Going-to-bed-now mode for Evohome

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  • philchillbill
    Automated Home Legend
    • Jan 2017
    • 590

    Going-to-bed-now mode for Evohome

    I normally schedule Evohome to warm to up the bedroom, bathroom, and a closet room from 10PM for a while before going to bed. Yesterday I decided to go to be early and it occurred to me that there was no possibility to select a 'scene' as such in Evohome to just request those 3 zones to do their magic NOW. I could have a custom-schedule of course which e.g. uses an earlier time for these zones to warm up, but it would have to be a fixed/predetermined clock-time to be a custom-schedule. It would be nice if you could pull in a schedule is some way without having to edit the zones individually. You can select economy-mode any time you like and it kicks in instantly. Why don't we have a going-to-bed mode that kicks in from now onwards?

    I'm going to code it up as a script in Domoticz so my HGI80 will do it (at Alexa's behest even) but I'm curious if anybody else ever coded something like this up. After all, we HA types use the scene concept for many things...
  • Dan_Robinson
    Automated Home Ninja
    • Jun 2012
    • 347

    #2
    Can't you just override the room? Seems a lot of hassle for the odd occasion.
    Kind Regards - Dan Robinson (Jennings Heating Ltd)

    Comment

    • Edinburgh2000
      Automated Home Guru
      • Dec 2016
      • 134

      #3
      Originally posted by philchillbill View Post
      ......there was no possibility to select a 'scene' as such in Evohome to just request those 3 zones to do their magic NOW. ............Why don't we have a going-to-bed mode that kicks in from now onwards?
      DBMandrake has suggested a simple "Advance" feature that would advance the schedule to a future time and then stay there until real time catches up. That would be very useful if it could be engineered into the firmware.

      Comment

      • mtmcgavock
        Automated Home Legend
        • Mar 2017
        • 507

        #4
        Yes I have to agree, a simple advance feature that just brought it on till the next time would be great. The other day I wanted just to bring my zones on a few hours early. Without setting a custom schedule or changing them all manually I couldn’t do this.

        We’ve gone backwards a bit for the end user as you’ve lost the +1 and advance buttons from the old style clocks. Add in the fact now you’ve got 12 zones to control a advance feature would make more sense....

        Comment

        • philchillbill
          Automated Home Legend
          • Jan 2017
          • 590

          #5
          Originally posted by Dan_Robinson View Post
          Can't you just override the room? Seems a lot of hassle for the odd occasion.
          It's for 3 rooms at a time. If it was just one I'd agree with you but overriding 3 is a different baby.

          Comment

          • paulockenden
            Automated Home Legend
            • Apr 2015
            • 1719

            #6
            Alexa is the best way of doing this. You don't even need to buy the hardware, just use the web interface!

            You can put several zones into a 'group' (e.g. upstairs rooms), and then just tell Alexa to turn that group to 22 degrees, or whatever. You'll then get an over-ride on those zones until the next scheduled setpoint.

            Comment

            • Dan_Robinson
              Automated Home Ninja
              • Jun 2012
              • 347

              #7
              It will take 18 seconds instead of 6 (I just tried it ). Having watched Alexa in action the other day, it'll take longer to tell her what to do than do it .
              Kind Regards - Dan Robinson (Jennings Heating Ltd)

              Comment

              • paulockenden
                Automated Home Legend
                • Apr 2015
                • 1719

                #8
                All depends how many zones you want to over-ride at once. I can ask Alexa to turn the whole house up by one degree, for example. It would take ages to do that with the controller (and especially with the horrible mobile app).

                Comment

                • Karrimor
                  Automated Home Jr Member
                  • Oct 2016
                  • 24

                  #9
                  I use the the Reverb app on Android, along with the Amazon Alexa App. Reverb is really a way to find out what you think of Alexa without buying a new device.

                  https://reverb.ai/ which lets you "Use Alexa wherever you are. Reverb connects to Amazon Echo services and works on macOS, in your browser or on your tablet or phone."

                  Reverb appears as an Amazon Alexa device in the Amazon Alexa app. In the Amazon Alexa app, make sure that the Reverb device's "Temperature Units" are set for metric or your temperatures will be in Fahrenheit.

                  Comment

                  • DBMandrake
                    Automated Home Legend
                    • Sep 2014
                    • 2361

                    #10
                    Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
                    Alexa is the best way of doing this. You don't even need to buy the hardware, just use the web interface!

                    You can put several zones into a 'group' (e.g. upstairs rooms), and then just tell Alexa to turn that group to 22 degrees, or whatever. You'll then get an over-ride on those zones until the next scheduled setpoint.
                    "Alexa! Set the dining room to 21 degrees".

                    <Flashing lights for a few seconds>

                    "Hmm, dining room is not responding".

                    Ho hum. It was working a couple of weeks ago. So I must remove and re-add the skill yet again ? It shouldn't be this unreliable...

                    Disappointing, I was about to set up some groups to try your idea but first I have to fix whatever broke.

                    It reminds me of "Hey Siri" on my iPhone 6 that turns itself off every single iOS update even minor point releases, so when I actually NEED it while driving the car it isn't working until I retrain it, which I obviously can't do while driving...
                    Last edited by DBMandrake; 8 January 2018, 04:55 PM.

                    Comment

                    • Karrimor
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Oct 2016
                      • 24

                      #11
                      Amazon Alexa 'to come to Windows 10 PCs'

                      08/01/2018: Amazon's mission to make voice our primary way of communicating with machines continues at CES this week, with the tech giant reportedly set to offer Alexa on Windows 10 computers.

                      Manufacturers Lenovo, HP, Acer and Asus are all preparing to integrate Amazon's voice assistant on laptops and desktops they release this year running Windows 10, according to The Verge.

                      An app will be created this spring to let users bypass Windows 10's own Cortana assistant and use Amazon's instead, giving them access to information they could search for via Alexa on its mobile web interface and mobile apps, the publication claimed.

                      Comment

                      • DBMandrake
                        Automated Home Legend
                        • Sep 2014
                        • 2361

                        #12
                        Hmm, is there some kind of outage between Amazon and Honeywell at the moment ? Can't re-link my account:

                        IMG_0473.jpg

                        Comment

                        • Karrimor
                          Automated Home Jr Member
                          • Oct 2016
                          • 24

                          #13
                          Yes, I noticed that the HoneyWell side of the service wasn't responding (affecting the mobile app and web app), but it seems to be online again.

                          Comment

                          • DBMandrake
                            Automated Home Legend
                            • Sep 2014
                            • 2361

                            #14
                            Got it working again. Since I last tried the Alexa integration a while ago it still seems to have the following shortcomings:

                            Still no ability to activate Day Off mode ? (My most used quick action)

                            Can't use Heating Off quick action, or cancel all quick actions back to normal heating on mode ? (At least I can't see how)

                            Can't specify an end time for a zone override, nor cancel a zone override - only set it to another override.

                            Can't create any custom scenes ?

                            Most of these things can be done with IFTTT inserted in between but that is rather cumbersome and adds another syntax to memorise. (As well as being a bit unreliable)

                            So, still very limited in appeal for me as the majority of things I do at the control panel can't be done by voice command. About the only useful feature is the groups - being able to say "Set downstairs to 5 degrees" before going to bed and having all zones change at once is about the only thing useful to me personally.
                            Last edited by DBMandrake; 8 January 2018, 06:19 PM.

                            Comment

                            • G4RHL
                              Automated Home Legend
                              • Jan 2015
                              • 1580

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Dan_Robinson View Post
                              It will take 18 seconds instead of 6 (I just tried it ). Having watched Alexa in action the other day, it'll take longer to tell her what to do than do it .
                              Does she listen? I tried Alexa some time back and other than successfully putting the radio on failed to understand anything. No, I don’t have a strange accent! Siri I find more accurate but Siri won’t work Evohome.

                              Comment

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