Tweet
It struck me the other day that we ought to have better notification when batteries need replacing. Currently it appears on the control panel, but if you don’t look at it regularly then it disappears. You have to check settings and the log to see if there are any issues. Many users just will not know. They won’t dig into the control panel to check things and will then wonder why a radiator may fail or the hot water does not get hot. When my CCTV camera battery gets low I get a message, an email, to tell me. It must be possible for the control panel to send some sort of message to the app or trigger an email that batteries need changing. Honeywell?
-
-
Excellent enhancement suggestion - Seconded! -
^What he said :-)Comment
-
Even just an icon on the main screen to say there's unread stuff in the error log would be good.Comment
-
Actually that's not true - the warning only disappears if the fault "rectifies" itself. So in the case of a battery getting flat when the voltage is hovering around the point where it sends warnings, the fault can appear and disappear as the voltage fluctuates - and the log will show this. But once the battery is definitely flat the fault will remain on screen until dismissed - I've had this happen to me.Originally posted by G4RHL View Post
Likewise a comms error with a BDR91 will appear on the home screen when it occurs and disappear when communication is reestablished, but if it is never reestablished it will remain on the screen until dismissed.
It's baffling that fault notifications still can't be received via email or seen via the phone app.When my CCTV camera battery gets low I get a message, an email, to tell me. It must be possible for the control panel to send some sort of message to the app or trigger an email that batteries need changing. Honeywell?
You can get an email alert to tell you the connection to the honeywell servers are down but not to tell you a radiator controller battery is flat! Madness...Comment
-
It's probably one of those "How do you get to X?" "I wouldn't start from Y" type problems.
If stuff like this has been designed in from the start it would surely be easy. But Evohome is getting a bit long in the tooth now, and the platform it was built on might not have the flexibility needed for stuff like this.
P.Comment
-
It is certainly high time the app was updated both with respect to appearance and functionality and the Control Panel made more user friendly and provide better, information when matters need attention, and send it out. It could indicate which zone has fired up the boiler, for example, as well as a better message system to indicate battery failures. Those not technically minded may well miss the way it does it at present. I can think of one in my household who would! Plus the screen touch sensitivity could be better.
It feels as though Honeywell May be looking at this as it has sort of stagnated for the 4 years I have had Evohome, but are they? When you look at the way other control apps now look, what they do, and the information you get, Evohome software seems very outdated. Even being able to operate it in Apple Home would be great. I get all sorts of data sent by the likes of Hue, Eve, Arlo etc. yet Evohome is not in their league when it comes to information. Needed information.Comment
-
As an add on to my last post the new version of IOS 12 will have a shortcuts facility to enable all sorts of things to be easily operated via the Home App. Other heating control providers it seems are on board with this. I do live in hopes that Honeywell have this in hand.Comment
-
As much as we tried we couldn't even work out how to poll the fault log via the HGI80, even though we know it is possible to do. I was hoping to then use Domoticz or something else to trigger an alert.Comment
-
In this particular instance I can't agree.Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
The Wifi controller has both a persistent connection to the Honeywell servers, and over the air firmware update ability.
Adding code to the controller to upload fault logs to their servers would be trivial.Comment
-
Remember that this is a clunky old Windows CE box. We don't know how 'maxed out' it already is.Comment
-
It must be pretty maxed out if it doesn't even have room for a dozen lines of code to send the log file over a TCP connection!Comment
-
It's even worse than that. I have a large open-plan-ish downstairs that I don't bother zoning. It has 5 radiators in it. All I get is "downstairs zone" with no hint as to which specific HR92 is complaining!
So I fixed it... Domoticz can show you the battery levels, so I assume you can automate this via some rules or something? But I am no longer using Domoticz, and instead I use some NodeRed components which I wrote to receive and decode messages from my HGI80 clone. Having done this, I can pick up on the battery level messages and send myself an email!
In fact, here's one I got when I was on holiday these last few weeks:
Code:Subject: Evohome: Low batteries in device "Master Bedrm Rad - En-suite" { "original": "--- I --- 04:166520 --:------ 01:080777 1060 003 022800", "parsed": { "unk0": "---", "type": "I", "unk1": "---", "addr": [ "04:166520", "--:------", "01:080777" ], "cmd": "1060", "len": 3, "payload": "022800" }, "decoded": { "type": "BATTERY_INFO", "device": { "addr": "04:166520", "type": "zone", "name": "Master Bedrm Rad - En-suite", "zone": 3, "zoneName": "Master Bedrm" }, "batteryLevel": 0 } }Comment
-
Just to say that I have low battery notifications working great using HGI80/Domoticz/IFTTT. The HR92 'relay' devices are added as switches, and my low battery warning is set to 10% in settings. I then have Custom HTTP notifications configured to push POST data to IFTTT maker. I use the IFTTT notifications for lots of other alerts, so low battery warnings from Evohome is an added bonus. But, I agree that this shouldn't be necessary and the app should just do it...Comment
Comment