Evohome App

[G4RHL]

Having said that, I agree that the app is by far the weakest part of the Evohome system.

I was recently reminded of how poor the app is, and the customisation of the Control Panel, when away from home. I have a conservatory with an HR92 on the radiator and normally leave this scheduled to be at 5c. The only Quick Action menu item I can use when going away is the all off one, unless I reconfigure the custom one. Without thinking I left home setting the away from home menu to 10c. That overrode the conservatory HR92 set to 5c so that the heating came on in the conservatory! It is Winter and temperatures have been around 0c. Fortunately I spotted this in the app a few hours later.

I could set the custom menu to set all zones except the conservatory to 10c and next time probably will, but there ought to be more than one custom menu, the “fixed” quick actions should be more flexible so that zones can be isolated or have different settings and we ought to be able to edit all these in the app as well as using the Panel.

A big nuisance is my domestic water control. Using a quick action still leaves the boiler firing up to heat the hot water when away. All off, as said, leaves my conservatory heating up in the winter. I have to use the app to separately override the hot water system to ensure it is also off.

It is 2017, there ought to be far more flexibility in the Control Panel and the app. I can turn lights on and off remotely at all sorts of times, change their colours, switch individual devices on but whilst Evohome is a great system, Honeywell have given us only some basic control of it. It’s appearance, as I have moaned about before, is also pretty basic. Come on Honeywell, we are domestic users, not industrial users.

[radar2016]

"there ought to be more than one custom menu, the “fixed” quick actions should be more flexible so that zones can be isolated or have different settings and we ought to be able to edit all these in the app as well as using the Panel."

I completely agree with you, the way I have my "Custom" set means that if I switch to "Economy"or "Away" it increases the temperature in almost half the house,
like you I tend to use "Custom " and "0ff". I foresaw the problem there was going to be with hot water so I did not control that with Evohome

There needs to be more "Custom" settings

[DBMandrake]

The two most annoying things for me with the quick actions are:

1) Away and Heating Off modes can't be overridden in individual zones. I kind of understand that for "Heating Off" (even though I still want to override a single zone in that mode - like a bathroom or a single radiator to dry clothes in summer) but it doesn't make any sense that you can't manually override a zone in away mode, as its the perfect mode to turn everything off in one swoop and then manually turn one zone back on - except you can't. Unless you do it at an HR92.

2) Day Off mode needs to be a separate setting to the main quick actions, and not a quick action in itself. When I'm on holiday (like right now over Christmas) and am relying on Day Off mode I can't combine that with Heating off (heating off but hot water still scheduled as if it was Saturday) so I then have to manually schedule hot water on using an individual override. I also can't combine it with Eco mode, and if I use Away or Heating off quick actions I then must remember to change it back to Day off not just normal. (Ok for me, not so obvious for less technical users...)

I also can't use something like a timed away action when we go away for a couple of days this week because once the timed away expires it will go back to normal mode (which is off during the day during the week in our normal schedule anyway) instead of going back to Day Off mode. For this reason Day Off can't be combined with any of the timed quick actions. Another example is using the custom action for a "go to bed early" mode - I can't use that in combination with Day Off either, because after midnight it won't go back to day off mode, just normal mode.

Good examples of just how clunky to use the "simple" quick action system is in real world use. Looks ok on paper but you quickly run into silly limitations in real use.

More than one custom action each with their own affected room selection which can be named would also solve a lot of my problems with the quick action system.

An schedule "advance" quick action (as discussed before) would be extremely useful as well.

[G4RHL]

I have no use for Day Off. They could at least make that another custom menu. You get the feeling that when the Panel controls and app were designed nobody researched how people use their heating systems.

[DBMandrake]

I have no use for Day Off. They could at least make that another custom menu. You get the feeling that when the Panel controls and app were designed nobody researched how people use their heating systems.

Perhaps, but I have to wonder whether the designers responsible for the UI design actually use Evohome day to day in their own house. Because if they did they would very quickly find the exact same inconveniences and limitations that we do, and do something about it.

It's not as if it has physical buttons that can't be moved, or hardwired logic that can't be reprogrammed, it's all software - nothing that people have asked for or shortcomings that have been pointed out can't be fixed in software with a modest rearrangement and refinement of the menus and layouts. (which is long overdue anyway) And yet the same basic UI and quick actions remain for years at a time. Years after Evohome came out there is still no good equivalent to the "advance" button that nearly every simple timer has for example.

[chrisgare]

All good points but, as you say, it's the lack of an 'advance' facility that drives me mad in the winter. I normally set heating to come on at 07:00 but on a frosty day I'd like to turn the schedule on earlier when I make a cup of tea in the morning. I have resorted to changing the clock time last year! Still think Evohome is fab after using it before the actuators became available in April 2014. There is still lots of opportunity to improve things however.

I hope there are no issues with this upgrade as comes so close to the Christmas hols!

[Hoppy]

As I've said in a previous thread, there's options to turn down, off or economise, but I'd also like a quick boost button, like economy but turn everything up 3 degrees for an hour or three. Can be done in custom, but 1) custom only offers days, not hours 2) that's my single custom option used up.. Which is a point in itself, custom should offer hours as well as days 1hr, 2hr, 3hr, ......12hr, 1day, 2day, 3day....etc

Also, I'd like the whole of the 4 zones showing on the screen, without having to scroll a little bit to show the missing bottom little bit, snap to view or something.

[Rameses]

This is a new one on me. I adjusted a temperature on the controller. The app is showing the correct actual temperature but not the adjusted target temperature. The controller is showing both correct temperatures. I have deleted the App etc but the problem persists. That said, I have at least got my local weather information back.

Commands initiated either end take time to populate between end points. Depending on how long you wait to 'check' the change made on your controller then looking at the app could be the above. A change on the controller goes to one Clould API, which in turn speaks to another, then back down to the App. But it actually kind of doesn't - the App looks upwards at the main servers and refreshes from the main data source, The app does this periodically (rather than poll every millisecond) or when the is a need to refresh the screen, ie when moving between layers. You can manually force the screen refresh by clicking the little line menu, which results in side bar pop out to the left. This then has top right a refresh icon.

[chrisgare]

While on the subject of the app and on the PC...

I use all twelve zones and there is now drag option to move the zones around on-screen which is ver annoying as the key zones I want to look at come last! Simple stuff to implement really!

Thanks for below Rameses !

[Rameses]

While on the subject of the app and on the PC...

I use all twelve zones and there is now drag option to move the zones around on-screen which is ver annoying as the key zones I want to look at come last! Simple stuff to implement really!

Settings > comfort system view settings > zone order