What would you like to see in evohome? (have your say)

[Rameses]

So been off this thread for a while so after 2 ½ years since starting it what are the actual results that have been implemented?

Big thanks to @Rameses for partaking and staying tuned in on this.

When I first got the Evohome system it was state of the art, best thing since sliced bread but I fear it is being caught up with the new boys in town with greater flexibility and more importantly, better home automation integration, particularly in Europe where we don't even get some of the stuff the USA have had for years!

I'm giving Evohome another 6 months to catch up or it is getting replaced with something more advanced or at least, at the same level but more friendly from an integration perspective and with Global baseline products.

When Evohome security came out, I was so disappointed in some of the products - particularly the camera (I mean, 640 x 352 resolution photo only camera in 2017, WTF??) and other limitations that I've pretty much scrapped the idea of using it as an integrated home product. This is affecting my Evohome perception specifically and Honeywell in general.

It would be nice to get back to the top of the game Honeywell, please at least keep the communications coming.

Edited to add:

I would be willing to purchase a new controller if that is what it took to 'upgrade' the system. I can't see that being insurmountable a reason not to bring in new features and functionality and yet still maintain backward compatibility with the valves & relays - it is after just ones and zeroes comms between them and the controller.

Thanks - its not just me - the product team read this forum - so Honeywell does take this feedback on board.
Speaking personally (as I always do as views are my own in all cases) - We (anyone in interested in the smarter connected home) are in a odd quandary. Heating systems are not mobile phones. They are supposed to be integral infrastructure to the home. For every one person that wants the latest gadget there is someone who is content. That said we (all of us) need to innovate and I can honestly say there is a good roadmap, both driving value to existing products and new exciting ones coming. All of this has to be done with the one goal of never losing that trust & performance and delivering what the product is primarily intended to so. We will never knowingly sacrifice performance over being first to adopt, so in this respect other products may deliver what someone else values, which is fine.

The input from this forum does get read and Honeywell will constantly innovate - so I know they 'thank you' for input as they see it as endorsement of the work they are doing (behind the scenes you cannot see)

With ref to evohome security camera. I just wanted to point out, the camera is 640 x 352 (its a wireless motion sensor with camera) , but you have to consider, this is because it is was intended as an easily install-able product. It runs from 2 AA batteries designed to typically last 2 years!!! It is transmitting secure images across a 868Mhz low power spectrum - it pushes the boundaries of current technology with the original goal in mind. Other products can offer faster speeds, greater resolution, at the expense of larger battery blocks or needing to be hard wired. It is designed to show you if really have a burglar or if the cat knocked over the plant pot, providing more information for you to see if there is real cause for alarm. It is not intended to zoom in on the burglars face or show the tattoo detail on their arm. If this feature is needed then another product will be needed.

[mtmcgavock]

Surely the best way would be for the quick action not to interfere with any previous premanently made actions.

Also don't you think it would be a good idea to have a summer mode? I have it with various customers and my own Evohome that in summer when the quick action 'Heating Off' is applied you can't manually override a zone from the app or panel. I have to then set a custom mode which sets all zones to a temperature (For instance 16oc) and then you can override them. If this was built in it would be great.

[Rameses]

I don't quite follow your question. I think the right thing for it to do would be to be consistent with how permanent overrides in heating zones are handled.

Whilst the away quick action temporarily "overrides the override" of a heating zone, when away is cancelled the previously set permanent override is put back in force. (Timed overrides are not) This seems to be reasonable behaviour.

This is not the case with a hot water "permanent" override where it will be cancelled by toggling away. None of the other quick actions being toggled cancels a permanent hot water override either.

I think its reasonable to expect that if I explicitly go into hot water, set it to OFF (or ON for that matter) and choose permanent override, (not timed override) that it will remain this way until I explicitly cancel the permanent override. It's reasonable for away to temporarily override the override to OFF (if the permanent override choice had been ON) however when away is cancelled the permanent override should go back to what it was like the heating ones do.

Got it Thanks

[DBMandrake]

Surely the best way would be for the quick action not to interfere with any previous premanently made actions.

Yes and no.

Currently with heating zones if you set a permanent override for a zone to say 10 degrees, it will suspend the normal schedule for that zone and keep it at 10 degrees, but only when the heating is "on". If you use the heating off action the permanent override is temporarily overridden itself (to your heating off temperature, default 5 degrees) but when you cancel heating off it goes back to the previous permanent override and the schedule is still suspended for the zone - this seems like the right way for it to behave to me. Which is why I was surprised to find that the hot water zone doesn't behave the same way.

Also don't you think it would be a good idea to have a summer mode? I have it with various customers and my own Evohome that in summer when the quick action 'Heating Off' is applied you can't manually override a zone from the app or panel. I have to then set a custom mode which sets all zones to a temperature (For instance 16oc) and then you can override them. If this was built in it would be great.

Yes, I find this quite annoying too.

During the summer I sometimes use the Heating off action for days at a time to allow hot water to remain on schedule but no heating - not because it would get too hot if I left my normal schedule active (which it doesn't) but because early in the morning the heating would still come on for a short time to warm the rooms up to their set points even though the sun will do that for me a bit later in the day. Leaving it off means I get the best use of free solar heating...

But then you have the issue of what to do if you want to turn only one radiator on - for us it is typically the bathroom (as we still like to turn a bathroom radiator on with a towel over it for showers even in summer, also to help dry out the room afterwards) or some clothes on a radiator that need speedy drying, typically the large radiator in the hallway.

The control panel doesn't allow you to set an override in heating off mode so you have to engage some other mode - but what ? You could configure the custom mode to have all zones set to 5 degrees all day long from which you could then turn up a single zone, but that occupies the custom action and we already use that for something else. (Most than one, user nameable custom mode might help here)

Or you use Eco and then turn up one zone, (Leaving other zones "on" but a few degrees below normal, although rooms already at 17 or below won't drop) or you just turn the heating on normally then manually turn down every zone but the one you want which is a complete pain in the backside if you have many zones, since its up to 20 or so button presses per zone to do this, and nobody except a nerd like me would even have the patience to do this.

One final "unsupported" method is that you just turn up the zone directly on the HR92 - even though the control panel is in heating off mode a manually turned up HR92 can still call for heat. Although I have done this a few times when I have been feeling lazy I try to avoid it because:

1) The control panel doesn't show the change in set point in Heating Off mode, (it still just says off) so you can't tell from looking at the panel that something is turned up and its really easy to forget that you turned that bathroom radiator up to 22 for a shower and then forgot about it...... 6 hours ago....

2) The schedule is not running in Heating off mode, so there will be no automatic set point changes that will cancel your override if you forget to - in effect your manual override is a permanent one. If it happened to be in something like a spare room it could be days before you discovered it was turned up, unless you noticed the unusual boiler activity.

3) You can't use this method if local overrides are disabled for the zone, so it's not a general solution.

Something needs to be done to improve the ability to turn up just one or two zones from an initial heating off state without bringing the whole house on or having to manually and laboriously turn down every other zone, but there are many different possible approaches to solving the problem both in terms of system behaviour and UI presentation...

[Kevin]

Is official SmartThings integration ever going to happen ? There's a lot of indirect finger pointing being made that it's not ST that are holding this up . It's 2 years 'late' now.

[Kevin]

Is it supported to add a HR92 in a zone that actually doesn't generate a heat demand to the boiler ? Thus creating a zone that will heat if other zones are calling for heat but not otherwise, a sort of keep me warm but don't bring the heating on just for me zone.

[fergie]

Just fit a standard TRV?

[DBMandrake]

Or just use an unbound HR92, which will work like a digital version of a manual TRV.

No calling for heat but no schedule either, you can manually set it to a certain temperature and it will stay set to that, attempting to regulate its radiator but not being able to call for heat.

[Kevin]

It's an area that I do vary the temperature in on a schedule and also want to have temp reporting from so I wanted to keep a bound HR92, but somehow uncouple the request for heat as it is almost permanently on (a sort of public access foyer area with frequently opening door to outside). I doubt many people want to do this so not a problem.

There was an earlier post about future support for using a secondary heating system (electric underfloor) that was there to avoid generating a demand on the boiler, maybe that might offer a workaround.

[DBMandrake]

It's an area that I do vary the temperature in on a schedule and also want to have temp reporting from so I wanted to keep a bound HR92, but somehow uncouple the request for heat as it is almost permanently on (a sort of public access foyer area with frequently opening door to outside). I doubt many people want to do this so not a problem.

As far as I know, there is no way to do what you ask.