Drayton Digistat +2 Reciever been BINNED!!....Or has it?

[Wilson78]

So i organised the parts & materials to upgrade my dads thermostat/controls & placed everything under the Potterton combi, in the cupboard.
It turns out a Sparky has been to add juice to the garage & Shed, but while doing so, the spark said to my dad that the rf reciever is rubbish & he will get rid of it.
It shows you how a intelligent man (My dad) can be blagged to let someone pull the wool over his eyes.
So im looking for a replacement now.
I need a rf prog stat & reciever. I found 2 to choose from.
A Honeywell T3, 1 channel stat or a Drayton Digistat rf 901.
He wants cheap but reliable. I liked Honeywell until i read about the pull down flap can be dodgy!!
Any advice please? And apart from the Sparky needing a rf reciever exactly like mine, i cant think why anyone would stick there nose in on stuff that doeasnt concern them...can you?
Thanks everyone

 

[cross thread]

Plumb centre’s version of the Honeywell is very good,but I would be asking the electrician about the receiver

 

[Exedon]

EPH CP4
We have installed well into 3 figures zero problems.
5 year unconditional warranty (drayton 2 years honeywell 1 year unless professionally installed)
You can add a WiFi gateway at a later date to make it smart.
Or or comes as CP4i including gateway.

 

[Wilson78]

Plumb centre’s version of the Honeywell is very good,but I would be asking the electrician about the receiver

Yeh same here. I put the same question to my dad, but hes a quiet man.
He doesnt want to call him. Ive no idea why, apart from dads feeling of awkwardness i guess.
So surely the Sparky didnt have a sudden feeling of community like he made out & surely he couldnt have been so kind to dispose of the "Useless rf reciever!"...as he called it. lol
Anyway thanks for the Heads Up

 

[Wilson78]

Plumb centre’s version of the Honeywell is very good,but I would be asking the electrician about the receiver

So thanks for the advice on Plumb Centers stats.
I havent bought many stats over the last year, so yesturday when i trawled the .net, i didnt see anything that popped out & looked user friendly, modest price & most importantly, wasnt a 'Mine Field' with a load of buttons & sliders on the front.
My dads last stat was a BOSS BPS242rf. The latest price is £110...OMG.
Personally its the worst stat ive ever come accross.
Stupid settings like A1, A2, A3...........Rubbish.
Also the Honeywell T3, 1 channel jobby looked decent until a review mentioned about the cover/flap becomming faulty in week 1.
Anyway ive had enough & dads collecting a T3 tomorrow.
Thanks guys

 

[CountryFan]

He doesnt want to call him.

Why don’t you call him?

My dads last stat was a BOSS BPS242rf. The latest price is £110...OMG.

Made by Siemens I believe.

i didnt see anything that popped out & looked user friendly, modest price & most importantly, wasnt a 'Mine Field' with a load of buttons & sliders on the front.

How easy are you looking for?

 

[Exedon]

Made by Siemens I believe.

We got to call them the boomerang stat
Always changing them for failed receivers.
Bloody awful things.

 

[CountryFan]

We got to call them the boomerang stat
Always changing them for failed receivers.
Bloody awful things.

Afaik we had literally hundreds of these and never failed, up until more recently. Sometimes the handset sometimes the receiver. I always thought they were ok. Seem a better build quality than some of the overpriced Honeywell garbage.

 

[Wilson78]

Why don’t you call him?

Made by Siemens I believe.

How easy are you looking for?

Yep, i want to call him, but i've got to respect what my dad wants. At the end of the day, its dads money, dad organised the tradesman....
I simply prepped the power & switch cable to where the reciever would have gone & i neatly placed all materials & controls under the boiler. Actually i made a effort to place the stat etc, out the way, behind the condensate. Because i must have a Sixth Sence..lol & i didnt want this happening.
Your correct, it was a Siemans & as your aware these things just get re-branded.
Im all good now, ive got the Honeywell T3, thanks though.

 

[Wilson78]

Afaik we had literally hundreds of these and never failed, up until more recently. Sometimes the handset sometimes the receiver. I always thought they were ok. Seem a better build quality than some of the overpriced Honeywell garbage.

Yeh, you have to be careful these days. A brand like Honeywell, that typically we would trust, personally i think nothing is quality made, unless it commands high selling price. Basically these products hold the Branded logos, but under that, their not worth anything.
Poor quality plastic enclosures, poor sliders, poor switches rah rahh rahhh...lol

 

[ericmark]

Yes had a stat loose RF link, getting gradually worse, seems sold under many badges. Kept moving it closer and closer to the receiver. Also had this on the wall in this house, but failed to find this

so it was a bit useless.

I know what you mean by easy to use, this thermostat worked well, but had to keep the instructions tucked behind it, as could never remember how to set it. The Wiser

can have all sorts programmed in, but it is so easy to simply touch the + button, no trying to remember how to turn the heating up, same applies to the Nest Gen 3 which I also now use, may not have been simple to set up in the first place, but now running, so easy to simply turn up heating. The same with TRV heads, this looks good, but unless one goes into a computer program near impossible to change the settings, this is so easy, nice simple °C no stupid *123456 and one has to hunt the internet to find what 20°C is. Plus can also set time with both types shown.

OK, my wife seems to like the TRV linked to the internet so she can simply say hey google set living room to 20°C, and both TRV heads and the wall thermostat will all change to 20°C, then claims she never touched the heating, technically correct of course, never let your wife study English as collage. I am sure I never set up heating with Google home, but it has control now.

Having a daughter able to turn your heating up from 25 miles away, as she thinks I am old and need a warmer house, is not really what I wanted.

 

[Wilson78]

Yes had a stat loose RF link, getting gradually worse, View attachment 395960 seems sold under many badges. Kept moving it closer and closer to the receiver. Also had this View attachment 395961on the wall in this house, but failed to find this View attachment 395962so it was a bit useless.

I know what you mean by easy to use, this View attachment 395963thermostat worked well, but had to keep the instructions tucked behind it, as could never remember how to set it. The Wiser View attachment 395964 can have all sorts programmed in, but it is so easy to simply touch the + button, no trying to remember how to turn the heating up, same applies to the Nest Gen 3 which I also now use, may not have been simple to set up in the first place, but now running, so easy to simply turn up heating. The same with TRV heads, this View attachment 395965 looks good, but unless one goes into a computer program near impossible to change the settings, this View attachment 395966 is so easy, nice simple °C no stupid *123456 and one has to hunt the internet to find what 20°C is. Plus can also set time with both types shown.

OK, my wife seems to like the TRV linked to the internet so she can simply say hey google set living room to 20°C, and both TRV heads and the wall thermostat will all change to 20°C, then claims she never touched the heating, technically correct of course, never let your wife study English as collage. I am sure I never set up heating with Google home, but it has control now.

Having a daughter able to turn your heating up from 25 miles away, as she thinks I am old and need a warmer house, is not really what I wanted.

Yes, ha ha, i agree with what you said totally lol.
We looked at getting those programmable trv's for the house, their not cheap are they?
And we decided not to get the trv's because i see it every job i go to, people arnt bothered about changing the trv's everyday to differant settings, thats why they jam up or when i remove the trv head, theres always a weep of water because they get zero use.
I turn up to a job, turn a few rads off at the trv & when i turn them back on a few always have a slight drip. And rare occasions a trv will implode with gushing water.lol
thanks for your help mate

 

[ericmark]

All my TRV heads exercise the pin once a week. So the pin will not stick. Yes, expensive since Brexit, need a hub for the first one. And so you need to decide which, and stick to it.

The Wiser TRV head is quite cheap, but the hub,

is more expensive. One shown is two channels, I got mine as a kit wall thermostat and hub, and added TRV head latter. The Terrier i30

and the eQ-3 do not need hubs, the eQ-3 Bluetooth allows two radiators to be paired when in the same room, or connect to one phone, will not connect to two phones.

I will admit I made a mistake, got Energenie first, and again it needed a hub, and would not connect to Nest Gen 3 like the advert said it would, second was eQ-3 at £15 each these were a huge success, got 5 in 2019 but since Brexit the price has gone up. The Kasa battery life was poor, and the wall thermostat to work with it has to be hard-wired, and with my house that was a problem, so had to get Drayton Wiser to have a linked TRV head, but then found out of range, so had to get a smart socket which acts as a booster.

So 4 hubs on my system, two will fire the boiler, the Kasa hub doubles as a doorbell.

I have tried to get people to write about their heads, but to date failed. Value for money eQ-3 must be top, functionality Wiser comes out top. The Energenie was rather poor, as one could only set with a phone or PC, no option to manually set it, but it was only one which would work on the PC rest only work on PC with an emulator, really designed for phone or tablet only.

Most allow programming and have some sort of chart to show how they are doing the Energenie does not, and at £15 each can't really expect the eQ-3 to have a good chart, however even they have a window open detection, so my kitchen radiator auto turns off while my back door is open, and I am unloading the shopping.

 

[Wilson78]

All my TRV heads exercise the pin once a week. So the pin will not stick. View attachment 396079View attachment 396078Yes, expensive since Brexit, need a hub for the first one. And so you need to decide which, and stick to it. View attachment 396080The Wiser TRV head is quite cheap, but the hub, View attachment 396081 is more expensive. One shown is two channels, I got mine as a kit wall thermostat and hub, and added TRV head latter. The Terrier i30 View attachment 396082and the eQ-3 View attachment 396083 do not need hubs, the eQ-3 Bluetooth allows two radiators to be paired when in the same room, or connect to one phone, will not connect to two phones.

I will admit I made a mistake, got Energenie first, and again it needed a hub, and would not connect to Nest Gen 3 like the advert said it would, second was eQ-3 at £15 each these were a huge success, got 5 in 2019 but since Brexit the price has gone up. The Kasa battery life was poor, and the wall thermostat to work with it has to be hard-wired, and with my house that was a problem, so had to get Drayton Wiser to have a linked TRV head, but then found out of range, so had to get a smart socket which acts as a booster.

So 4 hubs on my system, two will fire the boiler, the Kasa hub doubles as a doorbell.

I have tried to get people to write about their heads, but to date failed. Value for money eQ-3 must be top, functionality Wiser comes out top. The Energenie was rather poor, as one could only set with a phone or PC, no option to manually set it, but it was only one which would work on the PC rest only work on PC with an emulator, really designed for phone or tablet only.

Most allow programming and have some sort of chart to show how they are doing View attachment 396085 the Energenie does not, and at £15 each can't really expect the eQ-3 to have a good chart, however even they have a window open detection, so my kitchen radiator auto turns off while my back door is open, and I am unloading the shopping.

You know your Onions! lol
I really didnt know that they had come on so far as to be able to fire the boiler. For some stupid reason i thought the trvs were simply programmable while the central heating was "On Demand".
I had no idea they used "A Hub" to connect & send signals to the boiler, so that the boiler would fire if a "Call For Heat" came from a single radiator. Thats pretty impressive.
Even being a gas fitter i truthfully never checked out fully what these controls actually did.
So nice one for letting me know after 20 years in the trade. lol. OMG. LOL

 

[ericmark]

I really didnt know that they had come on so far as to be able to fire the boiler.

Not quite as good as it seems. If the radiator is on an outside wall, it can be cooler by the wall so the TRV head does not represent the true temperature of the room. So it can fire the boiler a little prematurely.

I think Honeywell Evo home was around the first where the TRV was linked to the boiler.
Today we have a list, Drayton Wiser, Hive, Tado, Kasa, some wireless and some hard-wired some using a hub and some use a wall thermostat.

They do not all behave as expected, Hive wall thermostat would not accept a demand for heat, if over 22°C, Drayton Wiser claims to use zigbee, but does not seem to integrate with other zigbee devices.

The Wiser claims to work out when it needs to start, so the room is warm at the set time. And the eQ-3 if it cools fast, takes it that a window has been left open. The Energenie was rather disappointing, the anti-hysteresis software was OTT, so to get a room to 20°C at 8 am, had to set it at 22°C at 7 am, then to 20°C at 8 am, or it would be 10 am before at set temperature.

This resulted in the IFTTT geo-fencing being a bit useless, as it took too long to get a room to the set temperature. However also the Nest Gen 3 geo-fencing was also useless as one had to be too close to home before it would swap from Eco to Comfort setting.

So the only option is simple time. However, ever 5-minute delay TRV to TRV can ensure rooms are heated in sequence, so re-heat time greatly reduced. Also when they show current and target temperatures this can be used to very accurately set the lock shield valves, so no over shooting, and with a condensation boiler the temperature is within 0.5°C of setting, this however is not the case with a simple on/off boiler, my oil boiler does have some hysteresis of around 1.5°C.

Oversized radiators help, when set up correctly, there is no such thing as a radiator being too big.