R8810A, binding problems

[top brake]

I hear and to some degree share your frustrations.

The various system components have various histories, this goes some way to explain why some of the devices have different processes for binding. As devices are updated and redesigned the experience is refined.

The experience today includes the requirement to read and understand the instructions and follow them carefully, there is also a free online training module that covers the process.

Fundamentally the Honeywell products have been designed for trained installers, this is now transitioning to a consumer product experience.

Hope this gives some background and explains the progress that is being made :-)

Man, I really hope the designers of the Evohome technology are taking note of this issue for the next generation. I wonder if you searched for the words bind/rebind how many times they would show up in this forum?

Each component has different bind/clear bindings sequences. The fact that a component can have multiple bindings (what? why?), which is something we basically *never* want. Each component has different kinds of buttons (some with lights inside them, others without, some just unmarked touch-sensitive areas), and a different look and feel, and battery compartments and ways of accessing those battery compartments (trying to take the batteries out of the Evohome controller is one of the most frustrating things I've had to do in a while).

The endless restrictions on distances and placements of components (not something I have ever come across previously), which implies that the protocol is not very robust and doesn't have an acknowledge/retry aspect to it. The fact that there is no repeater, which seems pretty essential in a product such as this. The insanely complicated process for testing wireless signal quality (it's basically too hard to seriously test every component).

I am very happy with my Evohome installation (8 rooms with a total of 9 rads over 3 floors with a separate Y87 thermostat in one of the rooms), and it seems to be performing flawlessly, with no connectivity issues that I've ever noticed (and no fault logs ever). It's definitely not perfect (I seem to get a fair bit of overshoot), but compared to not having it, I love it. It has made my house much more comfortable (especially the lounge, which used to be too cold), and hopefully will save me some money in the long run. I also enjoy this forum, as I am very much a nerd and enjoy those aspects of the product.

Having said all that, as a techie I find it quite frustrating that Honeywell surely must be aware of these issues, yet doesn't think they are enough of a problem to address them (these products have been out for years).

I reckon one thing that Honeywell lacks is a bunch of opinionated young bucks that question the status quo, and are savvy to how 21st century users want to interact with products. Nest has an amazing user experience (e.g. each smoke alarm comes with a unique bar code on the back that you scan from the app to add it to your account), in a very flawed concept (the whole idea of a single thermostat with a motion sensor that adjusts itself based on people constantly fiddling with it seems really dumb to me). Imagine the Nest user interface guys matched up with the Honeywell tech guys -- it would be magic!

Anyway, rant over, please carry on. And thank you top brake and the other Honeywell folks for your continued and much appreciated help!

[emmeesse68]

Please rebind the R8810A1018 to the evohome control. Please ensure that you're at least 1 meter away when you're doing this. If you're too close it might only bind one way.

Thanks Top Brake, even if I already did rebind more than once I wanted to give it another go.

Not to my surprise, it went quite the same way as before.

What I did:

- left my controller on its stand, 6 meters away of the R8810. On the controller, I entered the system peripherals setup menu.
- Entered the heat control, opentherm gateway and opened the bind menu, to have it ready, witout pushing the bind button.
- I climbed on my cupboard (see attachments) and pressed the R8810 button for more than 10 seconds. Red light was flashing rapidly.
- after waiting about one minute, I pressed the R8810 button for about 5 seconds to put it into bind mode (red led flashing slowly)
- went back to the controller and pushed the bind button. Waited 10 seconds. Nothing happened.
- Pushed the "back" Arrow and pushed the bind button again. Nothing happened.
- and again. Nothing.
- ...lost count. R8810 still in bind mode (red led flashing slowly).
- took controller off its stand and got closer to the R8810 (say, 2 meters) and tried again. nothing.
- same place, tried again (say, three times). Nothing.
- Got closer. Tried again. Nothing.
- Even closer (just under the cupboard in photos). Tried again. Nothing.
- Climbed up and got, say, 70cm from the R8810, same height. Tried again. Nothing. Again....BINGO!

So... Now my R8810 is bound to the controller. I'd say it's in the same conditions it was before, since every time I tried to bind it, it behaved the same.

And the location of the R8810 as you see from photos seeems not to be relevant: a few months ago I detached it from the wall and took it on the counter under my boiler, attached to the same wire, tried the binding and it went the same...


kitchen1.1.jpg
kitchen2.1.jpg
kitchen3.1.jpg

A guy from Germany, with crazy gray hair and mustache, in about 1930 said that you can't expect change if you sdo the same things over and over again . Rebinding once more could temporarily mitigate the issues, that seem to appear later in time.

As I said, it sems that the OpenTherm side of my R8810 is working fine, because OpenTherm logs are OK. I can't tell what's going on on the RF side because at present I haven't got an RF sniffer (but I'm thinking about it...). Anyway it doesn't seem right that Ihave to rebind it every now and then because connection gets unreliable...

Are there other things I could try? Otherwise, how can I have my R8810 fixed?

[emmeesse68]

...

The endless restrictions on distances and placements of components (not something I have ever come across previously), which implies that the protocol is not very robust and doesn't have an acknowledge/retry aspect to it. The fact that there is no repeater, which seems pretty essential in a product such as this. The insanely complicated process for testing wireless signal quality (it's basically too hard to seriously test every component).

Agree...

...I am very happy with my Evohome installation (8 rooms with a total of 9 rads over 3 floors with a separate Y87 thermostat in one of the rooms), and it seems to be performing flawlessly, with no connectivity issues that I've ever noticed (and no fault logs ever). It's definitely not perfect (I seem to get a fair bit of overshoot), but compared to not having it, I love it. It has made my house much more comfortable (especially the lounge, which used to be too cold), and hopefully will save me some money in the long run. I also enjoy this forum, as I am very much a nerd and enjoy those aspects of the product.

I'm happy as well. When I started off, I had two zones with motorized valves, and a traditional combi boiler. I switched to a condensing modulating combi boiler that supported OpenTherm, so I searched and found EvoHome, now I have 12 radiators with HR92 heads and a bunch of DT92 and Y87RF wireless thermostats, only connectivity issues (left the R8810 aside) being the farthest HR92, due to my house's thick walls (I wish Honeywell thought of a signal repeater).

... Having said all that, as a techie I find it quite frustrating that Honeywell surely must be aware of these issues, yet doesn't think they are enough of a problem to address them (these products have been out for years).

I reckon one thing that Honeywell lacks is a bunch of opinionated young bucks that question the status quo, and are savvy to how 21st century users want to interact with products. Nest has an amazing user experience (e.g. each smoke alarm comes with a unique bar code on the back that you scan from the app to add it to your account), in a very flawed concept (the whole idea of a single thermostat with a motion sensor that adjusts itself based on people constantly fiddling with it seems really dumb to me). Imagine the Nest user interface guys matched up with the Honeywell tech guys -- it would be magic!

Anyway, rant over, please carry on. And thank you top brake and the other Honeywell folks for your continued and much appreciated help!

In Italy, it seems to lack a network of official professional resellers as well. I found all the mentioned stuff from a company that is not Honeywell and I'm having a hard time getting throught to Honeywell for official advice and/or a warranty replacement of my R8810. on December the 14th I wrote them an e-mail, they say they forwarded it to Honeywell... no answer since then...

[emmeesse68]

Update: the reseller answered this morning, they're arranging a replacement with Honeywell these days, so all my doubts are gonna find an answer quickly...

[emmeesse68]

Since the reseller got a new R8810 from Honeywell, I decided to replace mine with an BDR91 not to leave my house unheated while I arrange the replacement. Tomorrow morning I'm going to the reseller to swap units, the day after tomorrow I think I'll try to switch back to OpenTherm and see if the new unit is better than the old one.

Meanwhile, I placed the BDR91 in the same spot the R8810 was, and bound it at the very first attempt, no problem whatsoever. I just followed the same steps described above, but didn't have to repeat over and over again or move closer to the boiler: I left the controller on its stand and everything went smooth. This seems to rule out positioning/interference issues.

Then the RF test yelds the usual 5 red flashes, but I noticed there's smaller/no delay and there's a feedback on the controller that reveals an excellent signal level. This feedback didn't appear at all when testing my R8810, don't know if it's normal.

[emmeesse68]

there is an OpenTherm test tool but if you think that there's an issue I would simply recommend exchanging it.

I would also double check that it is bound correct as an OpenTherm Bridge under SYSTEM DEVICES

It is spaced 300mm away from metal objects I assume?

My reseller manged to get me a new R8810 from Honeywell, and that made the difference... bound at first attept, now my boiler is much more responsive to changes done at the controller.

I think this demonstrates that my old R8810 was somehow faulty, at least at the RF interface. I'm still observing it but since yesterday night it seems to work great... Unless some other surprise shows up, problem solved...

Merry Christmas to everyone!

m