What home automation system

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  • Hamish
    Automated Home Lurker
    • Aug 2016
    • 1

    What home automation system

    I currently have:

    Honeywell Evohome for central heating
    Eaton (Scantronic) alarm system
    Amazon Echo (Alexa)

    I want to add some more home automation. In particular I want to be able to use Alexa to run a hot water circulation pump that we have. The pump pumps hot water round a circuit to prevent running off lots of cold water before the hot comes through. It is currently on a time switch but I want to be able to get Alexa to run it on voice demand instead, so that it runs for a pre-set time and turn off, or even better use a pipe thermostat to turn it off.

    Looks like LightwaveRF LW830 offers some of the functionailuty but I would need a control hub (not currently got one). Are there any alternative solutions? Not wed to LightwaveRF as not got any of their other kit. Any advice welcome.
  • noel-pilot
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • May 2005
    • 37

    #2
    Hi Hamish,
    I'd have a read of some of the forums and support sites for your potential contendors. So that would include the Lightwave hub itself, Indigo https://www.indigodomo.com/, Samsung Smartthings (maybe?) and I'm sure there's others but these are the ones I hear the most about.

    Posting on their forums or seeing who has done what you want to achieve, both now and in the future, will help to give you an idea of which way to jump.

    I'm a very happy Indigo user and slowly expanding my automation (not just remote/voice switching but trying to get true automation on things).

    Their success stories and day in the life of threads on their forum are good for inspiration.

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    • Chunky
      Automated Home Lurker
      • Apr 2018
      • 6

      #3
      Have a look at the Grundfos Comfort range of hot water recirculation pumps. They have models with auto adaptation, auto learning so the pump figures out when you tend to use hot water and adjusts it's cycle to be ready when you are likely to turn on the tap. It measures outgoing and return temperatures so only circulates enough flow to keep things nice but also minimse energy.

      Prices look a bit steep but if you shop around you can get them for half the price some places are charging.

      If you really must run it through Alexa, why not try one of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRCH67wfwNE. The Sonoff WiFi controller is about £6 on EBay and you can use it via Alexa to turn anything on and off, even set it to have a timed activation.

      .
      Last edited by Chunky; 20 April 2018, 06:26 PM. Reason: typo

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