Evohome firmware 02.00.19.31 Beta Trial - Exclusive for Automated Home Members

[Andy the Minion]

Andy,

Through this thread in response to some of the issues found such as the manual zone override postponing hot water reheat you've stated "yes we're aware of this, it will be fixed in the public release" etc, can I ask in relation to this;

1) Is the public release finalised yet or is it still evolving and being tested internally in response to feedback and testing ?
2) Will there be another beta or perhaps a release candidate made available to all the testers here before the final release goes out to everyone ?

The reason I ask about number 2 is that last time we participated in a public beta a year or two ago some issues were found, reported, assurances were made that the problems reported were fixed and the final release then went out to all devices and still had some of the bugs that had been reported, and no "release candidate" of what was going to be pushed to everyone was provided for any public testing prior to it being sent out to all devices.

In this current round of testing there are many very significant and visible bugs in the current beta, (far more than the last public beta) and as someone who does quite a bit of debugging and testing on a couple of open source projects the thought of going straight from a beta with many known problem with the assurance that they will be fixed to a full public release with no further testing in between by the public testers who originally reported the problems makes me extremely nervous from a quality control perspective.

Given the various issues raised I would ideally hope to see a further beta version during this beta testing period which addresses some of the issues raised, (and the version number published so people know when they have received the newer beta version) and/or at the very least a release candidate of the proposed public release a few weeks ahead of the general rollout so that fixes to the various issues can be confirmed under the same test conditions that they were originally found and any last minute or missed bugs can be found and reported before going public.

So can you elaborate on how far along the internal builds are relative to our current beta version, roughly how much longer the public beta testing program is going to run for (given we're coming into warm weather soon so won't be able to do much testing when heating isn't needed) and whether testers will receive further beta versions and/or a release candidate during the public beta program significantly before any update goes live to the general public ?

As owners of Evohome systems we all have a vested interest in seeing the next general public release of the firmware being as solid and bug free as possible.

@DBMandrake The answer to 1 is Yes and yes. We were aware of some bugs and had already fixed some at time of release, these missed the cut for internal testing so could not be included in your release. Others we were still working on and will be included in the next version.
The decision was taken to release the current version in the knowledge that we have a second release coming up fast so we were a bit more inclined to let known bugs ride if they were thought to be low risk for (please don’t take this the wrong way) normal users.
We have taken note of several comment and there will be features you have requested in the next version. I’m not being cruel or teasing but unless they get through internal testing I won’t go into detail, please bear with us.
On point 2, we really hadn’t intended for the forum to be a pool of unpaid software test engineers, but do very much appreciate the effort you and others have put into this trial. Our normal practice is to put only finished products out for external field trial, with (hopefully) all the significant bugs ironed out. We are reviewing this and may be allowed to push to a limited number of sites at an earlier stage for the next release.
Regards,
AtM

[wilfman]

WARNING.

After reviewing the comments in this thread and experiencing the trial I decided to opt out and Resideo offered to roll back my firmware.

Unfortunatly this has resulted in all of my config being lost and I now need to set it up again from scratch. Also there seems to be an odd bug where I cannot enter my WIFI password as the entry box only turns green (and allows to continue) when password is exactly 8 or 12 characters long. Mine was 10!

[bruce_miranda]

What specifically in the trial made you want to roll back? You won't have much of a choice if some of the feature decisions taken are kept in the final release.

[wilfman]

What specifically in the trial made you want to roll back? You won't have much of a choice if some of the feature decisions taken are kept in the final release.

To be fair it was more that I didn't see any benefits from any of the firmware and I rolling it out in April meant heating was pretty much off so I was not going to provide much feedback.

[guyank]

Andy,

I’m actually seeing this behaviour all the time on this zone. Whenever it should start heating for optimisation, the setpoint changes to 5C until the actual setpoint change. Are you aware of this bug?

Guyan

I have turned off the cold weather boost and this has stopped the set point changing to 5C, but I'm still seeing the 35C set point occurring.

Screenshot 2020-04-21 at 21.13.31.jpg

As an aside, have you fixed the bug where if the heating is in Economy and the time that optimisation would start has passed when Economy is cancelled, optimisation doesn't work and the set point doesn't change until the scheduled time?

[Andy the Minion]

I have turned off the cold weather boost and this has stopped the set point changing to 5C, but I'm still seeing the 35C set point occurring.

Screenshot 2020-04-21 at 21.13.31.jpg

As an aside, have you fixed the bug where if the heating is in Economy and the time that optimisation would start has passed when Economy is cancelled, optimisation doesn't work and the set point doesn't change until the scheduled time?

@guyank, Im not sure about that, I will check. There have been times with previous versions where a recalculation is missed when coming out of manual modes

[Andy the Minion]

I have turned off the cold weather boost and this has stopped the set point changing to 5C, but I'm still seeing the 35C set point occurring.

Screenshot 2020-04-21 at 21.13.31.jpg

As an aside, have you fixed the bug where if the heating is in Economy and the time that optimisation would start has passed when Economy is cancelled, optimisation doesn't work and the set point doesn't change until the scheduled time?

@guyank Yep the 35C wont be fixed until the next release but I see its not actually overheating the room Can you PM me your MAC and I will have a look at the 5C events. Which compass direction is the room facing please?
AtM

[Andy the Minion]

WARNING.

After reviewing the comments in this thread and experiencing the trial I decided to opt out and Resideo offered to roll back my firmware.

Unfortunatly this has resulted in all of my config being lost and I now need to set it up again from scratch. Also there seems to be an odd bug where I cannot enter my WIFI password as the entry box only turns green (and allows to continue) when password is exactly 8 or 12 characters long. Mine was 10!

@wilfman We generally don’t like rolling firmware back. Any new configs tend not to play nicely when they get pushed backwards to a firmware that doesn’t support them, but it is always tested and we didn’t see it cause a problem. I think there are also good cyber security reasons for not doing this as well but as I am a combustion engineer that goes over my head . I was asked if we should roll you back and I said yes with my fingers crossed – sorry, my bad.
AtM

[bruce_miranda]

Nothing in the BETA has been bad enough to need a rollback, especially not in this season when the demand on CH is lower. The HW priority not being selectable is probably the biggest thing that does need fixing. All the other "features" can be turned off, so if they don't work, no one is forced to use them.

[guyank]

@guyank Yep the 35C wont be fixed until the next release but I see its not actually overheating the room Can you PM me your MAC and I will have a look at the 5C events. Which compass direction is the room facing please?
AtM

PM sent. Its NE facing