What “smart” heating control features do people actually use?

[endecotp]

Dear All,

Thinking about high-tech central heating controls - Tado, Hive, Evohome etc. - what features do people actually use and like?

I ask because I am currently setting up my own DIY system, and while there is lots that I could do, some ideas are likely to be more useful in practice than others. For example, I’m considering a button by the front door that says “I’m going out, back at bedtime”.

What features do you use yourself - or wish that you had? Pros, what do your customers actually use?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[pcaouolte]

Away mode when the last person leaves the house (tracked by mobile phone position). Out of away mode and back into normal working mode when someone leaves work, or travels within a specific distance of home (again tracked by mobile phone position).

Heating temperature lowered when everyone is in bed (various sensors to establish this).

Heating in a room turned off if an outside door is left open for a few minutes, I'm not going to try to heat the world (heating linked to intruder alarm sensors).

Runs a different, warmer, program when we have guests (we pretend that we can afford to heat the house ).

Some normally unoccupied rooms only heated to a low level, level increased when the room is in use.

If someone fiddles with a thermostat and turns the heating up it gets automatically set back to the program temperature after a few minutes.

Those are mine but everyone will have different needs.

 

[Murdochcat]

I can control our heating and hot water from my phone. The heating is preset to steps each day. When we go away I can pause the schedules with ease.

Nothing else is really needed

 

[denso13]

Thinking about high-tech central heating controls - Tado, Hive, Evohome etc. - what features do people actually use and like?

EPH controller with the EPH internet gateway, weather compensation, opentherm and manual TRVs. Be aware that the Hive, for one, doesn't seem to work properly with the Pinnacle on opentherm.

 

[mikehammer69]

Away mode when the last person leaves the house (tracked by mobile phone position). Out of away mode and back into normal working mode when someone leaves work, or travels within a specific distance of home (again tracked by mobile phone position).

Heating temperature lowered when everyone is in bed (various sensors to establish this).

Heating in a room turned off if an outside door is left open for a few minutes, I'm not going to try to heat the world (heating linked to intruder alarm sensors).

Runs a different, warmer, program when we have guests (we pretend that we can afford to heat the house ).

Some normally unoccupied rooms only heated to a low level, level increased when the room is in use.

If someone fiddles with a thermostat and turns the heating up it gets automatically set back to the program temperature after a few minutes.

Those are mine but everyone will have different needs.

Some of that is my idea of control

Automated and not pressing buttons and looking at phones half the day

 

[aveatry]

Smart heating is just wasting fuel and energy

 

[Lower]

I use my phone to control the thermostats and set schedules, but other than that only really use the app to turn the heating off when we go away.

The main benefit of our nest thermostats is the learning feature where if you schedule the house to be warm at 7.00am, the thermostat works out when it needs to turn the heating on to get the house to that temp, as opposed to an old fashioned time clock and basic thermostat setup that just define when the heating turns on.

 

[morqthana]

Smart heating is just wasting fuel and energy

In what way(s)?

 

[pcaouolte]

Surely smart heating wasting fuel and energy will depend on the heating system and the usage of the property?

A holiday flat which is not occupied every day is likely to benefit more from smart heating than a small bungalow occupied 24/7 by a retired couple.

A gas heating system that can heat the property rapidly could benefit more than an ASHP which takes ages to get the property up to temperature.

There are endless combinations, some will benefit and others wont.

 

[aveatry]

In what way(s)?

The whole concept in the first place - having it heating your house when you are not in it. Pre warming it before you get home.

 

[mikehammer69]

That sounds like a contradiction?

Not heating an empty house and not pre -warming, so returning to a cold house ?

 

[mikehammer69]

Surely smart heating wasting fuel and energy will depend on the heating system and the usage of the property?

A holiday flat which is not occupied every day is likely to benefit more from smart heating than a small bungalow occupied 24/7 by a retired couple.

A gas heating system that can heat the property rapidly could benefit more than an ASHP which takes ages to get the property up to temperature.

There are endless combinations, some will benefit and others wont.

Control System has to be tailored to suit house type , heating type , customer needs etc. etc.

 

[endecotp]

Away mode when the last person leaves the house (tracked by mobile phone position).

Yes, I've considered that sort of thing. Trouble is, I'm not glued to my mobile phone the way most people are and often leave the house without it (shock! horror!).

Heating temperature lowered when everyone is in bed (various sensors to establish this).

I prefer it the other way around, i.e. the heating goes off in the living room, "oh it's getting cold in here, better go to bed!". If it waits till the living room is empty, I might stay up till stupid-o'clock (again). Similarly in my office in the evening, "oh it's getting cold in here, better stop working and have dinner".

As for sensors - in the rooms where I have wireless temperature sensors I can determine whether they are occupied by looking at the signal strength. When the room is empty, it's stable; when there are people present it fluctuates. For example:

So Sunday night, "someone" went to bed around midnight (green line) and "someone else" went to bed around 2 (yellow line).

Only problem with this is that I'm replacing the wireless sensors with wired ones, because the signal strength is too low in many rooms. Looking at the same graph, note that the receiver sensitivity is -96 dBm and it's getting close to that.

Those are mine but everyone will have different needs.

Yes, many thanks for the ideas.

 

[endecotp]

EPH controller with the EPH internet gateway, weather compensation, opentherm and manual TRVs. Be aware that the Hive, for one, doesn't seem to work properly with the Pinnacle on opentherm.

My Pinnacle is now happily talking to my DIY controller over OpenTherm, which all worked very smoothly, so god knows what Hive managed to get wrong!

 

[endecotp]

The main benefit of our nest thermostats is the learning feature where if you schedule the house to be warm at 7.00am, the thermostat works out when it needs to turn the heating on to get the house to that temp

Yes, I plan to do something like that; I can determine when to start heating based on the output of the radiators, thermal mass of the room, outside temperature and thermal conductivity to outside. I'd like to be able to work out those values by "learning" from the observed behaviour of the room - and then I'll know how much difference all the insulation that I've been adding has actually made!