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Thread: Evohome Controller Battery Issue

  1. #1
    Automated Home Lurker
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    Default Evohome Controller Battery Issue

    Hi,

    The EVOHOME controller shows full battery while on charge but if we remove it from the stand, the battery symbol drops to half way and within 4 or 5 minutes, the unit beeps to say batteries are dead and put it back on the stand. Any ideas if there's a fix for this?

    Thanks.

  2. #2
    Automated Home Legend
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    This has cropped up elsewhere in these pages. Take the Panel off its charger. Let it run down flat. Take the batteries out. Use the opportunity to make sure when the batteries go back in that they sit tight as it seems with a lot of the Evohome stuff the contacts do not always hold the batteries snug. Put the batteries back and put the Panel back on its charger. Do this every few months.

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  4. #4
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    Mine is currently doing this again, for about the 4th time since I've owned it - on the dock it says fully charged and there is no charging symbol, if I remove it from the dock it says it is only half charged, returning it to the dock it says fully charged and no charging symbol again.

    It's not actually necessarily to run the battery down to fix this, the quicker workaround is to remove it from the dock and remove a battery, then put it back on the dock without a battery, let it boot up and wait until the cross appears through the battery symbol (to indicate faulty or missing battery) then insert the battery. It should then start charging, once it does make sure it remains on the dock until fully charged, which will be many hours as the charging is very slow.

    Disappointing that this long standing and easily reproducible battery charging bug is still there in the latest firmware version. As discussed in other threads I've speculated that this problem only hits those who leave the unit on the charger all the time (like I do) so that the battery never gets a chance to run the device, and that the battery management system in the device does not account for self discharge in the battery.

    Therefore after a few months the battery has self discharged itself down to say 50% (NiMH have relatively high self discharge compared to Lithium Ion) however the battery management system believes it is still fully charged because the unit has been running off power instead of battery the whole time so no battery use has been recorded, therefore it doesn't attempt to charge it. Making it think the battery is missing or faulty then restoring the battery tricks it into initiating a full charge.
    Last edited by DBMandrake; 18th May 2017 at 08:59 AM.

  5. #5
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    Sounds very logical. Mine nearly always shows it is 50% charged when I take it off the stand. Perhaps I should take it off the stand more often.

  6. #6
    Automated Home Legend paulockenden's Avatar
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    The problem is if you are using the device as a temp sensor for a zone. Every time it charges the battery the unit warms up. You can actually feel this if you touch it while charging, but even more noticeable if you point a thermal imaging camera at it (yes, I *am* that geeky!)

    That's probably why the system minimises how often it tops the battery up. Perhaps there should be a routine that fires in the early hours of the morning (when this temp rise won't be so important) and which tops up the battery if it's lost more than, say, 20% charge. That should mean it doesn't happen that often.

  7. #7
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    The evohome Controller uses rechargeable batteries which should not need to be replaced. If the batteries need to be charged place the Controller back on a powered Table Stand or Wall Bracket.

  8. #8
    Automated Home Ninja
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    Oh man, this thing has bugged me from the start. From the very first time I installed the system, every time I pulled the controller from the main power the battery would run flat within 20 minutes. I followed DBMandrake's trick (took some time to figure out where the battery was - not so obvious at all) and for the first time I was able to take it off external power for over an hour and the battery then still indicated being full. Thanks a million!

  9. #9
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    Pleased to be of help. You should be able to get about 2-3 hours off the dock before the big red modal "please place the unit on the dock" message appears, and then about another 2 hours after that until it actually runs out and stops functioning.

    Strange that yours wouldn't fully recharge after running out previously - definitely a bug in the charging algorithm, I notice that yet again mine is now indicating half charge when I remove it from the dock but will not charge when I put it back on the dock. It's literally less than a month since I applied the workaround last.

    C'mon Honeywell, it's not that hard to program a NiMH battery charger. Nearly 2 years without this bug being fixed is a long time by anyone's standards...

  10. #10
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    Well, I usually have that thing on the wall mount. I do have this recurring issue in my home though that I sometimes loose connection with one or more units on the top floor. Nothing to do with Evohome, the same happens with the (Buva/Stork) airbox. One other thing I noticed when transporting the controller is that when you set it back on a stand that is not plugged in it instantly reboots. Definitely seems to be something wrong with the logic here.

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