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

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  • greyhound1234
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Mar 2015
    • 33

    I'd like to see an easy to access offset setting. So I can adjust the temp of all zones at same time in .5 deg increments as the seasons change. The eco mode at minus 3 is inflexible and 3 deg is difference between way too hot and way too cold.

    Comment

    • paulockenden
      Automated Home Legend
      • Apr 2015
      • 1719

      Originally posted by greyhound1234 View Post
      I'd like to see an easy to access offset setting. So I can adjust the temp of all zones at same time in .5 deg increments as the seasons change. The eco mode at minus 3 is inflexible and 3 deg is difference between way too hot and way too cold.
      You can adjust the Eco mode offset if you go into normal (not installer) settings. Not that much of a palaver to do.

      P.

      Comment

      • Mavis
        Automated Home Ninja
        • Oct 2014
        • 322

        Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
        You can adjust the Eco mode offset if you go into normal (not installer) settings. Not that much of a palaver to do.

        P.
        Thank you, didn't know that. I used the Eco quite a bit in the Spring and will in the Autumn.

        Comment

        • G4RHL
          Automated Home Legend
          • Jan 2015
          • 1580

          Originally posted by greyhound1234 View Post
          I'd like to see an easy to access offset setting. So I can adjust the temp of all zones at same time in .5 deg increments as the seasons change. The eco mode at minus 3 is inflexible and 3 deg is difference between way too hot and way too cold.
          We are all different but am puzzled as to why one would want or need to adjust temperature by 0.5 over the year. I am probably missing something here but is it not easier to have set an optimum comfortable temperature and then leave well alone? My settings work throughout the year and it is only the odd cold night or sudden cold changes that automatically trigger an on. During the daytime the temperature is set to 18C and at night 10c, evenings in some zones are set to 21c, and currently it rarely comes on. Indeed many rooms during the night stay around 18c. I live in the NE of England so not a nice balmy area getting lots of sun!

          Comment

          • davidaj
            Automated Home Jr Member
            • Jan 2015
            • 37

            Originally posted by G4RHL View Post
            We are all different but am puzzled as to why one would want or need to adjust temperature by 0.5 over the year. I am probably missing something here but is it not easier to have set an optimum comfortable temperature and then leave well alone? My settings work throughout the year and it is only the odd cold night or sudden cold changes that automatically trigger an on. During the daytime the temperature is set to 18C and at night 10c, evenings in some zones are set to 21c, and currently it rarely comes on. Indeed many rooms during the night stay around 18c. I live in the NE of England so not a nice balmy area getting lots of sun!
            Temperature is not directly mapped to personal comfort - in winter you want it warmer (less active, relatively colder outside to inside), in summer you want it cooler (more active, relatively warmer outside to inside). I needed to set temp to 23 in winter, but this now feels too warm in summer, so have reduced it to 21, so an eco-mode reducing all temps by 2C is ideal for me.

            Maybe being up north you have yet to experience this phenomenon, or your home is very well insulated and temp does not vary enough to notice. The empirical evidence suggests there is a need for variation in set temp during the year, hence all the requests for this feature.

            It is also interesting that a comfortable temp for you is 18, yet in the south 21-23 seems comfortable, being acclimatised to a generally milder climate. In equatorial countries these temps would be deemed cold, and a comfortable temp is probably mid-twenties for someone living there. Humidity also plays a part.

            Comment

            • G4RHL
              Automated Home Legend
              • Jan 2015
              • 1580

              I would not say comfortable is 18C if one is sitting around. However, during the daytime when moving around it is fine. It is why one zone is set to 21C in the evenings. I have the custom menu to set to override 3 zones bringing them up to 21C should it be needed during the day plus each room is a zone so can adjust when needed. Hence not seeing the need to have a general 0.5C adjustment. I can do that on the iPhone. Others have mentioned it in the forum but once over the novelty of it all and the playing ends it all just works and not a lot of adjustment is needed other an individual zone or zone when occasion demands plus away settings etc. I would prefer it though that we had at least two custom menus and that you could set them for periods shorter than 24 hours. That must be achievable in future upgrades to the app. As for body heat adjustment the locals in Australia think I am mad when I walk around in a T shirt and shorts in their mid winter. Conversely my daughter in law who has just been over here has found it cold even when its 22C. Yes we adapt. Plus the humidity level makes quite a difference to comfort levels.

              Comment

              • greyhound1234
                Automated Home Jr Member
                • Mar 2015
                • 33

                Interesting. I looked but couldn't find a way to adjust the eco mode. Could you specify? This is what I was after. I found adjustments for the other quick actions but not that.

                Yes as others have commented, air temperature and comfort not directly related. Generally in coldest bit of winter I find I need 19.0 in lounge, 18.0 in bedroom.
                In normal autumn-winter it is 0.5 degrees less than this. In the ends of the season 0.5 degrees less again. Radiative temperature more important i.e. temperature of walls; also humidity and air movement as well as air temperature.
                Anyway if I could set the maximum temperatures in the program and tweak the zones with the eco mode by T-0.5, T-1.0 etc during seasons that would be great. Couldn't find it though.
                Plus it would be something simple for the wife to operate and not phone me at work asking how to make it warmer. I could just say 'press the eco mode off button'.

                Comment

                • paulockenden
                  Automated Home Legend
                  • Apr 2015
                  • 1719

                  Sorry greyhound, I could have sworn there was a way to adjust the Eco offset. But you're right. I think I was getting confused with the (totally separate) Eco setting on the DT92E.

                  Apologies.

                  P.

                  Comment

                  • Christo
                    Automated Home Jr Member
                    • Feb 2014
                    • 12

                    Now on my 3rd generation, having started with 4x CMzone units and 18 HR80s, and this keeps getting better. I am sure it has paid for itself many times over, with an annual heating bill in the thousands even with this level of control. Here are a few things for the wish list. More than three, but I hope they are useful.
                    -----------------------------------

                    Slave versions of HR92. Not so much for cost reasons, but so that non-experts intuitively know which can be used to control room heat and which can’t. To an extent this can be done by labelling the master unit, but it would help for it to be plainly obvious.

                    I use multi-rad zones in three ways:
                    1. As designed, with multiple rads in the same room with one master controlling temperature. In this context, the slave could mirror the master.
                    2. With rads spread across multiple areas, eg halls landings etc. All would be controlled together, with no manual over-ride; and
                    3. As with 2, but with eg. one rad able to be over-ridden separately, without needing to affect the others

                    Local over-rides should be displayed on the controller. ...where the zone is consistent through use of slaves. In this case the controller would push the new setpoint to the slaves. But a zone made up of multiple HR92s would just show a flag in the controller that *some* local over-ride has occurred.

                    Both UK and non-UK versions of HR92 available more easily, with a clearer explanation that the only difference is the orientation. Or just change orientation in the settings.

                    Geofencing has major privacy issues. In my opinion they can only be solved by a local app on the mobile device handling the location calculations. In other words, the mobile device knows where Home/Base is, and then transmits back whether it is in or out of the geofence defined on the app. Similarly, the app could have a manual switch to appear to be within the fence when in fact it is somewhere else
                    That way, there is nothing genuinely confidential transmitted out of the mobile device, yet the system has all the information it needs for switching.
                    The point of geofencing is to be able to assign different roles to different people, so that a person’s fence controls whether a room is on “away” or “home” schedules (eg. son is back from uni). Some rooms would be defined as communal to two people (eg marital bedroom), while others would be communal to everyone (eg kitchen).

                    Scheduling is such a tricky area. There are some members of the family who will never even get their heads around how a thermostat works, let alone the scheduling as currently implemented. Yet others understand it and want more control.
                    The solution I can visualise is based around scripting and the calendar. This would mean the guest room could be set to be warm for the weekend in two weeks time. It would mean that the schedule from last year’s school holidays could be copied and pasted to this year.
                    Such a solution would probably have to be web browser / App-based, and should somehow be hidden from normal users. In other words, when such a granular schedule is active, the available overrides should be much simpler, perhaps going back to the basic functionality of the first iteration of the iOS app.

                    Automatic learning is something I really dislike. I want to know what the system is doing, and I don’t want it to be helpful because it will get things badly wrong and either waste energy or make me cold. An alternative would be a learning system that advises changes to the schedule. It could be placed in one room for a week at a time to suggest changes to the routine.

                    Interface consistency is a major problem with young App developers doing complete redesigns. Please be careful to follow the Apple OS model of consistency, compared with Windows. I have junked apps in the past because their “improvements” to the UI made it more bloated and complex, or just different, so if I had to learn a new interface I might as well look at something else. I quite like the controller UI, but I don't like the iOS UI much.

                    Some people have been asking for more information about status and valve positions. While this is useful to some people, you need to be very careful to hide it so it is not confusing to the majority. Perhaps that raw data is something for an advanced section or a web interface.

                    “Off” temperature should be user specified. 15 degrees is not off for me by any stretch. 5 degrees is frost protection, but I find that I get less damp with a lower bound of 10 degrees in rooms that are not used.

                    App access is very slow. I think you can cut out unnecessary staging servers.

                    More and more flexible custom schedules.

                    Granular permissions. Eg. Son can change the schedule on his room but not the others.

                    Number of zones: I could do with a few more, but recognise that I have a bigger installation than most. I would get another controller if global commands were common. Eg. turn HW on from either, switch the whole system to holiday mode from either. I think this may be most easily implemented with existing hardware through the app interface by merging multiple controllers into one layout.

                    Clock: to be kept accurate by internet time server.

                    Battery feedback: No too bothered. I replace the whole lot in one go every year at a cost of 21p a battery. Saves hassle of tracking down flat units one at a time. I have a couple of units that discharge in under a year as I have switched them to full travel. I may try lithium with them.

                    Range extender: This would be good, but I have managed to position the controller quite centrally and don’t have a problem.

                    BDR91: Let’s have a double unit. It’s a real pain to have to position two BDR91s for HW and CH boiler control not too close to the boiler and not too close to each other. It would be less of a hassle if you could bind two relays separately in the same unit without the RF interference of two.

                    Comment

                    • paulockenden
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Apr 2015
                      • 1719

                      One way to do the geofencing (at least at the "am I at home" level) would be for the gateway/wifi controller to have knowledge of the MAC address of your phone(s) via a simple binding process. Them when it can see those devices on the local network it knows that you are home.

                      (or perhaps you've left your phone at home!)

                      P.

                      Comment

                      • Christo
                        Automated Home Jr Member
                        • Feb 2014
                        • 12

                        Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
                        One way to do the geofencing (at least at the "am I at home" level) would be for the gateway/wifi controller to have knowledge of the MAC address of your phone(s) via a simple binding process. Them when it can see those devices on the local network it knows that you are home.

                        (or perhaps you've left your phone at home!)

                        P.
                        This is true, and it also helps with the mobile device power draining issue that comes with using GPS. However houses take time to warm up, and I would imagine most people's fence perimeter would be set at around 20-30 mins driving time. One assumes that a place of work within that zone would be pre-empted by a schedule; but in any case, I guess carve-outs of the geofence are possible.

                        Comment

                        • paulockenden
                          Automated Home Legend
                          • Apr 2015
                          • 1719

                          IFTTT does help, a little bit....

                          Comment

                          • Christo
                            Automated Home Jr Member
                            • Feb 2014
                            • 12

                            Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
                            IFTTT does help, a little bit....
                            I haven't yet played with it, but I understand it is limited to just one device rather than a family of them. Maybe useful as proof of concept for future development. Or just for tinkering.

                            Comment

                            • MichaelD
                              Automated Home Guru
                              • Mar 2006
                              • 167

                              Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
                              One way to do the geofencing (at least at the "am I at home" level) would be for the gateway/wifi controller to have knowledge of the MAC address of your phone(s) via a simple binding process. Them when it can see those devices on the local network it knows that you are home.

                              P.
                              I have this, using Homeseer to check on what is connected, but with around 50 IP addressed devices in the home, pinging everything is not particularly reactive, i.e. it can take minutes before something comes 'online', and phones go offline all the time, even when they are still in the house, so its not reliable enough to do anything serious.

                              Comment

                              • Christo
                                Automated Home Jr Member
                                • Feb 2014
                                • 12

                                The HR92UK thermostat knob goes the wrong way

                                Another point:

                                The HR92UK thermostat knob goes the wrong way. I have just installed my first HR92UK, as well as my first HR92, to go with a load of HR80UK and a few HR80 units which appeared on ebay.

                                The instructions say "By turning the adjustment dial anti-clockwise until OFF is displayed, the valve will be closed permanently." But this is not the case. Some clever clogs has reversed it in the unit design. Probably because we drive on the left hand side of the road, or something.

                                The French translation for the HR92 is the same, but the difference is that it functions as expected.

                                There are two main design points about UK models going the opposite way: (1) they should all behave consistently, and (2) clockwise motion to tun the temperature down is astonishingly bad UI.

                                PLEASE, let's have a common model with software orientation switching. I am sure the only reason you have different models is so that the logo is always the right way up, but that is a terrible reason in product design terms (if not in branding theory). You can fix this either with a reversible logo panel, or by printing the logo on the dial so it rotates.

                                In the latter approach, despite the fact that the logo will almost never be oriented correctly as your branding people would normally want, the fact that it moves makes it more prominent. Conversely, sitting in the same place all the time, the logo becomes all but invisible to a householder.

                                Comment

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