eRelax/vSmart Vaillant Heating Gateway - Cannot reach Server

[futureechos]

I'm looking to the future for when I get a new boiler. I would like to know more about this system. Is the boiler linked to Vaillant in some way, and if their sever goes down, you have no heat? Is there a manual override?

I've had this for 4 years - never been an issue. The boiler is cabled to the heating gateway - a small box that handles radio to the thermostat and a wifi connection so it can get weather data and talk to the servers that handle the app that you log into. It learns how long it takes to heat the house up, and compensates for colder weather if you want it to. quite configurable, has some quirks and when learning it comes on too early but by tweaking config you can get it just right. No experience of other systems but does the job fine. (when it's working). normally you cna override the internet/app requirement and control through the thermostat to manually turn on off. no good if the thermo doesn't link to the gateway.. HTH

 

[rhinoman]

I've had this for 4 years - never been an issue. The boiler is cabled to the heating gateway - a small box that handles radio to the thermostat and a wifi connection so it can get weather data and talk to the servers that handle the app that you log into. It learns how long it takes to heat the house up, and compensates for colder weather if you want it to. quite configurable, has some quirks and when learning it comes on too early but by tweaking config you can get it just right. No experience of other systems but does the job fine. (when it's working). normally you cna override the internet/app requirement and control through the thermostat to manually turn on off. no good if the thermo doesn't link to the gateway.. HTH

Any joy today, did you get hold of Vaillant? I don't know much about this specific system but it must be a handshake issue between the thermostat and the receiver, I think the lack of internet yesterday must be a red herring as the system must be able to get up and running without internet available.

 

[Ronnie1793]

I have a brand new VR920 internet gateway that I tried to install on Sunday but it failed. I can see it gets an IP address from the broadband router but it fails to connect to the Vaillant servers. The Vaillant tech services team asked for its serial number on Monday but I’ve not heard anything back from them yet. I’ve tried both android and iPad apps with the same results.

I tried again Tuesday 0830 and it successfully connected.

 

[futureechos]

Any joy today, did you get hold of Vaillant? I don't know much about this specific system but it must be a handshake issue between the thermostat and the receiver, I think the lack of internet yesterday must be a red herring as the system must be able to get up and running without internet available.

Not a lot of joy from them. I’ve been in IT for 30 years and they can only suggest it’s a Mesh wifi problem but the thermostat uses radio.. and I know the wifi is working properly.. new thermo and Gateway should be delivered tonight so can hopefully install later.

 

[futureechos]

IT works - new heating gateway + thermostat wired in and worked first time. Spent 30 mins on call to Vaillant this morning who insisted it was my wifi/mesh network when I knew it wasn't. I do appreciate them trying of course.. I think it broke when it did the firmware update. I was very careful to let it complete but seem like the only thing that could have screwed it up.. annoying as £200 down now. but I have heating!

I was terrified watching the new one do the firmware update.. But all good now.

thanks to everyone who replied and helped.

 

[rhinoman]

Glad you are up and running, shame it was new parts but that is what it is, just annoys me when tech support point to things like wif when it needs to do a radio handshake first..... I do security systems so deal with radio alarms and wifi and networking pretty often, so few support people that really understand the product backwards.

 

[futureechos]

Glad you are up and running, shame it was new parts but that is what it is, just annoys me when tech support point to things like wif when it needs to do a radio handshake first..... I do security systems so deal with radio alarms and wifi and networking pretty often, so few support people that really understand the product backwards.

Very true. I work in financial Cyber Security - the amount of vendors that have no idea now their own products work at the lowest level - we end up reverse engineering what their apps are trying to do some of the time - takes ages but is usually quicker than them fixing their own problem..

So annoying I have to do traffic analysis at home.. on the boiler's internet connection of all things.
Its like waiting for the work coffee machine to boot up in the morning - Things don't always benefit from tech and cloud connectivity!

Simpler is often better IMHO.

 

[Carlos74]

Having exactly the same problem, is all workng still with your vaillant wifi thermostat guys?

Mine Stopped working over last 24 hours. Have reset router 'virgin', turned off firewall, turned off repeaters so no mesh single router ap. Removed app and added again to both iphones I have. It seems to be really flaky logging into the app from various phones on different internet connections. All apps says is server is unavailable and then when setting up the theromostat when is has logged in the once - it complains of some workflow error on the app code 5?

Any ideas?

 

[rhinoman]

Having exactly the same problem, is all workng still with your vaillant wifi thermostat guys?

Mine Stopped working over last 24 hours. Have reset router 'virgin', turned off firewall, turned off repeaters so no mesh single router ap. Removed app and added again to both iphones I have. It seems to be really flaky logging into the app from various phones on different internet connections. All apps says is server is unavailable and then when setting up the theromostat when is has logged in the once - it complains of some workflow error on the app code 5?

Any ideas?

Mine was sketchy yesterday, often had the updating servers message, this morning took a while to connect and sync but got there in the end after logging out and back in.
They do seem to run updates each weekend, at least the last 3 weeks that I've had it.