Heating failure due to high winds and EE mast failure.

[ericmark]

Did not even think about this happening, knew due to social media the EE mast had failed and I had no phone signal, did not even dream this could result in no heating.

Seems the geofencing was telling the wall thermostat there was no one home so it turned into Eco mode, I walked down stairs and central heating showed as running as the built in PIR had detected me. But 16°C, so thought have I run out of oil? Seems likely the boiler has failed, but no, as I went to look clear boiler was running.

It took a few minutes to realise due to no phone signal the central heating had gone into Eco mode.

 

[bernardgreen]

It took a few minutes to realise due to no phone signal the central heating had gone into Eco mode.

One of the inevitable consequences of relying on third party equipment over which one has no control. In this case failure of a communication system.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Much of the world relies on such things just working, it's quite a shock when it doesn't do what it's designed to do..

 

[ericmark]

I blame wife, if she had set up her phone when I sent her the link, since she is not on EE heating would not have failed.

But really my fault for not making her morning coffee, as had I done so, walking past the thermostat would have auto turned it on.

But post was in case some one else has heating failure, as not what one thinks about.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I blame wife, if she had set up her phone when I sent her the link, since she is not on EE heating would not have failed.

An alternative phone network?

 

[bernardgreen]

since she is not on EE heating would not have failed.

The heating in itself did not fail, the failure was in a part of the over-elaborate control system.

 

[ericmark]

If you were called out to fix it, how long would it take to work out what had gone wrong?

 

[bernardgreen]

how long would it take to work out what had gone wrong

Impossible to say, how good are the diagnostics ?

Does the system have the ability to detect and then clearly report a failure of the mobile phone service it depends on. ?

Does the documentation make it clear to the non technical users that a loss of mobile phone system will affect ( disable ) the operation of the the heating system. ?

 

[opps]

Can't you log into the device over the web interface and temporarily change the geo setting there?

 

[ericmark]

Can't you log into the device over the web interface and temporarily change the geo setting there?

I am sure I could, but since also a PIR built in, as long as we walk past the thermostat every so often it still works.

I will guess had I not gone out yesterday it may have continued to work, but it would have detected phone in other location and not detected its return.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Impossible to say, how good are the diagnostics ?

Does the system have the ability to detect and then clearly report a failure of the mobile phone service it depends on. ?

Does the documentation make it clear to the non technical users that a loss of mobile phone system will affect ( disable ) the operation of the the heating system. ?

Loss of signal on the mobile phone would be obvious, but I guess the Broadband continued to work fine - so should have been possible to resolve via the Internet.

 

[Gasguru]

If you were called out to fix it, how long would it take to work out what had gone wrong?

About 10 seconds to press the override button on the receiver and give you the bill...no sensible boiler repair engineer is going to waste time diagnosing faults with smart stats. Won't be long before the insurance lot add clauses to exclude smart controls from the policy.