All I can say is what I have done, mother is 92 and we need to monitor her to ensure she is OK, to do this the council have put in call buttons, door contacts, bed alarms all which sound up-stairs. However all the devices are down stairs, so once activated it needed a trip upstairs to reset. So we wanted to be able to reset without going up, idea one was a plug in remote so with a remote control we could remove and return the power, however since we could not see if active or not, we found some times it had not been switched back on, this was not acceptable, so method two was tried, a simple time switch, this turned off door alarms before carers arrived and back on when they left, but still if the alarm was triggered it needed a trip upstairs, so third idea was a smart socket.
What this did was combine the functions of the remote socket and the timer socket, if in error we forget to set at the set time it sets anyway, we can leave the house then set alarm so the other family carer is still alerted should mother need them, it is not simply one remote control we have two remotes, plus our phones plus the PC and direct on the socket, plus a red LED on the socket to show if live or not. To my mind these functions should have been built into the alarm, but not our alarm that belongs to council, so the smart socket has made the alarm system user friendly.
Once the socket was fitted and we had the hub, it seemed to make sense to use same hub and remotes for lights in my bedroom, it saved running cables to a two way switch, would not have done it if the hub and remotes were not already in place, but since they were it was simple way to get two way lights.
The last is a total failure, we had problems with mothers living room and bedroom getting too hot and too cold, simple wireless programmable thermostats had failed, so since hub already in decided to go for eTRV's in the two rooms. Last night was typical units in day time 6:30 am to 8:30 pm bedroom and 10:30 pm living room set at 19°C then at night set to 16°C at 5 am the whole central heating turns off and back on at 6:30 am to ensure the boiler is actually running when the eTRV call for heat, the main wall thermostat is in the hall, the hall radiator is throttled back hard on the lock shield valve so it is slow to warm up, it also has a standard TRV so it can't get too hot. The wall thermostat will keep hall at a steady 18.2°C unless a door is left open. So there is no reason why the rooms should not cool at night and heat up again in the day. Been careful with lock shield valve settings so radiators with eTRV should heat up quickly. However as said total failure, by 3 am last night the two rooms had dropped 1°C not the 3°C programmed, and by 9:30 am in the morning they had not even heated up by that 1°C it was 10:30 am before this happened and by that time the sun was streaming into the living room bay windows and heating up the room anyway. Upstairs with simple TRV the rooms are great.
So yes my wife can turn on or off the alarms and my bedroom light from her phone, I can't I don't use a smart phone. And she can turn the two rooms up and down for target temperature, but latter is rather pointless as the current temperature is so slow to follow target, only use would be to turn it back on day before coming home from holiday if we every get one. So totally no point in turning temperature up or down with the phone or having it to auto turn one when within 25 miles from home, as it is so slow to react anyway.
