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

[JamboV6]

1) support for more zones without needing a 2nd controller. I have 14 rads in my house and it's just a medium size 4 bed house.

2) fully customisable CUSTOM quick action and not just setting a choice of rooms and 1 temp and time for all. DAY OFF isn't of use because of the way the house is empty or not due to shift work.
Custom or day off should be effectively an 8th day that can be fully scheduled like any normal day (each room, time and temp) but selectable from quick action.

3) If I ask alexa to increase a room temp it should increase from the current actual temp and not the scheduled temp. It's obviously set too cold and that's why I want to increase it.

[DBMandrake]

1) support for more zones without needing a 2nd controller. I have 14 rads in my house and it's just a medium size 4 bed house.

14 radiators, but how many rooms ? There is no limit on the number of HR92's you can have, only the number of zones. So if you have 12 or less rooms but 14 radiators, that's not a problem because you can have multiple radiator controllers per zone that work in tandem.

3) If I ask alexa to increase a room temp it should increase from the current actual temp and not the scheduled temp. It's obviously set too cold and that's why I want to increase it.

I can't agree with your logic here.

Say your set point is 20 degrees but the radiator hasn't been on for long so that the room has only reached 18 degrees so far and is still warming. Under your scheme if you said "increase the temperature" it would actually reduce it from a set point of 20 (the current target) to 19. (one degree above the current measured temperature)

That doesn't make sense to me at all. An increase should definitely always be relative to the current set point, since you're saying you want it to be hotter than the current target. If the room hasn't yet reached the target then you just need to wait a bit longer, and in that case increasing the set point wouldn't speed that process up anyway.

If it can't reach the set point in a reasonable time (or at all) due to lack of heat output from the radiator, door left open etc, then asking the set point to be increased also wouldn't help anyway.

[dty]

...in that case increasing the set point wouldn't speed that process up anyway.

That's not strictly true. As you know, the demand ramps down as the actual temperature approaches the set point in order to avoid an overshoot. If you increase the set point (especially if you increase it beyond 1.5C above actual temperature) then the valve will open wider, the boiler output will increase and the room will heat faster.

I have one room that heats incredibly slowly for various reasons. Like 3-4 hours to add 2C. But Evohome hasn't learned this (or is at the limit of its learned parameter range), so starts ramping down the power waaaaaay too early. To counter this, I often will set that room to 25C, and drop it back to 21C once the temperature is nearly 21C.

[dty]

Here's an example of the room in question. It's my study. I was working from home this day.

You can see at 8:15, I increased the set point from 19C to 21C. The demand increased almost immediately and the temperatures reported by the TRVs started to climb. However, it wasn't until around 12:30 (4 hours later) that the temperature reported by the remote thermostat was almost at 21C. Despite that, the demand started to throttle back after an hour.

Screenshot 2018-11-23 at 12.14.07.jpg

[JamboV6]

14 radiators, but how many rooms ? There is no limit on the number of HR92's you can have, only the number of zones. So if you have 12 or less rooms but 14 radiators, that's not a problem because you can have multiple radiator controllers per zone that work in tandem.

Yes i already have 2 rads bridged for one zone but due to the layout of that room and the environment differences from one end to the other, individual control would be a benefit. The last rad is uncontrolled in the utility and is throttled back slightly.

I can't agree with your logic here.

Say your set point is 20 degrees but the radiator hasn't been on for long so that the room has only reached 18 degrees so far and is still warming. Under your scheme if you said "increase the temperature" it would actually reduce it from a set point of 20 (the current target) to 19. (one degree above the current measured temperature)

That doesn't make sense to me at all. An increase should definitely always be relative to the current set point, since you're saying you want it to be hotter than the current target. If the room hasn't yet reached the target then you just need to wait a bit longer, and in that case increasing the set point wouldn't speed that process up anyway.

Considering you commented on my original post regarding this I'm surprised by your comment. I will elaborate for people who did not read my original query regarding this. The set point of a room is 18c, alexa states that the current room temp is 20c, but i dont feel that the room is warm enough for my liking so i ask her to make the room warmer, but instead of increasing the set point to above the 20c that isn't warm enough she only increases the set point to 19c still under the current actual temp.

Here is the original post
https://www.automatedhome.co.uk/vbul...control-issues

[dty]

Yes i already have 2 rads bridged for one zone but due to the layout of that room and the environment differences from one end to the other, individual control would be a benefit.

Have you tried setting the zone to a "multi room zone". This enables the HR92s to act independently, although it does mean you can't use a remote thermostat because each HR92 needs its own local idea of the temperature in order to act independently.

[Behold81]

Support for a Thermal Store rather than DWH Cylinder. More houses are using multiple heat sources with green actions in mind. this means the heating and water could be served from one tank. The control of this depending on the demands should turn on/off the relevant boilers at the right time.

[HenGus]

Bearing in mind just how long this thread has been going, I have to wonder whether Honeywell has anything up its sleeve in the way of an updated heating control system that has downwards compatibility and market-leading enhancements? If I recall, people were asking for a WiFi extender over 4 years ago to reduce comms issues: nothing has ever appeared. It is now 4 months since I moved home and I left my 4 year old Evohome behind: apart from the control convenience that Evohome offers, I cannot really say that I am missing it. My stats show that even on a frosty day in Shropshire my 7am to 9.30pm heating cost (at 21C) is c.£2. Any smart heating control is unlikely to have a RoI, and £1000 is a lot to pay for control/convenience.

[Behold81]

That might be true in some areas but for me I live in the country in a small microclimate and last year I managed to hi -14 degrees on the coldest day. I have to heat my house by fire(back Boiler) or electric boiler. While the back boiler is great and free/cheap energy. over night even a well stacked fire is not much use. or during the day while I am at work. so using electric to heat the house is needed. the more rooms I keep warm the more expensive it would be and full control of that room to room could save me up to £5 a day in heating. payback is quite easy at even half that in 1 year.

[HenGus]

That might be true in some areas but for me I live in the country in a small microclimate and last year I managed to hi -14 degrees on the coldest day. I have to heat my house by fire(back Boiler) or electric boiler. While the back boiler is great and free/cheap energy. over night even a well stacked fire is not much use. or during the day while I am at work. so using electric to heat the house is needed. the more rooms I keep warm the more expensive it would be and full control of that room to room could save me up to £5 a day in heating. payback is quite easy at even half that in 1 year.

If you have costs/savings of that magnitude then I would respectfully suggest that you have other 'problems' that smart heating controls alone will not address. For Mr and Mrs Average, the savings from Evohome are not that great. (ErP claims 8% and BRE conservatively states that zoning might save 1 to 2%. The problem being is that there are almost no definitive scientific studies into the benefits of smart heating controls).

Looking back at the daily stats that I kept, I saved more by adding a new condensing boiler to an existing Evohome system, than I did by adding Evohome to an existing system with a 12 year old non-condensing boiler some 3 years earlier. Evohome is a great and a generally reliable - but somewhat dated - product. That is just my opinion based on 4 years of use - through 2 controller iterations - and a couple of firmware updates.