Evohome for new installations?

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  • G4RHL
    Automated Home Legend
    • Jan 2015
    • 1580

    #16
    Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
    But iOS has less than a third of Android's market share, so it would be a lot of work for a minority audience.
    Yes, I tend to forget that with my considerable bias for Apple products. Born many years ago because of a reliability that I was not seeing with other gear. But if Evohome Shop is right then perhaps expectations can be better!

    Comment

    • Rameses
      Industry Expert
      • Nov 2014
      • 446

      #17
      Originally posted by G4RHL View Post
      Yes, I tend to forget that with my considerable bias for Apple products. Born many years ago because of a reliability that I was not seeing with other gear. But if Evohome Shop is right then perhaps expectations can be better!
      Chip is not required - but spec's have yet to be released. If its possible and feasible to do so then HK support will come
      getconnected.honeywell.com | I work for Honeywell. Any posts I make are purely to help if I can. Any personal views expressed are my own

      Comment

      • Rameses
        Industry Expert
        • Nov 2014
        • 446

        #18
        Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post
        Whatever is in development doesn't count until it is released.

        I've had Evohome Wifi for nearly 2 years now, in that time we've had two, yes two firmware updates for the controller, only one of which introduced tangible user facing feature changes - displaying HR92 local override on the controller, and a button to clear the fault log book without rebooting the controller, both relatively minor features which to be honest should have been there from day one.

        The second update added support for another EU language as the only disclosed feature, and no doubt both updates incorporated some undisclosed bug fixes, but since they're undocumented, we don't know what they might be...

        Since the Wifi model was released with the promise of future over the air software update support and some people replaced their older non-wifi model specifically due to that promise of over the air updates (I didn't, the wifi model was my first evohome product) that's a little disappointing to say the least.

        Meanwhile other systems like Tado V3 (which a work colleague has, and has shown me) has received more software updates both to the hardware and iPhone app in the last couple of months than Evohome has had in the last 2 years, and to be honest I'm a little envious of some of the features, especially of the iPhone app.

        Am I happy with my Evohome as it currently stands ? For the most part yes. It does what it says on the tin, and at the time I bought it it was arguably the best system available.

        Am I disappointed that more effort hasn't been made to think outside of the box (such as radical UI redesigns and feature set improvements) and to show a real commitment to push the platform forward and keep ahead of the competition ? Yes.

        Would I buy Evohome if I was buying a new house today and decided to leave my existing system with the old house and start over ? I'm not sure. I think I would definitely check out the competition first before making any decision. Things have changed in the market in the last two years and Evohome is no longer the only horse in the race.
        I feel I need to chip in.

        Not sure this is entirely fair.
        Since release there has been

        - a number of firmware updates, many of which would have given 'invisible' benefits, like hardware & security hardening etc
        - we have changed the UI on the app and refined it based on feedback (not necessarily from those so vocal in this forum)
        - We have added, (and been asked by) significant vendor partnerships, such as Amazon, Google, IFTTT making this part of a wider connected home play should a customer choose. With others planned (Stringify, HK if the specs match)
        - We encouraged other community projects, (windows app, left the API open etc)
        - This is a heating system, not a mobile phone. We only make changes that we are sure of and does not compromise our approach to bringing trusted, easy to use and crafted solutions to your home heating. We never take for granted it is an important investment and we never promise to be first in bringing the whizziest thing. You would be surprised how many customers just set it up and leave it alone - and never scratch the surface of the functionality it has (like being controlled by an app)
        - Future updates are planned (I have visibility of 3 revisions) - Demand per zone is one of them (electric zone support, another custom action, display outdoor temp to name a few). But they have to go through rigorous testing (see above) and we will never knowingly break anything that 'works' to bring these any quicker than already planned. Additionally when we bring them we have to think about the wider audience. Our system is used by a very very very wide range of technically competent people not all of the same level as those in this forum. So how we represent demand for instance needs a lot of care and thought. And I confidently predict we will not keep everyone happy - but we will continue to try.
        - Ref feature updates - I can say we are aiming for this heating season for many of the above.

        So Jabes - obviously read what you will, many issues you read about, when you dig into them have a cause not related to evohome. Our competitors suffer the same, so Honeywell does not have a monopoly on this. Only way to get an unbiased view is to get two biased views. So read on, speak to people and more importantly do what you set out to do, and comfortably, reliably and affordably heat your home for you and your family, regardless of what you end up with. Good luck.
        getconnected.honeywell.com | I work for Honeywell. Any posts I make are purely to help if I can. Any personal views expressed are my own

        Comment

        • DBMandrake
          Automated Home Legend
          • Sep 2014
          • 2361

          #19
          Originally posted by Rameses View Post
          I feel I need to chip in.

          Not sure this is entirely fair.
          Since release there has been

          - a number of firmware updates, many of which would have given 'invisible' benefits, like hardware & security hardening etc
          - we have changed the UI on the app and refined it based on feedback (not necessarily from those so vocal in this forum)
          When I said there had only been two firmware updates in the last 2 years I was referring to the main Evotouch controller, and as far as I know this is correct. I've kept track of the version on mine and also kept track of the discussions here about the firmware updates that have been made available, so I stand behind my comment that only two firmware updates have been made publicly available for the controller, and while I'm sure there were bug fixes in both updates the user visible changes are relatively few, the main ones being the local override display and fault logbook clearing button - nice, but neither earth shattering after 2 years.

          There have been multiple updates made to the iPhone app in that time yes, once to add support for adjusting schedules, a cosmetic redesign, addition of support for the security products and so on, so yes, the iPhone app has evolved more in the same time than the controller interface.

          - We have added, (and been asked by) significant vendor partnerships, such as Amazon, Google, IFTTT making this part of a wider connected home play should a customer choose. With others planned (Stringify, HK if the specs match)
          - We encouraged other community projects, (windows app, left the API open etc)
          This is all good - The API itself is pretty decent and hooks into a good range of external services. I've tested it with an Echo, IFTTT, Conrad Connect, to name a few, as well as using it with Domoticz and the Evohome Munin plugin. No real complaints there, apart from a few useful looking fields like zone heat demand currently existing in the API but not being populated with data.
          - This is a heating system, not a mobile phone. We only make changes that we are sure of and does not compromise our approach to bringing trusted, easy to use and crafted solutions to your home heating. We never take for granted it is an important investment and we never promise to be first in bringing the whizziest thing. You would be surprised how many customers just set it up and leave it alone - and never scratch the surface of the functionality it has (like being controlled by an app)
          I think you've summed up the disconnect between Honeywell and user expectations in a nutshell. It's pretty obvious that Honeywell is an "old school" company who is ultra-conservative in what they do, and I think it's obvious looking at the history of the Evohome products that they were designed as "what you see is what you get" with no real expectation of any major changes to a device from the time you bought it until the time you eventually replaced it with a newer flashier model.

          This is no surprise as 10-15 years ago this is how all electronic "appliances" were - they didn't get updates, they just were what they were. (Anyone remember the early TV set top box web browsers in the late 90's ? Good luck updating the browser in one of those... )

          Up until the Wifi model there was no officially supported method of updating the firmware on the controller - the firmware version you got when you bought it is what you were stuck with. If you wanted a new version, for example to support the RFG100, which very early versions didn't, you bought a newer controller with the required firmware.

          The problem with this is that the expectation of customers has changed in the intervening 15 years. No it's not a smartphone, but smartphones have lead the charge of embedded devices that get major software updates that not only fix bugs and security issues, but add whole new areas of functionality, redesign the user interface, re-imagine the whole product to some degree, within the limitations of the hardware. Just look at the progress of iOS in the last 10 years for an example, as someone who has used iOS since version 1.01 the change has been phenomenal.

          This is the world we live in today and in that world two pretty minor firmware updates that aren't much more than bug fixes in 2 years just doesn't cut it - in my opinion of course. And I have looked a bit at the competition to see what they are doing, and some of them are more agile as they come at this from a completely different angle than Honeywell and have very different DNA.

          I'm not suggesting new features with reckless abandon and lack of testing, but there has to be some middle ground where even once a year significant new functionality is added that makes a customer think "wow, that's pretty neat that I can do that now" or "that's so much more convenient than the old way of doing that", a couple of possible examples being improvements to the quick actions (which are a bit limited) and making it quicker and easier to do multiple manual overrides, which is painfully cumbersome now. (Want to turn down 7 of your 10 zones to 5 degrees and leave the rest on ? Forget it, too time consuming - quicker to run around the rooms and turn the dials on the HR92's than use the controller touch interface or iPhone app as neither of them has any "apply change to multiple zones" functionality)

          - Future updates are planned (I have visibility of 3 revisions) - Demand per zone is one of them (electric zone support, another custom action, display outdoor temp to name a few). But they have to go through rigorous testing (see above) and we will never knowingly break anything that 'works' to bring these any quicker than already planned. Additionally when we bring them we have to think about the wider audience. Our system is used by a very very very wide range of technically competent people not all of the same level as those in this forum. So how we represent demand for instance needs a lot of care and thought. And I confidently predict we will not keep everyone happy - but we will continue to try.
          - Ref feature updates - I can say we are aiming for this heating season for many of the above.
          Demand per zone, electric zone support, improved custom actions and outdoor temperature display will all be welcomed with open arms I'm sure, especially the first two, so if some of these really are happening this winter that is great news indeed.

          I don't want to sound like I don't like the system - I do, it works well for me and 2 years ago when I started buying it it was the best system available for a small 10 radiator home at any price if you wanted zoning, remote control, and good temperature regulation accuracy.

          I'm just a little frustrated that progress of firmware updates for the controller itself does seem glacially slow in a world where that is not the norm, and faster moving competitors are nipping at Evohome's heels. I see a lot of untapped potential both in terms of functionality and usability that could all be solved with a software update on the existing hardware platform. I think if Honeywell was a little more aggressive at rolling out improvements I wouldn't feel this way.
          Last edited by DBMandrake; 31 August 2017, 12:49 PM.

          Comment

          • Jabes
            Automated Home Sr Member
            • Aug 2017
            • 68

            #20
            Thanks guys for your comments. I'm moving into a new home in January which is much larger than our current property, and will definitely benefit from zonal temperature control. There are four en-suite bathrooms all with underfloor heating.

            So I'm going to be in the market for a system which measures and sets temperature per zone (with radiator TRVs), supports electric underfloor heating (if possible), and certainly nice to have - know when you're coming home (like Tado), or learns your room usage patterns (like Heat Genius).

            There is a lot of attracting in a system which is well established and will be supported for a long time (like evohome) - but I am probably more towards the 'cutting edge' and have other 'home automation' products like Hue, Sonos, Alexa, etc.

            So I'm a bit torn on where to go - no need to make a decision until the new year but ideally move quite quickly after then as want to optimise my energy costs!

            Comment

            • The EVOHOME Shop
              Site Sponsor
              • Dec 2014
              • 483

              #21
              Do you see Tado, Heat Genius or any of the other manufacturers on these forums?

              Honeywell have a rock solid offering and amazing support from not only ourselves as a reseller, but the Honeywell technical support team that is both on the end of the phone and also men on the ground. When things go wrong, things get sorted.

              Managing customers expectations is difficult, but one thing I do know is that the fundamental principles of heating design does not change. Its nice to have flashy new items, but when your home isn't controlled properly the first people to complain would be you guys.

              I my eyes Honeywell need to keep focusing on heating the home correctly, efficiently and cost effectively first and flashy things second. New rival product offerings will come and go. I have been in the market long enough to say that if they don't have their bases covered, they will quickly fail.

              Comment

              • top brake
                Automated Home Legend
                • Feb 2015
                • 837

                #22
                The other thing to bear in mind is the the more features and adaptability that is baked into evohome the more it may appear too complicated to setup and use for the vast majority of customers.
                As has already been explained many customers simply install and program; then ignore it to do its primary functions.
                Not many customers have the mindspace for continual interaction or setting up demand based applets like ifttt.

                After all it is essentially a programmable thermostat - designed to be configured and run autonomously.
                I work for Resideo, posts are personal and my own views.

                Comment

                • mylesm
                  Automated Home Guru
                  • Nov 2015
                  • 153

                  #23
                  I agree with Top Braked and Evohome Shop I would say the vast majority of people here are very motivated to get their Heating working to a precise Temp etc but in reality the Vast Majority of other users just want it to work and be easy to use
                  The major Advantage of Evohome to me is the ease of multizoning and its success lies it it being a Heating Controller I would think most users just use it like a Central Heating Timer and leave it alone and it Just Works
                  Problem is some like us like to tinker and mess about etc but to me Evohome set up properly and left to do its thing has no equal for its primary function and I have used a few other systems over the years, but no it wont tell you to order a pizza or the traffic is bad etc etc

                  Comment

                  • DBMandrake
                    Automated Home Legend
                    • Sep 2014
                    • 2361

                    #24
                    Originally posted by mylesm View Post
                    I agree with Top Braked and Evohome Shop I would say the vast majority of people here are very motivated to get their Heating working to a precise Temp etc but in reality the Vast Majority of other users just want it to work and be easy to use
                    Some of the feature improvements that have been suggested or asked for are precisely to make the system easier and more convenient to use. The assumption that improvements inherently make the system more complicated to use and are only for the benefit of nerds is false.

                    Examples include heat demand indicator, (good for both expert troubleshooting and helping non-technical users understand what their system is doing) another example is the suggestion I've made a couple of times that the timed override page needs to be improved so that there is a) a quicker way to select favourite temperatures than tapping up or down arrows 20-30 times, (which I find completely infuriating, and can't be the only one to find this painful) and b) a way to apply the new temperature and override end time to multiple zones at once.

                    Some sort of "advance schedule" feature would be welcome too I think, one of the things you lose when you go from a conventional timer to evohome is the "advance" button which advances your on/off schedule to the next schedule point - which is used to do things like:

                    * Turn the heating off early if you go to bed early
                    * Turn the heating on early if you wake up early
                    * Turn the heating on early if you arrive home early
                    * Turn the heating off early if you leave for work early

                    In all cases the schedule resumes at the next schedule point.

                    These are all things that normal users want to do on a regular basis - on a conventional timer you press a single button. On Evohome you..... cobble together a number of workarounds, none of which are fully satisfactory, typically involving tying up the custom action, (which I use for the "go to bed early turning off downstairs but leave the bedrooms scheduled" action) or you do a lot of manual overriding of individual zones (for example when getting up really early) which thanks to the 30 presses to get from 5 degrees to 20 degrees and only being able to apply one zone override at a time, is exceptionally tedious and time consuming.

                    What do normal non-technical users do when faced with this situation ? They probably just manually turn up their HR92's as its quicker and easier in this situation...if that's true it only helps underline that some interface redesign is needed. The frustrating thing is that quicker overriding of zones and applying to multiple zones could be done with a relatively minor UI change that would be self explanatory to normal users.

                    For the advance feature, because Evohome has a schedule for each zone and it is not just on and off, a basic advance button like a conventional programmer is not possible, however all you need is an advance button which then asks you to select the time to advance the schedule to.

                    So for example say your Saturday morning schedule doesn't start to turn rooms on until 7am and you wake up at 5am and decide you want to stay up. Instead of numerous manual overrides you press "advance schedule", then select 8am, which takes you all of 5 seconds. The schedule now immediately jumps to 8am, so all the zones change set points to what they would normally be at 8am and the house starts to warm up. An icon can be displayed on the home screen to indicate that an advance is active. It remains like this until 8am actually arrives and then the schedule resumes and starts progressing as normal and the advance active icon goes out. So simple it's hard to believe that it isn't already implemented.

                    If your night time schedule turns off downstairs rooms at 11pm and you go to bed at 9:30pm one night, instead of messing around with (and wasting) the custom action, or tediously overriding every individual zone, simply press advance and choose 12:00am as the point to jump to, again about 5 seconds work. In my schedule bedrooms are at their night time set back by 12:00am and downstairs is off. So simple and logical I really wish this feature existed.

                    The only difference between this and the advance button on a manual programmer is that you also need to tell it what time to advance to, but as most people have a pretty good idea of what their heating should be doing at different times of the day this would work just fine and be quite user friendly even for non technical users. "Make your heating do what it normally does at the selected time, until that time" is not a difficult concept to understand.

                    I think the awkwardness of multiple manual overrides and the lack of any sort of schedule advance feature are two glaring omissions in the current UI and could be implemented so easily without any sort of major UI overhaul.

                    These are examples of features that normal users would really appreciate, not just nerds.

                    I hope Honeywell are listening.
                    Last edited by DBMandrake; 3 September 2017, 11:11 AM.

                    Comment

                    • paulockenden
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Apr 2015
                      • 1719

                      #25
                      I've long advocated, in this place and others, that Evohome be given a user interface that can be switched between simple and advanced. Advanced mode could even be accessed via the installer menu, so needing a long press to get there.

                      Comment

                      • DBMandrake
                        Automated Home Legend
                        • Sep 2014
                        • 2361

                        #26
                        Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
                        I've long advocated, in this place and others, that Evohome be given a user interface that can be switched between simple and advanced. Advanced mode could even be accessed via the installer menu, so needing a long press to get there.
                        I agree with the idea of an advanced mode that can be enabled in the installer menu to give additional geeky functionality, however I think there are still quite a number of improvements that can be made to the "easy" version of the interface like those I've highlighted above. Things that everyone will want and that would make the unit easier to use, not more complicated.

                        Comment

                        • sharpener
                          Automated Home Sr Member
                          • Jan 2015
                          • 78

                          #27
                          Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post

                          Some sort of "advance schedule" feature would be welcome too I think, one of the things you lose when you go from a conventional timer to evohome is the "advance" button which advances your on/off schedule to the next schedule point
                          With you all the way on this one DBM.

                          I have a single button I can press to do this. My solution was to keep the original controller in circuit, above the evotouch in the hierarchy. The actual heating zone times on the evotouch are set much wider than needed for every day use, e.g. all zones stay "on" until 0100h, so if it is NYE or there is a special feature on TV one press is sufficient to keep the heating on. Similarly if we go out we can switch the heating off during the day just by moving the slider from ONCE to TWICE, then it will come back on automatically at 1600h. Also it is entirely adequate for managing the HW on the occasions when the solar generation has not been sufficient, which saved a BDR91 and a lot of configuration hassle.

                          The name of this ingenious piece of kit? Honeywell ST799 Electronic Dual Zone Timer(!)

                          BTW I don't see how a forthcoming second custom schedule can be presented as an amazing technical advance, the original b/w controller had three.

                          Comment

                          • Edinburgh2000
                            Automated Home Guru
                            • Dec 2016
                            • 134

                            #28
                            Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post
                            The full blown slider in Domoticz is good for us nerds but more than the average user needs to know. I like the approach Tado took where there is a 3 pronged flame icon ..... which is absent if there is zero heat demand from the zone, or 1, 2 or 3 segments for low, medium and high (full) demand - that's all you really need.
                            I have been thinking about this for a while since DBM suggested the 'three licks of flame' as the icon to show heat demand from a zone. That sounds great and would certainly be very illuminating. However, as I understand it, Evohome remains a binary system for those of us without OpenTherm. BDR91s are either on or off. Thus with the 'licks of flame' you could have, say, three zones showing just one lick, but you would not know which of those zones has triggered its BDR91. A single lick of flame would mean (I think) that that zone would call for heat X minutes out of Y minutes. But you would not know whether it is in the X minutes just from the one lick showing on the display. At the risk of over complicating DBM's excellent suggestion, could I suggest that the licks of flame should change colour when their zone is actually demanding heat (i.e. demanding the BDR91 to be on)?

                            (I realise that I am in a minority of about one on this forum in not having ubiquitous HR92s but rather using separate zone valves, each with its own BDR91. I am therefore keen to see on my controller or app whether each BDR91 is 'on' or 'off', without having to camp in my boiler room to watch the BDR91s' little green lights. However, it is possible I am misunderstanding the aggregation of demand by the controller to the single BDR91 controlling the boiler in the full-HR92 world, and my suggestion above might be inappropriate for that - in which case, apologies.)
                            Last edited by Edinburgh2000; 9 September 2017, 09:41 AM.

                            Comment

                            • Dan_Robinson
                              Automated Home Ninja
                              • Jun 2012
                              • 347

                              #29
                              I read it that the flame licks wold be in the respective tile for the zone.
                              Kind Regards - Dan Robinson (Jennings Heating Ltd)

                              Comment

                              • Edinburgh2000
                                Automated Home Guru
                                • Dec 2016
                                • 134

                                #30
                                Originally posted by Dan_Robinson View Post
                                I read it that the flame licks wold be in the respective tile for the zone.
                                Indeed. But my question is "How would you know if that zone is signalling the BDR91 to be on, right now"?

                                Comment

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