Drayton Wiser Heat issue

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  • MalcolmSu
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Mar 2014
    • 24

    Drayton Wiser Heat issue

    I've had my Wiser system (Hub, room thermostat and (x13) radiator thermostats) for just over 8 months now and i noticed the other night when one of the radiators called for heat that most of the radiator thermostats are now showing low battery. I noted one however that showed 'no signal' - I assumed the batteries in there had completely expired. But as I went round the house replacing batteries i just couldn't get that one thermostat to respond after I'd put in the new batteries. There was no sign of life or lights. I contacted Wiser support, they suggested i'd put the batteries in wrong way round, i hadn't. Then gave me a procedure to factory reset the thermostat but as I couldn't get it do anything i wasn't able to do this. We concluded it was dead.
    I went back to Amazon and they sent out another unit in less than 24 hours. Worryingly though i had left the old unit with the brand new batteries in and when I went to remove them the whole unit was red hot - i couldn't even touch the batteries. They had also gone from having 1.5v to .4v in a matter of a couple of hours! Wiser has said they've never experienced this. Has anyone else had a radiator thermostat fail yet?

    Malcolm
  • EvoPhil
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • May 2019
    • 12

    #2
    Not me, but then I've only had 3 installed since June this year. I have another 12 or so to install (split over 2 Wiser Hubs) but until I've renovated the rooms and changed the radiators, they won't get installed. 4 more should be going on this week as the plumbers are due in tomorrow, but the remainder will be on an as-and-when basis as I get around to it! I'd be interested to hear the outcome of your findings (if Amazon/Wiser provide any update).

    Comment

    • MalcolmSu
      Automated Home Jr Member
      • Mar 2014
      • 24

      #3
      I'm now getting seriously p*ssed off this now. I've just had my third radiator thermostat fail in the same way. Shows no connection, replace the batteries, no lights, completely dead, within minutes the batteries start overheating.
      I've contacted Wiser again and await their response.

      Comment

      • MalcolmSu
        Automated Home Jr Member
        • Mar 2014
        • 24

        #4
        I've now had my fourth Wiser Heat thermostat fail in the exact same circumstances as above.

        I'm not getting anywhere with Drayton to acknowledge this - in fact I think they believe it's my fault. I've just had to send them a video of me putting in the batteries to prove I was putting them in the right way up!!

        Four out of thirteen in 18 months is an unacceptably high failure rate. At the moment they are being replaced by Amazon under warranty but I have the inconvenience of returning them and being unable to control the heat in that room during that period.

        Any other Drayton Wiser Heat users out there experiencing similar failures?

        Comment

        • MalcolmSu
          Automated Home Jr Member
          • Mar 2014
          • 24

          #5
          I've posted the above message in a number of other home automation and heating forums and no one else has reported any (similar) failures.

          By way of an update;

          Drayton replaced the last failed radiator thermostat and has confirmed that they will replace this one too.

          I asked if they had established why the previous one had failed and they said; "In reference to the previous radiator thermostat that was sent back to us, we are unable to share internal investigations but can confirm it was likely faulty and eating up the battery as a result.".

          For info inside the battery cover there is a WP number in the format "nn/nn nn".

          My newest thermostats show "nn/19 18", whereas the last two that failed were "nn/17 18". I didn't record the numbers from the first two but as they were all purchased at the same time I'll guess they were similar. My assumption is that the 17 and 19 are year of manufacture?

          Comment

          • james_m
            Automated Home Lurker
            • Nov 2020
            • 1

            #6
            Stumbled across this post - I had a very similar experience in September 2019. The TRV ran out of battery and was flashing a red light every minute. I replaced the batteries with brand new ones and they were fully drained within 12 hours. I have a recollection of the device being hot (I think it expired overnight and was still hot to the touch in the morning), but for some reason I didn't write that on the email to support . The device completely ceased to function after that (no lights etc.). I contacted Drayton explaining the issue 8th Sept, and got the same questions about batteries being new non-rechargeables and inserted correctly, I confirmed that and the device was replaced under warranty via amazon without any hassle.

            I have a hub with 9 TRVs and 5 roomstats, initial kit and TRVs bought in December 2017. Looks like I've been lucky with only 1 failing. I was getting worried about more failing in this way now that my 2 year warranty is up, but considering we've both seen seemingly the same issue I suspect there's an argument to make with Drayton if it happens again. I've got my fingers crossed it was something they could have fixed via a firmware update to avoid it happening in future.

            I'd wager you are right that WP is week of production WW/YY. My original devices include 43/17, 45/17 and 48/17, the warranty replacement was 25/19 and I recently bought a new one which is 03/20 (spare in case of failure / ready for move to bigger house). They're all suffixed with 18, guess that could be a hardware version or production line id. I think the product was launched in the summer of 2017, so the devices we've had failed are all fairly early models.

            Other than this issue I think the product is great, I've just rewired my boiler to the wiser with the OpenTherm connectors, added an OpenTherm Gateway http://otgw.tclcode.com/ for monitoring, and it's all connected up to an OpenHAB installation which is working really nicely. The TPI was already pretty good at maintaining room temps, but OpenTherm means the radiators are normally only ever lukewarm, we will see if it reduces my bills too.

            James

            Comment

            • MikeM
              Automated Home Jr Member
              • Mar 2008
              • 36

              #7
              Same Problem

              I have just experienced the very same problem with a radiator thermostat and have raised a ticket.

              May I ask if Drayton resolved this without quibble

              Comment

              • MalcolmSu
                Automated Home Jr Member
                • Mar 2014
                • 24

                #8
                Yet another radiator thermostat failed tonight - my fifth. It is from batch number 49/17. Reported to Wiser.

                Comment

                • MikeM
                  Automated Home Jr Member
                  • Mar 2008
                  • 36

                  #9
                  Drayton eventually replaced my valve but not after me having to send video of me inserting batteries etc followed by various other questions

                  The WP Number was: 40/18 18 I assume that this is the week and year of manufacture ?

                  Can I ask MalcolSU how his other valves failed ? I now have one that 30 secs or so to open/close and has become very noisy

                  Comment

                  • MalcolmSu
                    Automated Home Jr Member
                    • Mar 2014
                    • 24

                    #10
                    I've had a couple that stopped responding - show as no signal in the app - I then replaced the batteries and they seemed okay for a short period of time.10 mins or so? Before they stopped again. The new batteries were drained and the valve was very hot - couldn't touch it!

                    The others stopped responding but new batteries wouldn't give any life

                    Comment

                    • MalcolmSu
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Mar 2014
                      • 24

                      #11
                      So Drayton wasn't really interested in helping - despite this being my fifth failure. I fully expect all my 2017 stats to fail at some point in the future. Drayton support asked questions like have I tried moving it closer to the hub or resetting it. This despite me telling them in the initial ticket it was dead, no LEDs with new batteries!

                      Amazon was helpful though. I bought my last stat from them in June last year so they replaced "that" foc. Got it the next day and Hermes picked up the dead one the day after. I keep one spare stat now in anticipation of these failures.

                      Comment

                      • MalcolmSu
                        Automated Home Jr Member
                        • Mar 2014
                        • 24

                        #12
                        Yet another radiator thermostat failure this week. I've kinda lost count but I think this may be number 6 or 7? This one is slightly different from the others but I have seen others complain of this in other forums. The stat started to eat batteries - going through a brand new set of Duracells in just over 24 hours. I let it do it twice - just in case it was dud batteries then contacted Drayton. They said it would need to be replaced. Once again Amazon replaced in less than 24 hours but it's hard now to say if these failures are recent purchases or older ones. ��

                        Comment

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