it works when the ISP doesn't c*ck up their DNS system, reliable----NO! It is difficult to improve upon mechanical switches for reliability. How many people use digital time switches? ( I tried, it was so difficult I gave them away.)