Anyone on here having problems using the NEST APP?

[ericmark]

I was advised by my son to fit Nest, however I was sure it did not need such a complex control, only worried about two rooms, rest of house did not matter, so two thermostats one timed for night, the other for day, and theory the TRV would stop it getting too hot in the uncontrolled room, and the controlled room would be spot on. It worked for first 4 months, then it started to play up, I would visit to find it either roasting hot or far too cold, 3 month gap mother in hospital on coming out went to live with her. Tried fixing thermostat to wall, changing the jumper setting, moving it, the problem was the fault was intermittent and each time I thought it was working, week later it was playing up again.

This is when I realised about the quality, as I looked for a replacement thermostat I found the more expensive types actually had some simple S meter built in, it was not simple work or not work, you could see signal strength zero weak medium or strong. Then there are other features like learning how long it takes for a room to warm up, so it can reduce the hysterias, then it can be paired with the TRV so when the valve head calls for heat, the Nest also calls for heat.

All this has nothing to do with controlling from your phone, they are just better quality. As to time to heat up a room this has surprised me, at my home we have Myson radiators and within 15 minutes of heating coming on you feel the heat, but mothers house all simple water filled, house well insulated so radiators and boiler not that big, from 17°C to 20°C measured with web cam so away from radiator it takes some 3 hours, just nothing to move the air, near to radiator yes quite quick, but centre of room much slower, so if mother set to get up at 8 am heating needs to raise in temperature at 6 am. Cooling is just as bad, when it went wrong and room hit 22°C it took 5 hours before back to 20°C. Of course there are other factors, even in winter the morning sun can result in the room staying warm without any heating for hours.

So after a long battle with cheap RF linked programmable thermostats, I have gone for internet linked thermostatic control. Don't need the internet bit, what I do need is a quality device. Yes I will set to switch down the heat on days we normally go out, knowing I can switch it back up if coming home early, but that's not why I am getting it. I am going for internet control because the simple cheap RF linked programmable thermostats don't work. Having said that at home I have used a hard wired programmable thermostat for years, but that's with non condensating boiler and Myson radiators in an open plan house. Mothers house has traditional hall, stair case from the hall and landing. At home the stairs are in living room, simple arch between living room and dinning room, house was designed to be heated by a single central gas fire. True central heating.

So I need to admit now, there is a case for more expensive heating controls. I was really upset when dad had this central heating put in, there were hard wired thermostats on the old system, all wires for the thermostats were ripped out and RF type fitted instead. The big problem with the new set up was the thermostat was not programmable, it used a separate timer, so at night it did not reduce from 20°C to 16°C it simply switched off the heating. Hence why I fitted a programmable thermostat, but that one seems to have no repeat commands, so if it tells heating to switch off, it assumes it has switched off, and does not repeat the command.

 

[muffking]

So?

If the timer is set to come and but he Nest detects that you're not at home (uses a combination of of mobile GPS data and a built in IR sensor) it doesn't come on. Saves heating an empty house if you're miles away.

You turn it off/down when you leave to take the dog for a walk? Why, if it's not to save money?

I don't generally have the heating on during the day unless it's really cold, but like to be able to turn the heating on ready for whenever I decide to head back.

Does it really vary hugely?

If you set it to be 16° or 17°, say, when you're out, and then you get home early, does it really take an unreasonably long time to get to 20° if you turn it up when you get home?

Yes my hours are unpredictable and vary day to day as I work all over the country. I like being able to activate the heating on my way home.

Still feels like I'm having to justify it's need though.
It's £200 for some of the conveniences that it offers. Maybe overpriced and not for everyone, but as I said it suits my lifestyle.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Saves heating an empty house if you're miles away.

So?

Still feels like I'm having to justify it's need though.

Well yes, of course.

If you claim something is needed, that has to be justifiable. A desire does not.

It's £200 for some of the conveniences that it offers.

As I said - heating the house 24 x 7 would be the most convenient solution.

 

[ericmark]

something is needed, that has to be justifiable. A desire does not.

I need to have a mother sleep through the night, and not give me ear ache about rooms to hot or too cold. I don't need to save money, I need to have a heating system which keeps the house at a steady temperature. Not sure if using computer linked devices is any better than non computer linked, but the non linked did not hold the temperature steady enough, so I have tried the computer linked, since these devices are claimed to learn, I will need to give it some time before I know if it works.

It would seem we have three systems.

Evohome this it seems is all or nothing.
Nest this can be expanded using Mihome eTRV's so you don't need to buy everything to start with.
Hive I don't know much about hive, not seen any compatible eTRV's, but that does not mean they don't exist.

After that we have programmable thermostats, I did have some success with hard wired devices, but the WiFi device was a failure. The main problem it would see is it does not re-send packets, so if a packet is blocked, then the heating sticks either on or off. I am sure some do re-send packets, but the problem is this is not on the spec, so only way is to buy one of the high end devices and hope they do the job. Once you start looking at high end products, then Nest and Mihome start to look more reasonable.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I need to have a mother sleep through the night, and not give me ear ache about rooms to hot or too cold. I don't need to save money, I need to have a heating system which keeps the house at a steady temperature.

Well yes - different people have different needs.

But if it's a need the owner of it should be able to mount a robust defence. The OP seemed to have more of a vague desire which he was trying to rationalise.

Evohome this it seems is all or nothing.

Evohome implements OpenTherm, doesn't it? So you should be able to use anybody's OpenTherm radiator valves?

Unless of course OpenTherm is like OpenStack, with a gazillion components and new releases every 6 months.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I should have read this first:

As a standard, OpenTherm is independent of any single manufacturer. A controller from manufacturer A can in principle be used to control a boiler from manufacturer B. However, OpenTherm controllers and boilers do not in fact always work properly together. The OpenTherm standard comprises a number of optional features and some devices may include manufacturer-specific features. The presence or absence of such features may impair compatibility with other OpenTherm devices.​

So it's about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Reminds me of the old joke about standards in computing:

• The great thing about standards is that there are so many - enough for everybody to have their own.

Clearly the makers of boilers, programmers, thermostats, valves etc don't want an open, cross-vendor interoperability standard which actually works. They pay lip service to it for PR reasons, and then go back to putting all their functionality into proprietary features.

 

[ericmark]

I see so as standard they have no standard!
I remember talking to the mechanic in a motor museum, about keeping cars to standard, and he pointed out the old RR he was working on was built to the customers requirements so there was no standard, he felt adding a diode to the dynamo output so it did not start free wheeling when the ignition was turned on was OK as long as you couldn't see it.

As to central heating it has become my latest project, simply because it did not work as required, at my home the simple Horstmann wired 5 + 2 thermostat has worked for years, only thing was to swap batteries once a year, the house was designed to be centrally heated with a single gas fire, and rooms were open plan.

Moving to mothers the rooms originally had 4 solid fuel fires, at least 3 central heating systems have been fitted over the years leaving handy plastic pipes to use as conduit for sockets. But the last installers were what I would call cowboys, they ripped out the hard wired thermostat, not a clue why, they fitted a combi boiler instead of the cistern and header tank, but failed to realise this means the power shower was now illegal, I did get that corrected, but clearly the installers did not really know what they were doing.

So in theory with a modern system with anti-cycle software built into the boiler all radiators should have TRV's fitted and the return temperature of the water regulates the boiler flame hight or switches it off. But the installers left four devices, two towel rails and two radiators with no TRV's fitted, OK one radiator was in old airing cupboard so it could still be used for airing cloths, but the result is one can't rely on the anti cycle software, you need a thermostat fitted some where.

As original it had a programmer and thermostat, but to be frank, there is not time when I want the central heating totally off in the winter. There was no frost stat so the question has to be asked how long does it take to cool down? I want when the programmer switches off the house temperature to have a lower limit, likely 16°C. So it was a case of turning the heat down every night before going to bed, and back up in the morning.

However to be fair the temperature takes longer than I expected to fall, 18:52 mothers bedroom was 27°C I had corrected the error and radiator was off, now 23:25 and room still at 19°C set point 17°C and in detached garage it's -0.9°C clearly insulation in the house is good. It's likely at 6 am when set to rise to 19°C that it still will not have cooled to 17°C.

Looking at those figures it does seem there is no point in turning the temperature down when leaving house, as it will not drop that much anyway. However the temperature does need to drop over night, so some method of setting multi temperatures is required, not simply switching the system on and off.

The manufacturers seem to think most of us want 5 + 2 days on the programmable thermostat, well I do, Wednesday and Saturday are different to all other days, but manufacturers put the two days together, so I need a 7 day programmer, now I have already found the cheap Horstmann programmable thermostat failed, so looking for something better.

What I wanted is a programmable thermostat, which if some other RF device stopped it communicating, would resend the data packet, and if the data packet is not received the unit will fail safe, i.e. frost stat mode. However the adverts for programmable thermostats don't tell you what happens if the command is not received. However some do have a built in signal strength indicator, and some do have two way coms, so likely will report when signal not received.

As one looks at the higher quality devices, there is very little in the price of them. So in real terms the ability to monitor and change temperature with your phone does not cost any more, so the whole question is reversed.

Why buy a system which will not work with phone, when it's same price as one which will?

I had same question with thermostats, why buy a thermostat, when a programmable thermostat is around the same price? OK answered that one, quality, but until you buy one and have it fail how do you know the quality? Price and quality do not relate to each other, an antiquated device often costs more than a modern one, yet worse quality.

It was not long ago I also asked why do you want to alter heating on your phone. Now I know, it's a no cost extra with higher quality devices.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

However some do have a built in signal strength indicator, and some do have two way coms, so likely will report when signal not received.

Then what?

You move the radiator nearer the hub?

Why buy a system which will not work with phone, when it's same price as one which will?

Less to go wrong?

 

[ericmark]

Then what?

You move the radiator nearer the hub?

Or of course hub closer to radiator, or second hub, point is once you know the problem you can take steps to correct it.

Less to go wrong?

I have found less to go wrong does not relate to going wrong less often, back in the 1970's I had 1950's cars, they were forever going wrong, with a far simplifier system than cars built in the 1990's yet the carts built in the 1990's are far more reliable.

Self diagnosis or even ports to allow diagnosis computers to connect to the car means when something starts to go wrong one is often given advanced warning today, back when I started with cars the colour tune was about the best diagnosis device. We have all sorts today, including some very simple devices to tell you when the brake lining is wearing thin.

Same with electrical systems, the devices built today are in the main needing less maintenance than those built years ago. We no longer check dash pots for oil, or use heaters to reduce the hysteresis of a thermostat.

The problem is integrating the systems, no radiator can warm up if the boiler and pump is not running. We have multi thermostats on the system, often with very little hand shaking.

So you have for example timers added to the TRV's so only on at times when required, sounds good, but unless something tells the boiler there has been a change, so fire up, it can remain off much longer than desirable.

We can do things to assist, turning off the heating at 5 am and back on at 6 am will likely not affect the temperature of rooms without timers, but will ensure hot water is flowing at 6 am when those with timers switch on.

However consider writing the instruction manual, plumbers are not the best at keeping abreast of latest systems, trying to explain how if you change the time on a TRV you also need to change time on a programmer, well not always, but when a special mixture of controls are used, well just can't see it happening, as to passing on to the user what he needs to do, that's even less likely.

I have just fitted eTRV's and it was not plain sailing, OK all seems to be working now, but there were a few hiccups, including wife unplugging the hub. Serves me right, I should have never put the router and hub in her room!

But simply clicking on the "link to nest" icon would have made live a lot easier, I am just too tight to buy nest.