Geofencing central heating control, does it really work?

[ericmark]

I see a whole collection of thermostats both wall mounted and radiator mounted which have the ability to use geofencing. In my mothers house we have electronic TRV heads which can be set, however I have no actual need for the function, so never tried it.

However I did set the temperature to raise from 16°C to 20°C at 6 am ready for when we get up at 8 am, and found it had not reached the new setting until 10 am, since it was simple timers I set it for 24°C instead then back down to 20°C at 8 am and it works fine, but that is not really an option when using geofencing, it detects the phone is x miles from home and raises the temperature.

Clearly since if I cheat it does heat in time, it's not down to boiler output, it's down to how the algorithm is written.

So I have two Energenie MiHome TRV heads and two wall thermostats in parallel the wall thermostats do not have a boost they just turn on at 6 am same time as the valves, the extra 4°C is only set on the TRV heads. Not ideal setup but with simple timers it works.

So maybe others can reply, what thermostat, how much distance is it set to, how long does it take to cover that distance, and how close to set temperature is it when you get home. Are there days when it needs manually setting?

I will guess EvoHome will work, but what about the cheaper systems, like the very basic Hive, does it really work, or is it just too slow or misses detecting phone etc.

 

[^woody^]

Geofencing is really just for the marketing department to sell as a feature, and then only potentially useful for singletons with warm air heating. Oh, and that one time of the year when you take a holiday and want to turn the heating on while on the plane heading back - as long as it is not the more traditional summer holiday.

Families or multi occupancy and slow wet systems (ie the majority as in the UK), forget it.