Evohome heating/security integration

[peterf]

Within the app, if you have the Honeywell security system installed, under connected rules, it says “you can have your security system trigger quick actions for your comfort system, pretty neat huh?”

Well, actually, it’s not very neat. It’s only partially implemented and there’s a huge flaw in the bit that works.

Back in August, I made Honeywell aware that if one un-sets the security system via the app, it made the heating system revert back to the normal schedule from the economy setting that it sits in throughout the summer. Now that the weather is somewhat cooler, the optimum start for the heating is kicking in but it has become apparent that un-setting the alarm knocks this off.

To give a concrete example, the main bedroom is set to get to 21C at 7:00am. The optimum start kicks in at 6:20am and the alarm is unset via the app at 6:30am. The result is that the bedroom heating goes off until 7:00am. This only applies to a zone where the optimum start has already been triggered as it’s only at the moment of un-setting that the normal schedule is applied to the system.

Regarding the partial implementation, the app lets you trigger quick actions if the security system is either partially or fully armed. That’s great, but, assuming I set that up and use the keypad to arm the system, that doesn’t have any effect on the heating whatsoever. Hardly living up to the “Total Connect” moniker I’d suggest.

[bruce_miranda]

I noticed something very similar this morning, which might explain what's happening. The controller doesn't appear to be sending the Optimisation data back to the TC servers. So during an optimisation cycle (both on or off) the controller is able to display the appropriate Optimisation icon, but the app is none-the-wiser. It just displays what the controller has sent as the room temperature and set-point. As a result if during an optimisation cycle you were to trigger a Quick setting from any web connected method, it would stop the optimisation. So my suspicion is that the Honeywell security and heating aren't directly talking to each other, they communicate via the TC servers.

[peterf]

You may well be right, and if I selected a quick action on the controller, I'd expect it to override Optimisation.

However, I don't have any connected rules set in the app at all. To my mind it's just a programming bug that's saying to the Evohome "set the schedule to normal" whenever the app un-sets the alarm when it should first query whether any connected rules exist, and if they don't, then do nothing.

I certainly don't think that the two system talk directly to each other, but the fact that they don't, and have to go via the TC servers makes the partial implementation whereby arming via the app vs arming via the keypad don't have the same effect (if I had rules switched on) somewhat galling.