Boiler Relay - Comms Fault

[DBMandrake]

Yes, it was discussed in another thread recently that the battery indicator of the HR92 is far too coarse and not particularly useful. I would go by when the controller starts to report faults.

On mine they only stay on 3 bars for a month or two then spend most of their life at 2 bars, and when I started to see intermittent low battery warnings being logged to the fault log (I had not yet seen an on-screen red warning) the HR92 still reported two bars. I suspect it had another couple of months before it died but I replaced the batteries anyway (at about 15 months) and the fault log entries stopped.

As I've had that valve set on the more battery hungry "full stroke" mode for about half that time I consider 15 months to be a reasonable battery life.

[G4RHL]

All my HR92s are set for standard stroke - menu item, 6.0

I have found that once you start getting the low battery warning it is two to three days maximum before failure.

[G4RHL]

A follow up. All worked fine until 5 days ago when the Control Panel fault log was showing a failure to connect with the hot water sensor. It ended up as a complete failure. I did a wipe of the pairing for hot water (relay, sensor and panel) and bound them all afresh. It was OK again but 24 hours or so and the connection fault appeared but put itself right, several times. I then moved the Panel. It was on its wall mount downstairs by the Boiler, not quite below the hot water sensor although a ceiling in between, and put it on its desktop stand in my study, upstairs, not quite line of sight, a plasterboard wall (2) between it. The problem ended. Thus it seems to be the proximity of the Panel to the sensor. Fine but the system was installed in December 2014 and the issue has only recently arisen and the only changes have been an upgraded panel (to the wifi one) and new batteries in the sensor.

Any thoughts anybody?

[bruce_miranda]

Add me to the list. In my case it suddenly started, no change in batteries or binding or positions or anything.

[G4RHL]

Suddenly happened with me again. It is not a distance issue between sensor and Panel as I have not moved the Panel again and it is reasonably close to the sensor. Yesterday a message appeared telling me the Panel had lost contact with the hot water sensor. The temperature reading was blank. I wiped the binding with the sensor in the Panel, then reset the hot water relay and rebound the sensor and relay afresh. It to took about three attempts but ultimately successful and all is still fine. Something is causing the Panel to lose contact with the sensor. It sounds more like the sensor has developed a fault but find that curious. It was installed 20 months ago and usually electronic faults, if they are going to appear, do so in the early days.

[HenGus]

Since getting the new wifi controller, I have had two Loss of Comms with the hot water sensor - about a month or so apart. The fault last night was in the quiet hours and the sensor is reading normally now. Batteries were changed a couple of months ago. My sensor is just over 2 years old.

[G4RHL]

Wonder if it is something to do with the wifi Control Panel as it is only since installing that this problem has arisen although all was fine for the first few months. Since my last report on the problem it has not happened again.

[bruce_miranda]

Mine is pretty random. It goes and comes back, all by itself.
I wonder what happens when the panel loses contact with a device, does it stay in the state it last was (on/off) or does it switch off as a fail safe.
With my boiler target temperature being set by Opentherm, i wouldn't want the HW to continue heating all the way to 90C just because the panel lost contact with the thermostat.

[G4RHL]

Mine is pretty random. It goes and comes back, all by itself.
I wonder what happens when the panel loses contact with a device, does it stay in the state it last was (on/off) or does it switch off as a fail safe.
With my boiler target temperature being set by Opentherm, i wouldn't want the HW to continue heating all the way to 90C just because the panel lost contact with the thermostat.

Good question. In my case when the Panel lost all contact the hot water was in off mode so can't answer it. Perhaps someone in the forum can.

[roydonaldson]

Since moving to the new WiFi controller, I'm getting exactly the same. Random losses of connection to the Hot Water sensor. Nothing has changed.

[MrB]

Have to say my HW sensor over last few months has been erratic in it's reporting.
I capture all the data and store in a sql db so can see there is no regular reporting of HW temp. Sometimes it's small 5 min increments and other times only once an hour - and the temp moves a lot between 48 and 60C.

What is the 'official' reporting frequency of the HW sensor to the main Controller and then onto the Honeywell Servers ?

[paulockenden]

Mine reports every five minutes:

12/08/2016 08:25 53.6
12/08/2016 08:30 53.6
12/08/2016 08:35 53.6
12/08/2016 08:40 53.6
12/08/2016 08:45 53.6
12/08/2016 08:50 53.6
12/08/2016 08:55 53.6
12/08/2016 09:00 52.6
12/08/2016 09:05 52.6
12/08/2016 09:10 52.6
12/08/2016 09:15 52.6
12/08/2016 09:20 52.6
12/08/2016 09:25 52.6
12/08/2016 09:30 52.6
12/08/2016 09:35 50.8
12/08/2016 09:40 50.8
12/08/2016 09:45 50.8
12/08/2016 09:50 50.8
12/08/2016 09:55 50.8
12/08/2016 10:00 50.8
12/08/2016 10:05 50.8
12/08/2016 10:10 50.8
12/08/2016 10:15 50.8
12/08/2016 10:20 50.8

P.

[G4RHL]

Since my last posting here I have only had one reporting of failure to contact the HW sensor. It was after one o'clock in the morning and restored itself 58 minutes later. I have no explanation but it seems that with others having similar issues the current control panel may be the cause.

[MrB]

Done some more digging and debugging.
The DHW is always included in the data array coming from the Honeywell servers, but it's the temp that is 'odd'.
It sometimes will stay on the same temp for over an hour - to 2 decimal places. ie: 58.71
and will suddenly jump down/up several degrees to the correct temp (have other sensors available).
Considering it's 2 decimal places it should move on every 5 minute update.

Connectivity between the DHW sensor and wifi controller is good with only 2 lost contacts in last 3 months.

Anybody got comments or ideas as to what to have a look at next to get better reporting?

[HenGus]

I have had a further loss of comms with the HW sensor. It has still not restored itself - 48 minutes later. Can any of the Honeywell Evohome team ( or Richard @ The EVShop) suggest what might be happening here? I replaced the sensor batteries and carried out a full re-set last time this happened.

Edit:

Self restored after 50 minutes.