Honeywell, Evohome review

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  • imellor
    Automated Home Lurker
    • May 2014
    • 6

    Honeywell, Evohome review

    All,

    I have posted a short review of the Honeywell Evohome system here: http://imellor.blogspot.com/2014/05/...me-review.html
    I've not attempted anything like this before, but was prompted by the lack of information on the internet.
    Comments are welcome, but please go easy on me :-)

    Regards

    Ian
  • @RichOverall
    Automated Home Lurker
    • May 2014
    • 4

    #2
    Hi Ian,

    Your review seems to be a comprehensive review. Maybe I can clarify a couple of points...

    The trade offering of Honeywell evohome IS and always will be an installer led product and the manual is geared to installers who have already received training. As a Honeywell Recognised EVO Installer who is in contact with the Installer Network team at Honeywell on a regular basis, they have no such plans to dumb down the manual on the trade products, such as the Base Pack, Mobile Access Kit, Hot Water Kit and HR92's. When B&Q get the consumer item, I am sure they will be sufficiently dumbed...

    You have some unanswered questions at the end of you blog...

    What log do you refer to? The evohome Controller has an error log as part of the menu system, but nothing else apart from this.

    There is a port on the side of the controller and it has wireless control via the Mobile Access Kit, so I would say the scope to upgrade the firmware is large.

    The evohome Controller beeps when the internal battery is getting low. I think it starts to beep after half an hour when removed from the dock or wall mount kit.

    The evohome Controller has a full factory reset button in the settings submenu, but no cold reset button.

    Hope that helps and think you may have bought your Hot Water Kit from us!

    Richard (Overall Maintenance Limited)
    Gas Safe & OFTEC registered - Honeywell Recognised evohome Installer - Always lurking on Twitter!

    Comment

    • imellor
      Automated Home Lurker
      • May 2014
      • 6

      #3
      Richard,

      Thank you for your reply and answering my questions.
      Re the dumbing down, actually I was thinking the opposite, I thought the manual had already been dumbed down. I'm assuming you received plenty of course notes to fill in the gaps?
      I think the point I was trying to make, was although I appreciate this is a specialist product and we have to be wary of GasSafe regulations. Many companies are moving to self install products and have freely available information for those who want it. Including downloadable patches and firmware updates etc, I'm sure if Honeywell has come from a different industry vertical, this would be the case. They are often caveated as for competent people only, but then when it all goes wrong, that's when we call someone like yourself in :-)

      Re the log, when I wrote my blog, I couldn't find the log menu. but I have just realised it is in the user settings menu, I was looking in the installer menu.

      When speaking about firmware updates, I was thinking about the end user being able to do the update, as is the norm these days, with phones, TVs, alarms etc.

      I'm glad to see you are doing your homework I did indeed buy my hot water kit from you :-)

      Thanks for your help

      Ian

      Comment

      • @RichOverall
        Automated Home Lurker
        • May 2014
        • 4

        #4
        No problem Ian.

        I do like to keep on a personal level when selling evohome, if you had any questions at the time you could have asked.

        I have an entire installers booklet which fills the gaps in the installation manual. The evohome equipment is not hard to bind, the only issues most people have is when they buy the Base Pack and the pre-bound BDR91 is still bound as the as a 'Boiler Relay' when they want to do zone valve control, etc. Normally a full factory reset of the evohome Controller and all assosiated wireless devices (important to remember to un-bind all BDR91's, DTS92's, HR92's before re-binding again) will cure most problems.

        I have sold and installed close to 100 evohome systems since March, so goes to show there is a great demand to have greater control of heating systems.

        Enjoy your product, used correctly it has potential to save large amounts of money on heating bills.

        Thanks,

        Richard
        Gas Safe & OFTEC registered - Honeywell Recognised evohome Installer - Always lurking on Twitter!

        Comment

        • HenGus
          Automated Home Legend
          • May 2014
          • 1001

          #5
          I confess that I am struggling with this one. Approved installers in the Worcester seem happy to provide a quote based on what I believe I need but that is as far as it goes. I have a 5 bedroomed house with a Classic FF280 boiler and OSO unvented tank. I have 18 radiators plus a bypass radiator in an ensuite. OSO say that an internal probe cannot be fitted but they recommend sliding the HW kit probe under the insulation at the top of the access panel. Anyone done this?

          Where can I find information on what happens if, say, one of the wireless relays fails on Christmas Eve? Not the sort of item that a plumber has on his van.

          Comment

          • HenGus
            Automated Home Legend
            • May 2014
            • 1001

            #6
            Eventually, I did find an Evohome specialist installer who had amassed the grand total of 3 installations. That said, he obviously knew what he was doing as the installation is very neat. He also concluded that as my pump already had a bypass then fitting the HW kit was not an issue. The 2 inline motorised valves remain in situ and the probe has been inserted under my unvented tank's insulation as recommended by the tank manufacturer. HW is working fine; however, just to reinforce the point made above about the lack of any useful EU technical information, I struggled on Saturday to understand why I had an RF actuator fault showing on the Evotouch screen. The error cleared after 6 hours (restored) and I can only conclude that it was a temporary loss of RF comms during a violent thunderstorm.

            Another slight concern was that, before he left, the installer muttered something about the HR92s and the possible need to file off the top of some of the existing Drayton RT212 body stems if the valves do not shut off completely. Nowhere in any of the stuff that I have seen is this possibility mentioned. If his fears are justified, then he will be the one doing the filing not me. Should I be concerned?

            Comment

            • Jibet
              Automated Home Lurker
              • Jul 2014
              • 6

              #7
              Hi Ian, Thanks for the nice review. I've bought and installed the evohome myself and it's working very nice. One comment: In the last picture of your review, I see that you have installed a valve vertically. Mine are also vertical but the text displayed on the screen is upside down. How did you manage to have the text displayed correctly when the valve is installed vertically (and not upside down)?
              Regards,
              Jibet

              Comment

              • SensibleHeatUK
                Moderator
                • Feb 2009
                • 228

                #8
                If the display on your HR92s are upside down when viewed vertically then you have European models (where it is common for the actuator to be fitted in a horizontal plane), as opposed to UK models (where they tend to be fitted vertically). This was the same with the previous versions of the radiator controller too.
                Sensible Heat
                SensibleHeat.co.uk

                Comment

                • Jibet
                  Automated Home Lurker
                  • Jul 2014
                  • 6

                  #9
                  @sensibleheatUK Thank you very much for your answer. I'm indeed from Belgium and contacted Honeywell last week about this. They told me it was impossible to have a vertical display and that it was a fake picture. They even told me that the valve wouldn't work vertically. I've to buy 4 another valves, so I guess I'm better off ordering them from UK. I hope the UK valves can work together with a non-UK controller. DO you know if it's compatible?
                  Regards,
                  Jean

                  Comment

                  • SensibleHeatUK
                    Moderator
                    • Feb 2009
                    • 228

                    #10
                    The only difference we found between the modules was the LCD display, so you should have no problem with UK units. If you struggle to find anyone who can ship internationally then let me know as we can do this although I'd need to check shipping costs first.
                    Sensible Heat
                    SensibleHeat.co.uk

                    Comment

                    • Otto-Mate
                      Founder
                      • Jan 2004
                      • 882

                      #11
                      Posted our review of the Honeywell evohome after a few months living with the system...



                      M.
                      Editor AutomatedHome.co.uk


                      www.facebook.com/AutomatedHomeUK
                      www.twitter.com/ottomate
                      www.instagram.com/automatedhome/

                      Comment

                      • G4RHL
                        Automated Home Legend
                        • Jan 2015
                        • 1580

                        #12
                        Trawling through I notice your input refers to a log. Where is it? If I go to settings on my controller I get three choices, Device, Room and Quick. There is no item listed "log" under device settings or indeed any of them. Nor in the advanced settings. Help! Is it staring me in the face or do I have a more recent model that does not include it?

                        Comment

                        • HenGus
                          Automated Home Legend
                          • May 2014
                          • 1001

                          #13
                          Originally posted by G4RHL View Post
                          Trawling through I notice your input refers to a log. Where is it? If I go to settings on my controller I get three choices, Device, Room and Quick. There is no item listed "log" under device settings or indeed any of them. Nor in the advanced settings. Help! Is it staring me in the face or do I have a more recent model that does not include it?
                          When your system logs a fault - such as an actuator valve comms fault - the screen display has a red band around it with details of the fault. Once this page is cleared manually, you will see that when you go to Settings that you now have 2 columns. The one on the left lists the 3 choices above: the one on the right shows FAULT LOGBOOK. Press FAULT LOGBOOK and it shows the fault and time, and any restore time. The FAULT LOGBOOK will continue to log faults until such time as the controller is re-set. I have had up to 6 pages of logs. I have two at the moment with 8 logs (4 per page).

                          It is worth noting, as I have posted before, that the gateway does not send out an e-mail to tell you that you have comms faults between the controller and the BDR actuator. I think that this is an ommision that needs to be addressed - either through web access to the controller or by remote app improvements.

                          Comment

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