GeniusHub /Heatgenius

[skjom]

Hi

Was wondering is there any user of GeniusHub out there?
Lot of older articles out there but looking to find user experience of the latest version in 2018.

Thanks

[HenGus]

Hi

Was wondering is there any user of GeniusHub out there?
Lot of older articles out there but looking to find user experience of the latest version in 2018.

Thanks

Out of curiosity, I populated the GH online configurator and I found, to my surprise, that it was more expensive than Evohome. This was before I had added on the recommended smart plugs.

This was the latest review that I could find:

https://www.trustedreviews.com/revie...heating-system

[skjom]

Out of curiosity, I populated the GH online configurator and I found, to my surprise, that it was more expensive than Evohome. This was before I had added on the recommended smart plugs.

This was the latest review that I could find:

https://www.trustedreviews.com/revie...heating-system

Ya costly. It's worth having a look at the demo. Functionality is impressive.

What I cant figure out is what functionality it provides if internet connection is down.

Not impressed that they haven't answered my emails on such.

[HenGus]

Ya costly. It's worth having a look at the demo. Functionality is impressive.

What I cant figure out is what functionality it provides if internet connection is down.

Not impressed that they haven't answered my emails on such.

Most of these smart systems do not need an internet connection. They will continue to work provided there is no loss of comms between the various components. That said, the question that I would asking GH is what happens if there is an internal loss of system comms? Evohome has built in failsafe protection such that if you left home on a week's ski-ing holiday during a cold spell and the comms failed, you shouldn't come home to frozen pipes etc.

[jvallis]

Heat Genius vs Evohome:

HG Pros:
- Separate temperature-gathering device to TRV
- Same device as temperature gathering is also PIR to determine room occupancy, leading to their unique 'Footprint' feature: auto scheduling depending on when you actually use the room
- Devices all use Z-Wave, and are mostly Danfoss devices (Danfoss is another huge company like Honeywell), and thus can be used with other Z-Wave controllers if HG dies/something better comes
- Totally open, and can connect just about anything to the Z-Wave mesh network. HG isn't as good a controller for general Z-Wave, but it's the best (obviously) for scheduling
- You can use any cheapo Smart Plug to 'boost' the mesh network. Useful e.g. to turn on a coffee machine in the morning or warm up your electric blanket.
- Limit is 255 devices in the Z-Wave network. You will need to have at least 2 devices per zone a whole house stat and the boiler relay. That means max zones is 127.
- Software is a web app, both wrapped as an iOS app and in browser
- Can do UFH, multi zone-valve heating (ie S-Plan+), and electric heating

HG Ambiguous:
- Footprint does work quite well, but you don't really need it if you have a good schedule
- A Birmingham startup vs a huge multinational
- Sat on their lead a little too long - Tado, Netatmo and Wiser all have multi-zone heating options now, so the USP is fading fast
- Has quite detailed graphing, but not amazingly useful. But as evohome doesn't have this at all, its a plus. Would be even more useful with a boiler-on curve and a summary of boiler-on time per month, and heat up times
- Has quite intuitive icons for pre-heat and you know if the heating is on in a zone

HG Cons:
- No Opentherm: TPI only
- Doesn't do setbacks well. TRV is set to say 17.5 and at temperature but another zone is firing, you are going to notice heat in the 17.5 zone heat up.
- More expensive due to the need to use 2nd sensor in room
- Room Sensor doesn't have humidity tracking (mind you nor does evohome) - this would be useful as humidity affects the 'feels like' temperature (e.g. Humidex).
- Software can be a little ropey and unresponsive at times (means you have to quit and restart it on phone)
- Not very secure (punches a hole in the firewall)
- Can get a little confused at times
- Software updates very slow
- PIR isn't very good, and the system isn't real-time responsive by any means

Basically, if you're oil fired (ie no OpenTherm) there's no difference at all between evohome and HG. If you have > 12 zones then you *need* HG.

For single-zone either get a Nest or a Honeywell Round (both can do OpenTherm too)

For all other scenarios, use evohome.

[Jabes]

Most of these smart systems do not need an internet connection. They will continue to work provided there is no loss of comms between the various components.

Tado is the notable exception here. It will not advance the schedule without the internet (the timer is in the cloud)

[skjom]

Heat Genius vs Evohome:

HG Pros:
- Separate temperature-gathering device to TRV
- Same device as temperature gathering is also PIR to determine room occupancy, leading to their unique 'Footprint' feature: auto scheduling depending on when you actually use the room
- Devices all use Z-Wave, and are mostly Danfoss devices (Danfoss is another huge company like Honeywell), and thus can be used with other Z-Wave controllers if HG dies/something better comes
- Totally open, and can connect just about anything to the Z-Wave mesh network. HG isn't as good a controller for general Z-Wave, but it's the best (obviously) for scheduling
- You can use any cheapo Smart Plug to 'boost' the mesh network. Useful e.g. to turn on a coffee machine in the morning or warm up your electric blanket.
- Limit is 255 devices in the Z-Wave network. You will need to have at least 2 devices per zone a whole house stat and the boiler relay. That means max zones is 127.
- Software is a web app, both wrapped as an iOS app and in browser
- Can do UFH, multi zone-valve heating (ie S-Plan+), and electric heating

HG Ambiguous:
- Footprint does work quite well, but you don't really need it if you have a good schedule
- A Birmingham startup vs a huge multinational
- Sat on their lead a little too long - Tado, Netatmo and Wiser all have multi-zone heating options now, so the USP is fading fast
- Has quite detailed graphing, but not amazingly useful. But as evohome doesn't have this at all, its a plus. Would be even more useful with a boiler-on curve and a summary of boiler-on time per month, and heat up times
- Has quite intuitive icons for pre-heat and you know if the heating is on in a zone

HG Cons:
- No Opentherm: TPI only
- Doesn't do setbacks well. TRV is set to say 17.5 and at temperature but another zone is firing, you are going to notice heat in the 17.5 zone heat up.
- More expensive due to the need to use 2nd sensor in room
- Room Sensor doesn't have humidity tracking (mind you nor does evohome) - this would be useful as humidity affects the 'feels like' temperature (e.g. Humidex).
- Software can be a little ropey and unresponsive at times (means you have to quit and restart it on phone)
- Not very secure (punches a hole in the firewall)
- Can get a little confused at times
- Software updates very slow
- PIR isn't very good, and the system isn't real-time responsive by any means

Basically, if you're oil fired (ie no OpenTherm) there's no difference at all between evohome and HG. If you have > 12 zones then you *need* HG.

For single-zone either get a Nest or a Honeywell Round (both can do OpenTherm too)

For all other scenarios, use evohome.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

The two main reasons I was looking at alternatives to Evohome were

1.) My radiator in two rooms are behind furniture and other things , therefore wanted to have external sensor to TRVs to measure temp.
Does the Evohome have any options bar the fugly round thermostat to do this?

2.) Software updates and hardware updates for Evohome.
The drayton thermostat looks much nicer as do Tado.

[jvallis]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

The two main reasons I was looking at alternatives to Evohome were

1.) My radiator in two rooms are behind furniture and other things , therefore wanted to have external sensor to TRVs to measure temp.
Does the Evohome have any options bar the fugly round thermostat to do this?

Yes, you can use any of the following, take your pick:
- DTS92 (best, as eco mode is useful, and also cheapest): https://theevohomeshop.co.uk/honeywe...tat-dts92.html
- T87RF (2nd best): https://theevohomeshop.co.uk/honeywe...stat-only.html
- HCW82: https://theevohomeshop.co.uk/honeywe...hermostat.html
- HCF82 (no control): https://theevohomeshop.co.uk/honeywe...om-sensor.html

2.) Software updates and hardware updates for Evohome.
The drayton thermostat looks much nicer as do Tado.

I've no experience with Drayton, but from what I can see all systems are reaching a certain parity in feature/performance.

It's not to say that evohome is the greatest, but it's got a massive install base, and there forums like this where you can ask any question and it's either a known problem, there's a solution or there's something better you can do. None of the other systems have community support like that.

[dty]

Does the Evohome have any options bar the fugly round thermostat to do this?

If you think the round one is ugly, wait until you see all the other options!

If you're a tinkerer, you can build your own and have it send the temperature readings...

[Kevin]

If you're a tinkerer, you can build your own and have it send the temperature readings...

Taking that a step further you can use almost any available ‘great looking’ sensor / thermostat that you can read/set the current temp from and provide that back to your evoHome system. Even up to Nest, Tado, or my choice ...Hive , maybe even Glas ... which is a real looker.

These suggestions aren’t exactly cheap though when a single DS1820 might suffice and there’s lots of reasonable looking affordable stats.