Evohome + HGI80 & Domoticz users - zones calling for heat functionality?

[DanD]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the additional info. You've helped explain some of the strange devices. I recommend that you either delete your current HGI80 device within the Set-up -> Hardware menu in Domoticz and add again (recommended) or add another HGI80 with a new name. The beta Evohome code has changed the population of the DeviceID field to help with device management and detection and so you've ended up with a mixture of different device structures in your list. You can also back-up your Domoticz device list before deleting the HGI80 if you're worried about the possibility of losing other info. I think this will fix the duplicate Boiler device, but not sure about the others. I've seen a few devices with consecutive deviceIDs as they are from the same kit e.g. the HR92 multi-packs. Most devices only have a single deviceID, but one exception is the newer wifi controller as it provides the controller and internet gateway functions and these have different devicedIDs i.e. 2 devices in 1.

Let me know how you get on, I've got my fingers crossed that this will fix most of the unusual devices. PS the beta code also auto-names the zones to make it easier to set-up which helps when you want to reset all your Evohome devices.

Dan

[PaulGr]

Hi Dan,

I followed your recommendations. I also updated the software to v3.5299.

It made a little difference. Firstly, the devices now start at Idx 8. Secondly, the 'real' BDR91 (Device ID 340be1) is no longer visible. However, it doesn't seem to matter because the Boiler Relay with the same Device ID as the controller gives me the demand info that I am after. One observation is that a Custom graph showing the demand from several devices would be really nice. Like the one in the Temperature tab.

devices2.jpg

Thanks for a really useful piece of work and for your help.

Paul

[DanD]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad the device list looks a little better. I agree about the lack of a custom graph functionality and I may take a look a this to see if I can replicate the temperature sensor menu option in Domoticz. A couple of questions about your device set-up which will help me to make sure that the code is coping OK with different set-ups; do you have your CH and DHW BDR91 relays set-up to each fire the boiler independently rather than using a 'boiler relay' set-up? The reason I ask is that you've only got a single Boiler heat demand device appearing, but I would have expected there to be a separate device for the DHW (this makes me wonder whether the 2 additional Zone-relay devices might possibly be from your system, but not being correctly recognised by the code. It'll be interesting to see if either change their status when your DHW is heating). Also the DHW temperature is showing 0deg, had you just set-up the list or is the temperature not updating correctly?

Dan

[PaulGr]

Hi Dan,

I have a combi boiler so DHW is not relevant.

I tried creating a heat demand zone by zone to see if the two additional zone relay devices responded. The Lounge, Hall and Bedroom 1 zones behaved perfectly. To my surprise one of the additional zone relay devices responded to Bedroom 2 demand. See screen captures below. What is strange is that although boiler demand is shown, the green LED on the BDR91 does not light and the boiler does not fire. If I add heat demand from Bedroom 1 zone, the boiler fires. It seems something is amiss with my setup. Perhaps the bindings are wrong?

devices3.jpg

devices4.jpg

devices5.jpg

This demonstrates one of the shortcomings of the evohome system. If something is set up incorrectly, there is absolutely no diagnostic information to help you find out what is wrong. With Domoticz and your work I have a fighting chance of resolving the problem.

Paul

[DanD]

Hi Paul,

OK, now I think I understand your system, I didn't notice that you'd originally posted that you had a combi boiler. I'd also assumed that you'd already tested your system via the controller after set-up, but it does sound like you've got some incorrect device binding for Bedroom 2. I'd try setting up this zone again and hopefully this might fix its problem. You also shouldn't have any DHW temp in your system, does the controller show DHW? When the system seems to be working OK via the controller, then you can start to see how the devices function via the HGI80 and Domoticz. At the moment, I'm concerned that you may possibly be seeing some devices from your neighbour's Honeywell system via the HGI80 which complicates trying to use Domoticz to diagnose/troubleshoot your system.

Good luck!

Dan

[jdp80]

Got my HGI80 today - works great with Domoticz beta. Thanks Dan for the improvements, looking forward to integrating them into my setup.

I have 2x CH zones (BDR91) should these be picked up individually ? The corresponding temperature sensors are, but I just have one "CH Valve" which is on when either BDR91 is on.



If anyone's after an HGI80 there are a couple on eBay right now, UK seller. (No connection!)

[DanD]

Hi,

The 'CH valve' device represents the overall CH heat demand and its status. It sounds like you have each of your BDR91s set-up as zone actuators (activating a zone valve) and I'd expect these to appear as zone Relay devices in Domoticz.

Hope this helps.

Dan

[jdp80]

Ah, that makes sense. I have 5 heating zones (2 CH, 3 UFH) so, other than the Zones, I seem to have

Dining Room (UFH) - Heating - Relay (this one named itself)
4x Zone - Heating - Relay (two with same ID)
2x Boiler - Heating - Relay with different ID's
CH Valve - Heating - Relay
DHW Valve - Heating - Relay

Kit installed - 4x Y87 1x DTS92 3x BDR91 (CH zones, boiler control) 1x HCC80R (three zones in use) 1x DHW kit

I'll work through the combinations of heat demand to see what switches on and off.

[DanD]

Hi,

I've not tested the Domoticz & HGI80 with a HCC80 so I'm interested to see what devices it creates. I'd have guessed that your kit list would produce 5 heating relay devices (3 from the HCC80 zones in use) and 1 for each of the two CH zones with BDR91s. I'm not sure why you are getting 2 relays with the same ID, but I'm not certain what devices exactly the HCC80 will create. I'd also expect the 5 heating zone devices, one for each of your temperature sensors/zones (Y87/DTS92) which seems to be OK. The 2 boiler heating - relay devices are also a little odd, but I've seen this happen in other installs and I think that I still need to fix a bug in the Domoticz code relating to the boiler device set-up.

The device/zone auto-naming often seems to fail after setting up the HGI80 due to message interruption from the controller where it gives up sending the complete zone list. If this happens and you're left with devices which still have the default names, I suggest restarting Domoticz via the set-up menu and after 1 or 2 more attempts you should get a complete device list with all the correct names. If you've renamed some of the devices yourself they won't be overwritten as it only updates devices which still have the default names.2

Dan

[jdp80]

It looks like the HCC80R has two Heating Relays in Domoticz

862ab - 4 - "Dining Room" (the first UFH zone) - on immediately when ANY UFH zone is active
862ab - 252 - "Boiler" - this is on once the HCC80R's "Pump" output goes live, which is about 30s after a demand for UFH

As I have individual Heating Relays for the two CH zones, I'm surprised that the three UFH zones all show up on one zone.

If there's a way to grab any debug logs etc, happy to help!

[bruce_miranda]

Hi Dan, I bought a HGI80 only to be able to benefit from your Evohome functionality. I run the Domoticz on a Synology NAS and the stable package V3.4834 worked flawlessly in terms of the installation. Didn't have to mess around at all. Plugged in the HGI80 and everything just worked.

With that version I get all my zone and the HW show up on the Temperature Tab and the Controller Mode and Heating Relay on the Switches tab. I don't get the Battery information or the Signal strength.

Now the only pre-compiled beta for my Synology NAS is Domoticz v3.0.5763-7. What functionality will that have from your code.

[bruce_miranda]

I went and installed the V3.5763 Beta version. And immediately I can see some extra stuff.

First my configuration. I have 12 Heating Zones and HW on the control panel.

• There are 8 zone where the HR80 is both the temp sensor and the radiator actuators.
• There are 2 zones where a Y87RF is the temp sensor but the HR80 is the radiator actuator.
• There is one UFH zone but it's controlled with a single Y87RF and a BDR91 configured as a zone.
• The last zone is just using the Evohome controller's internal thermometer to display the temperature but there is no actuator associated with that zone.
• Hot water is controlled by the HW kit.
• Boiler temperature is controlled by the OpenTherm bridge.
• There are 2 BDR91 on an S plan, each controlling the HW and CH zone valves, which in turn fire up the boiler.

I get a total of 35 Devices on this configuration. See image. Domoticz Devices.jpg

I get Zone names for the Devices with a Subtype of Zone but only a few names for the Subtype Relay - Why is that?

Also I've got two Devices called Boiler.

Even when none of the BDR91s are actually ON (as seen on the LEDs), I see the CH Valve showing ON. I also see some Zone Relays showing ON. But again the actual BDR91s are Off. What's going on here?

The Log has the following unique messages. There are many of the first one.

2016-10-14 20:24:01.959 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '02' (3)
2016-10-14 20:46:49.762 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '0305DC' (2)
2016-10-14 21:00:01.668 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '006D56' (2)
2016-10-14 21:07:55.645 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '0B07D000FFFFFF' (3)
2016-10-14 21:07:56.646 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '000000FFFFFF' (3)

[DBMandrake]

Even when none of the BDR91s are actually ON (as seen on the LEDs), I see the CH Valve showing ON. I also see some Zone Relays showing ON. But again the actual BDR91s are Off. What's going on here?

Don't forget TPI modulation. Just because the relay and LED aren't on at a given instant, doesn't mean there is not a heat demand. It may just be in the off part of its 10 minute TPI cycle.

Although I haven't used it first hand, from what I understand Domoticz can show the "heat demand" figure being sent between HR92's and controller, and between controller and BDR91's. This is a number from 0-200 that is scaled to a percentage. (EG 0 to 100% with half degree increments)

I believe Domoticz will show any heat demand greater than 0% as "ON", but with a proportional slider graphic to show how far "ON" it is. I assume you see a non-zero position for the demand slider ?

In that case what you are seeing is a small heat demand that only results in the relay being ON for a small percentage of each 10 minute cycle. If you see a small heat demand and you don't see the Relay/LED come on at all within the 10 minute cycle period it may be due to the "minimum on time" setting.

Any demand that would require the relay to be on for less than the minimum on time (by default 1 minute in a 10 minute cycle) is simply ignored - there is some small demand from the HR92's but it's not enough for it to bother to turn on the relays.

It's unclear whether the minimum on time is implemented in the controller (no demand is forwarded from the controller to the BDR91's if its below the threshold) or whether it's implemented directly in the BDR91's. (BDR91's receive the small heat demand, but ignore it if its below the threshold) If the latter, it would make sense that heating zone valves would also have this minimum on time requirement as well as boiler relays.

If you turn all zones down (or turn the heating off) then wait the requisite 4+ minutes is the central heating zone valve demand now reported as off ? If so it's probably giving you accurate information.

[DanD]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for giving the Evohome HGI80 beta code a try and posting all the really helpful details of your set-up and the devices list in Domoticz. It's going to take me a while to work through the details of your system set-up and explain the details of why certain pieces appear the way they do and also to check exactly which versions of the code this Synology release is using. Here are a few answers to start with:

I get Zone names for the Devices with a Subtype of Zone but only a few names for the Subtype Relay - Why is that?

I need to check exactly which version of the auto-zone naming code this release is using as I've improved it a couple of times, but if you restart Domoticz it should trigger the auto-naming process again and you should get most, if not all of the Zone-Relay devices auto-named correctly. Although I've made improvements to this part of the code, sometimes the initial start-up messages from the controller which are sent when Domoticz starts, get interrupted and are never re-sent and this leaves some zones with just the default labels. Restarting Domoticz a few times after letting it run for about 10min is one way to eventually get a complete set of correctly labelled zones.

Even when none of the BDR91s are actually ON (as seen on the LEDs), I see the CH Valve showing ON. I also see some Zone Relays showing ON. But again the actual BDR91s are Off. What's going on here?

Thanks DBMandrake, your explanation is really helpful. You will definitely continue to see Zone demand when the boiler & CH Valve are both off due to TPI. Conversely, you also will see pump overrun occurring when there may be no zone demand and the boiler is already off, but one or both Valves are still on. In your S plan set-up where you've got each of your BDR91s wired to one of the zone valves, I would have expected the CH Valve and DHW Valve devices to match the BDR91 states so I need to think a bit more about this too.

The Log has the following unique messages. There are many of the first one.

2016-10-14 20:24:01.959 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '02' (3)
2016-10-14 20:46:49.762 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '0305DC' (2)
2016-10-14 21:00:01.668 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '006D56' (2)
2016-10-14 21:07:55.645 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '0B07D000FFFFFF' (3)
2016-10-14 21:07:56.646 evohome: WARNING unrecognised message structure - possible corrupt message '000000FFFFFF' (3)

I regularly see these messages to on my set-up as do many other users. I think they are a mixture of occasional corrupted messages due to interference and more often an overflow of the HGI80 buffer due to too many messages at one time. They can just be ignored.

Regards,
Dan

[bruce_miranda]

Ok learning for me. I hit the restart on the Domoticz system and it seems to restart my entire NAS! (ouch) I thought it would simply restart the Domoticz engine.

Anyway, after restarting it once I certainly got more names on the Zones relays.

Weird to see two Boiler relays in addition to the CH Valve and DHW Valve. I also see two Study Relays (when I have only 1 radiator in that zone).

I still have 5 Zone devices (unnamed), the interesting thing is that 4 of those are showing fully ON even though the controller has been switched to Eco and everything is OFF.

Domoticz Devices after restart.jpg

Update:
No matter how many times I restart the system.
- I am left with those 2 Boiler relays devices, which always seem to be OFF, even when the CH Valve is ON.
- Two Study Relays when there is only one Study HR80 paired as both the thermostat and the actuator.
- 5 devices called Zone with 4 of them constantly ON (value 200)
- The kitchen UFH is controlled with a Y87RF room stat paired as the temperature sensor, which I can see in the list. But the BDR91 which is paired as it's Zone Valve actuator isn't coming up in the named Devices. I wonder if that one of the Zone devices with a value other than 200.