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

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  • Don10
    Automated Home Lurker
    • Apr 2017
    • 8

    Does Honeywell take any notice of this thread? Or, conversely does anyone know where Honeywell are going with Evohome? It must be about time for a 'refresh' or abandonment. Range extension / repeaters and setting of max flow temperature for Opentherm would be good. I will need to make a decision on whether to continue with Evohome in the next 6 months or so.

    Comment

    • Rameses
      Industry Expert
      • Nov 2014
      • 446

      Originally posted by Don10 View Post
      Does Honeywell take any notice of this thread? Or, conversely does anyone know where Honeywell are going with Evohome? It must be about time for a 'refresh' or abandonment. Range extension / repeaters and setting of max flow temperature for Opentherm would be good. I will need to make a decision on whether to continue with Evohome in the next 6 months or so.
      They do. All the product teams review the feedback. Honeywell has a good plan to maintain leadership in the Home Comfort markets, but don't reveal plans or products until they are ready. And by ready, we mean worthwhile, not just for the sake of change, along with pushing to ensure it upholds (and exceeds) security and performance expectations.
      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

      • Don10
        Automated Home Lurker
        • Apr 2017
        • 8

        Thank you for responding. The reason I posted the question was a reflection of the total lack of communication by Honeywell either in terms of seeking feedback or indeed informing users of Evohome of changes made to their systems. I noticed a software update had taken place on my two Evohome systems. This featured among other things the appearance of an outside temperature at the top left of the home page on the controller. I looked on the web: no information about software changes full stop. I emailed support and received a non reply. I emailed them again and was favoured with an extract of a change bulletin released apparently in advance of the change - but to whom?
        Why is this so difficult? Do Honeywell think that purchasers of Evohome are not interested?
        Picking up on Ramses points: I can accept that Honeywell wants to reveal concrete changes only when they are ready but non or ineffective communication undermines customer confidence. Also, I take issue with the 'worthwhile' ness of some of the changes introduced particularly the outside temperature display. How many customers clamoured for that, I wonder? It smacks of 'let's put it there because we can' as there is no suggestion that the controller is using the value for anything.

        Here is the bulletin so others can take a view on the change utility. I quite like the new red HW cylinder and I can see the electric zone will be useful for some but I would like my OpenTherm bridge to allow me to set a max flow temperature on my boiler (a Viessmann) effectively and to have some form of range extension so I am less restricted in where I position the controller!

        "A new firmware will be automatically deployed this week to all installed and registered EvoTouch Wifi units.

        This does not apply to the EvoTouch Colour with the RFG100 gateway.

        This enhancements will be noticeable to End Users as they add features to the User Interface and the unit will restart after the firmware is deployed.
        When the unit restarts it will automatically re-acquire the display temperature from all the zone devices, this is a gradual process may take up to 20 minutes to complete fully. There is no need to rebind any of the system devices and the heating system will continue while this process takes place.
        No User or Installer intervention is required.
        If installed devices are offline they will receive the updates when they reconnect.

        Enhancements:

        • The Wifi channels 12 and 13 communication issue was fixed.
        • A Stored hot water boost function was added and the DHW state Icon changed to a cylinder.
        • Support for the HR91 eTRV, this displays the zone name when the HR91 requests it.

        In addition to these existing features we have also added the following enhancements, these improvements will be new to the whole Evo population.
        • An Electric Zone option has been added to the list of zone types, this allows a small electric heating zone to be added to a gas or oil fired system. This zone will not fire the boiler. It is temperature controlled by any of the existing sensors and switched by a BDR91 or HC60.
        • The heat demand each zone is generating has been added to the System Overview in the Installer screens. It is intended to help diagnose system operation and has deliberately not been added to the User views.
        • Customers will be able to see the outdoor temperature on the zone home screen.

        When an update is ready or it's planned to be implemented you will receive an email with a notification."


        Who are the lucky recipients of this communication and how does one join them?

        Comment

        • oxygen
          Automated Home Jr Member
          • Sep 2018
          • 40

          Hello Ramses,

          If it is possible, I feel that having a detailed overview of the devices attached to the various zones would be of huge help to confirm if a "complex" zone is properly configured:
          - How many HR91/HR92 are connected.
          - What is actually the temperature sensor used (internal to a valve or external like DT92)
          - What are the various temperature monitored by the various devices to spot a drift.

          It is quite difficult to ensure when you setup a zone that you did it right, and I'm not always confident that I have the proper device beeing given what responsability.

          That, and having OpenTherm feedback like error management

          Comment

          • basiluk
            Automated Home Sr Member
            • Oct 2008
            • 89

            Rameses - Don raises some good points, and we would all be very interested in your reply - Could you review and post your / Honeywell's thoughts please?

            Comment

            • G4RHL
              Automated Home Legend
              • Jan 2015
              • 1580

              Another route Honeywell could take is what another organisation does. For them I am a Beta Tester. There are quite a number of us around the world. We get the apps (and sometimes product) to test before it is finally released. It must be an economic way to test things before release for geeks like us cannot resist playing around and finding the bugs. I am sure Honeywell could do the same. It will get some sensible feedback from a variety of actual users and at little or no cost.

              Comment

              • olektrolek
                Automated Home Jr Member
                • Oct 2018
                • 20

                Originally posted by G4RHL View Post
                Another route Honeywell could take is what another organisation does. For them I am a Beta Tester. There are quite a number of us around the world. We get the apps (and sometimes product) to test before it is finally released. It must be an economic way to test things before release for geeks like us cannot resist playing around and finding the bugs. I am sure Honeywell could do the same. It will get some sensible feedback from a variety of actual users and at little or no cost.
                that is very good suggestion

                Comment

                • paulockenden
                  Automated Home Legend
                  • Apr 2015
                  • 1719

                  Honeywell does this too. People from these forums have been both hardware and software beta testers.

                  P.

                  Comment

                  • Technomorph
                    Automated Home Lurker
                    • Aug 2017
                    • 6

                    Just want to voice my feature requests. Appreciate that these will be duplicates of others, but hoping this will help the prioritisation of the roadmap.

                    I have a six bed house and use all 12 zones, plus hot water. For me the day to day running of the system has been pretty much bullet proof, so on the whole I'm happy. The latest firmware update contained some valuable/useful additions (HW boost, electric zone option, heat demand tracking), however there are few things which I would like to see which would certainly improve usability, and potentially efficiency.
                    • More than 12 zones on one controller. Appreciate this maybe a hardware constraint.
                    • When more than one HR92 is associated to a zone, be able to set different target temps for each HR92. This would be useful for en suite bathrooms. I think Tado have similar functionality.
                    • Be able to use internal humidity and outside temperature to determine if heating should come on. I appreciate this could be complex, but quite frequently our heating comes on when the target temp has not been reached and the house just doesn't feel cold. This is probably due to the relative humidity of the house. Having control of when the heating comes on according to a combination of outside temp and relative humidity would make the system more efficient for sure. Not sure if the Controller or HR92 currently incorporate humidity sensors.
                    • Public API for integration to other platforms.
                    • Logging. Be able to see when and for how long zones/hot water were actually running. This could be used to fine tune schedules/boiler temp.
                    • Geofencing.


                    TM

                    Comment

                    • DBMandrake
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Sep 2014
                      • 2361

                      Originally posted by Technomorph View Post
                      [*]When more than one HR92 is associated to a zone, be able to set different target temps for each HR92. This would be useful for en suite bathrooms. I think Tado have similar functionality.
                      If you mean having more than one schedule per zone - that doesn't make sense. A zone is a minimum divisible schedule unit. If you really want different temperatures scheduled in different parts of the same zone, make them separate zones. (Of course then you may run into the 12 zone limit, so that leads into your request for more zones)

                      If you mean you want the same schedule for HR92's in a zone but to be able to temporarily override one HR92 in the zone without it affecting other HR92's in the same zone - you can already do this by configuring the zone to be a multi-room zone.

                      In this mode overrides made at the HR92 itself are not propagated back to the controller or to other HR92's in the zone, so they can be individually overridden then will fall back into line with the next scheduled set point change.

                      There are other differences for a multi-room zone though - each HR92 uses it's own internal temperature sensor instead of having a single sensor for the whole zone. It is intended for use when you have a zone spanning multiple rooms such as a "bedrooms" zone so that each room's individual temperature is measured, but you can use this within a single room as well, especially if one end of the room has more heat loss than the other and measuring locally would be an advantage.
                      [*]Public API for integration to other platforms.
                      Already available. There are already API integrations with IFTTT, Amazon Echo, and many other 3rd party services. With a bit of code its even possible to connect to the API yourself to do your own logging or perform any actions that the smart phone app can perform.
                      [*]Logging. Be able to see when and for how long zones/hot water were actually running. This could be used to fine tune schedules/boiler temp.
                      It's a shame that this is not provided by Honeywell at the moment (as it is with Tado for example, which even has temperature history graphs in the smartphone app) but if you are eager it's possible to set up temperature logging yourself.

                      I run both Domoticz and Evohome-munin in parallel to do this.
                      Last edited by DBMandrake; 15 October 2018, 07:05 PM.

                      Comment

                      • g6ejd
                        Automated Home Guru
                        • Oct 2016
                        • 153

                        You could just install another Controller and use one for upstairs and one for downstairs giving 24-zones maximum and the two controllers can run independent schedules. With more zones upstairs, then you can split a room (en-suite) into two zones and achieve what you need. You probably have upper and lower zones already installed, I'd be surprised if not.

                        As we know it cost more to heat a house with high humidity, but the Honeywell kit doesn't do any of that, the differential sensing would be a nice addition giving it has access to a reasonable outside temperature reading. I used to have a Nest and that did both humidity and temperature differential, but it never worked that well, well I never noticed it turning the heat down in response to a climbing external temperature.

                        Overall I am very pleased with my Evohome, I have records that demonstrate it is saving me ~15% per annum based on my 'old' Nest system plus most importantly the house now has a constant temperature in areas where we used to get cold spots. When I walk into our cloak room and it's nice and warm after years of it being freezing it makes me smile with satisfaction, even more so when the hall radiator is off/up to temperature. Zone's are the future

                        Comment

                        • Edinburgh2000
                          Automated Home Guru
                          • Dec 2016
                          • 134

                          Originally posted by g6ejd View Post
                          As we know it [costs] more to heat a house with high humidity, ......
                          That is news to me. Can you explain please or point me in the direction of an explanation somewhere else? Thanks.

                          Comment

                          • g6ejd
                            Automated Home Guru
                            • Oct 2016
                            • 153

                            Its the laws of physics:

                            ‘the specific heat capacity of humid air is greater than dry air and humid air will take more energy to heat by a given amount.’

                            For example one of the advantages of running a dehumidifier is that it reduces your heating costs in winter especially if there is lots of moisture in or entering the home, for example damp washing, showers, etc.

                            We have a dehumidifier and in the instructions it discusses how wet clothes can be dried more quickly and with significant less energy by placing it and the clothing in a smalll room and shutting the door, it then removes the moisture. It’s a Delonghi unit and takes 0.235Whrrs to run.

                            Comment

                            • Edinburgh2000
                              Automated Home Guru
                              • Dec 2016
                              • 134

                              Originally posted by g6ejd View Post
                              Its the laws of physics:

                              ‘the specific heat capacity of humid air is greater than dry air and humid air will take more energy to heat by a given amount.’
                              But that heat has to go somewhere. The heat being put into a house equals the heat lost by it. The heat losses of a house with humid air are surely exactly the same as the heat losses from a house with dry air, through the walls, the roof etc. So even if it takes more energy to increase the temperature of the air up to the setpoint, you get that heat back again as it cools. Having humid air is the same as having a few more bricks in your house (i.e. increasing the heat capacity). So the cost to maintain a house at a steady temperature cannot be dependent on the humidity of the air, over any significant period.

                              (Sorry to be dragging this thread off-topic)

                              Comment

                              • victorp1612
                                Automated Home Jr Member
                                • Jun 2016
                                • 24

                                To echo a request a few pages back : I would like my OpenTherm bridge to allow me to set a max flow temperature on my boiler (a Viessmann) effectively
                                I eventually gave up on this request after getting caught in a ping pong match between Viessmann and Honeywell support teams.

                                Comment

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