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

[DBMandrake]

I am always bemused by the prevalent attitude towards "smart" heating controls among installers and the general population along the lines of "if it doesn't save me money on my gas bill what's the point ?"

As if saving money were the only reason you might want to improve your heating system. Hence when a study comes along and says TPI or zoning "only saves x few percent" everyone concludes it isn't worth it. (Certainly not in return on investment terms)

For me Evohome was never about saving money, it was always about better, smoother, more accurate regulation of temperature in rooms, (I hate constantly having to manually tweak TRV's because the room is too hot then too cold, then too hot etc) fully independent control of rooms, (I like being able to turn on a bedroom at night without the hallway blasting downstairs etc) being able to schedule different rooms independently, and remote control of heating when away from home.

If there is any gas savings, great, but that is a bonus not what I bought the system for. There is no way that the small savings that might be offered from zoning or TPI would pay back the cost of the hardware, unless you kept the system for an unreasonably long time, until it is well past its use by date and no longer supported.

[G4RHL]

I agree. I never went the Evohome route to save money. It has though. Talking of saving money British Gas called not so long back and tried to persuade me that changing my boiler, as it is 20+ years old, would save me. The man was not happy when I explained that if I changed it would cost me more money for with BG’s prices, and not a wonderful lifespan for the boiler they would install, I would need to replace again before I had recovered the capital cost never mind the costs of suppprting their guarantee. Almost as bad as those idiots who tell you installing a smart meter saves money. With Evohome the chances are I am recovering the capital cost in a reasonable time but that was never ever the motivation.

[HenGus]

I agree. I never went the Evohome route to save money. It has though. Talking of saving money British Gas called not so long back and tried to persuade me that changing my boiler, as it is 20+ years old, would save me. The man was not happy when I explained that if I changed it would cost me more money for with BG’s prices, and not a wonderful lifespan for the boiler they would install, I would need to replace again before I had recovered the capital cost never mind the costs of suppprting their guarantee. Almost as bad as those idiots who tell you installing a smart meter saves money. With Evohome the chances are I am recovering the capital cost in a reasonable time but that was never ever the motivation.

Sadly, people do believe the extraordinary savings claims made on various manufacturers' websites.

[DBMandrake]

You'd get more savings on monthly running costs from going from an old non-condensing boiler to a modern condensing boiler.

However an ROI analysis would probably show that as a net cost rather than saving too, due to the cost of replacing the boiler and the likelihood that the new model won't last as long as the old one it replaced. Under 10 years before a major not-worth-repairing failure occurs seems to be the norm for a modern boiler. A mate just had his one fail catastrophically at 8 years old and had to replace it, our old clunker is now 25 years old and has had only one £25 repair by me (new gas control electrovalve coil sleeve, as the old one went open circuit) in the 3 1/2 years we've been at the house. Took me all of about 15 minutes to diagnose and repair it once I'd ordered in the replacement part, which surprisingly, was still available.

I dread the day that we finally have to replace it with a more modern but short life span boiler. I'm trying to postpone getting onto that replacement treadmill...

[MrBoy]

- I would love the restriction on zones was lifted or raised. I have 12 zones in a 4 bed house because we have 4 reception rooms, an office room, loft conversion plus bathroom and kitchen. It's a big house but if we were in the US it would be quite normal. We already cannot put our utility room or hallways into zones, have shared bedroom+ensuite into a MRZ. Plus we have a cellar we are converting... I could see 16 zones being a point you need a special system but not 12. Heck, I'd have paid extra to unlock it on the controller!

- Being able to set "favourite temperatures" and use these in schedules. e.g. if we set our whole house up that we like 19 in rooms we are using and 14 in those we're not, then decide 20 is better, we have to redo everything. OK we can copy between days but just being able to have control points refer to "WARM_TEMP" and then change "WARM_TEMP" would be neat.

- A lot of the stuff people have been doing with the API could be provided by Honeywell. I'm surprised they haven't been following what people do to decide what to implement.

- Being able to set an override in advance. "I'll watch a move in 2 hours" or such. Again, you can probably do this via IFTTT but if you have all these services hooked up you can end up in a right mess

[JamboV6]

Is this thread actually going anywhere? It is nearly 4 yrs old and what has actually changed. There was a firmware update late last year that implemented a few UI changes and bug fixes bug. We are now at 34 pages of suggestions and requests for improvements. I think it's time honeywell actually give some feedback as to where then plan on going with this system and stop playing the "we want to make sure it's right first" card. Atleast collate the suggestions and tick off what isn't possible. This is a high end expensive system. Honeywell state they want to stay ahead but seem to not be willing to do anything to keep the system at the top. There are still basic user control issues that are not being addressed so what hope do we have of geofencing and other such advanced automation.

[MrBoy]

This fear is one of the reasons I researched a lot before buying, and have been so interested in hacking the controller without having to go through their server... in case they turn it off or deprecate it or just make it terrible.

Off-topic but just sayin;

[Behold81]

you are right I have a house made like a sieve! I have old Victorian floor boards with gaps bigger than…never mind... All stat upon a 4.5ft voided pier foundation that lets air in all over the place. Add to that that none of my windows seal properly and I now run a Positive pressure unit to combat the condensation issues that causes.

Electric heating will always cost. if I run my underfloor heating it costs me about £3 a day just for that. add in a electric boiler running for the day to keep a store warm will also add to that cost. I heat as much by wood as possible as its freely available to me. the Honeywell or similar will use my Thermal store more efficiently if I can get it setup (still working this out if its possible) and mean it needs heating less if its running less rooms to heat. less demand on the store means if the fire is not running then hopefully my electric boiler is not running unless absolutely needed. This is great for mornings or coming home from work. on evenings and weekends I run the fire to keep it topped and I should save all my bills hugely.

I would say I will save more than the average.

[Behold81]

This is true too. I have smart home automation throughout. so part of it is the inner geek! I love something techy! but having the fire on in the front room I don't always need the rad on as the room is double heated. and I only need to heat the shower room every morning. and I don't need my bedroom too hot as my bed is heated anyway. complete control makes the most sense. But Savings are in the mix for me as I know I can save a lot.

[MrBoy]

I track my energy usage and have now had the Evo long enough to compare before/after compared to a year ago (weather conditions play a part of course). I have NOT really seen savings BUT before our house was always cold because we only put the heating on as last resort. Now, my office is warm, the living room is warm when we need it etc... so our usage is about the same but we are much more comfortable.