Evohome range issues

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • dty
    Automated Home Ninja
    • Aug 2016
    • 489

    #76
    Did you ever solve this? I'm currently considering evohome for a house of c. 4,000 sq ft with mostly solid block walls and the occasional block and beam first floor.

    Comment

    • Kevin
      Moderator
      • Jan 2004
      • 558

      #77
      I now have a small evoHome test system and as expected I have range issues due to my house construction. Trying HeatGenius too.

      Is there anyone here interested in progressing the evoHome repeater prospect - probably using an HGI80 ?

      Of course if anyone in the know from Honeywell chips in with "Don't bother ... it's not going to work because .... " that would save wasting time too.


      I know Paul is busy at the moment but hopefully he'll be revisiting this in a month or so..
      Last edited by Kevin; 24 August 2016, 12:29 PM.

      Comment

      • dty
        Automated Home Ninja
        • Aug 2016
        • 489

        #78
        An earlier poster said they'd managed to see messages going back and forth using an HGI80. Assuming the protocol is stateless (i.e. the TRVs simply say "hey, my temperature is this", or "hey, I've been manually adjusted to this", and the controller says "hey, TRV, set your temperature to this"), then this *should* be simple. Sure, some devices may end up with duplicate copies of messages, but it would be a pretty stupid radio-based protocol that didn't admit that possibility.

        I'm a professional software engineer. If it were me, I'd start by simply receiving all messages, and then retransmitting them after some delay (say, 1 second) to try and avoid clashes. That said, the HGI80 will already be taking care of the physical level of the protocol, so it should deal with RF clashes automatically.

        You could even be really robust and retransmit a second copy after another delay, if you really wanted to!

        Comment

        • dty
          Automated Home Ninja
          • Aug 2016
          • 489

          #79
          Hmm... If you built this around something like a Raspberry Pi, you could even have multiple units connected to your home network retransmitting each other's traffic. For example, one unit at one end of the house doing what I described above but also sending messages over your home network to one or more other units which also retransmit the messages too. And vica-versa, of course.

          Definitely interesting, but I have no practical means to help at the moment given my lack of evohome. (Waiting for 2 quotes right now.)

          Comment

          • Kevin
            Moderator
            • Jan 2004
            • 558

            #80
            Yes - I am persuing that route using Domoticz software (open source C++) which allows me to see each packet in transition and has some protocol decoding already included. Domoticz includes evoHome devices in it's repertoire.

            I initially intend to brute force echo packets and see what happens - but only for selected problem sensors/actuators. I think it's a relatively simplistic 'stateless' protocol. Not sure at the moment about transmission gating as everything seems to have an ordered time slot but that might just be the way that Domoticz is processing the data. I am also not sure how smart the HRI80 is in it's protocol implementation. We would need to remove the HRI80's own origination ID in the packets to spoof another repeated device. I still need to ascertain if this is implemented in hardware, firmware or hopefully programmable packet data content.

            Paul has done quite a lot of work and had implemented a queue based system.. so it will good when he is able to find some time to continue. I'm just looking afresh as time permits.

            Comment

            • lineweight
              Automated Home Jr Member
              • Dec 2015
              • 11

              #81
              Originally posted by lineweight View Post
              Yes. I think I might drop them an email and see what they say.
              To follow up on this - I did email them.

              Their response was that their gateway complies with the relevant regulations applying to wireless devices, and the Evohome one doesn't. Hence the conflict. That was their position and they seemed adamant about this. The explanation was quite technical and to do with exploiting something that the regs do allow even if other manufacturers might not take notice of. It seemed I wasn't the first person to come to them with this question.

              As far as they were concerned the problem is caused by Evohome and as they are a small company they can't re-design all their hardware (much of which is buried in walls etc) and software to work around this.

              My solution in the end was to unscrew the aerial from the gateway, and plug in an extension cable that means I can locate the aerial on the outside of the house. There it can communicate with the sensors but its signal doesn't get far enough inside the house to get tangled with the evohome signals. After I did that, i mostly stopped having problems.

              Comment

              • Cchris
                Automated Home Sr Member
                • Nov 2015
                • 95

                #82
                Just as a follow up to this thread, I never was able to resolve the issues with range on my system. Still got one controller sat on top of a vase in a corridor because that just happens to be the sweet spot where it can communicate with the boiler relays and the bedroom radiators that are furthest away.

                Carving a large bedroom into two rooms has recently led to the system dropping signal to two rooms. As these rooms are closest to the boiler relays, then the solution for me will be to add a third controller to the system. I will then have one controller that does the whole downstairs and hot water (just) and because of there being more walls upstairs, I will have two controllers for the upstairs.

                The mind boggles as to why honeywell havent developed a simple range extender for use within larger properties (the ones most likely to see the largest efficency savings and therefor able justify the cost of any such extender).

                I will hopefully soon be looking to connect Evohome to Amazons Alexa/Echo, hopefully having three controllers on the system will not throw a spanner in the works of these plans.

                Comment

                Working...
                X