Starting with Evohome -questions

[gpaolo79]

Hi all,
I have just moved from Nest to Evohome, after a few years on Nest it seemed to me that remained quite behind the newer systems and I had the feeling that it wasn't working too well lately.
I'm still waiting for the last 4 HR92 to complete the zones but in the meanwhile I have a couple of questions for people with more experience on this system.

One thing that I'm missing is some information that is telling me a) that the heating is on, and b) why it is on.
For example, in a situation like this one:

Screenshot_20201129_202725_com.honeywell.totalconnectcomforteurope.jpg

all temperatures were quite higher than the setting, but the heating was still on.

Another thing that I don't fully understand is the management of the schedule. Look at this situation later in the evening:

Screenshot_20201129_230213_com.honeywell.totalconnectcomforteurope.jpg

At 11PM, two areas indicate a setting of 15 degrees, but in the schedule, that temperature is set starting from midnight:

Screenshot_20201129_230321_com.honeywell.totalconnectcomforteurope.jpg

Why is this happening? Is it because I have enabled the smart function saying to get the temperature by the time indicated in the schedule? On Nest there was the same function, but it was not for switching off the heating, it was used to know how much before the heating had to be switched on to get the set temperature. Beside, it was not changing the schedule... Am I missing something here?

One question about the custom schedule: I see in the app that there is the possibility to select temporarily a custom schedule, but I can't see anywhere how to set it up. Where is that? Is there no possibility to edit the schedule from the honeywell website?

I am installing Domoticz, on windows it works fine, but I was trying to install it also on my NAS with no luck at the moment, the service is not starting for some reason that I can't understand.

Well, thank you for any suggestion you can give me!

[Billywizzo]

I believe that part of the smart functions is to try and get rooms to the set temperature at the time you have set the on switch point, so the heating will come on earlier to do that, and to turn off rooms so that they will cool down to be at the off temperature at the off switch point time.
Some one else may correct me if i have that wrong.
On the evohome main controller, if you press quick actions then custom, you can setup a custom schedule there. I have never used that so cannot help with setting it up.

In your first picture all that is telling you is the temperatures you have requested (in orange box) and the room temperatures above it. The idea I believe is for the system to try and keep rooms at the requested temperatures but won't tell you if the heating is on or off it will just signal the boiler on or off as required.

[gpaolo79]

Ok, thanks! It might be that I'm making some confusion coming from a system that was working differently...
So, let's say, if I want to setup the schedule in way where the heating in the office where I work is switched off at 5PM, how could I do that? Because if I set 15 degrees at 5PM, it would probably switch off 2h earlier (which is the maximum I have set for the smart function). On the other side, I want to keep the function for the heating up, to have the room ready in the morning, so disabling the smart function is not really desirable...

Thanks for the custom schedule, I didn't spot it!

Another question: is there any way to make it determine if someone is at home? On the nest there was the motion sensor and, when it was working properly, also the localization on the mobile phone. Any possibility on the Evohome? Not that now that I'm working from home is that important, but for the future it can be interesting.

[Billywizzo]

You can turn off the optimum stop smart function and leave the start one on.
That is all I can see you can do unless they change it so you can select seperate rooms for optimum start/stop like with the smart weather.
No idea about knowing if you are home, someone else may know .

[gpaolo79]

You can turn off the optimum stop smart function and leave the start one on.

Really? I didn't see the possibility to chose the stop and start, only to enable the function... let me see... ah, I got it. Sorry, it should have been rather obvious. I have to say that it's clear now that you told me, but the translation in Italian doesn't explain very well what it does...
Ok thanks again!

[kevinsmart]

Optimum Stop behaviour is described as follows:

Optimum Stop is an energy saving feature. If enabled, it will allow you to save some energy shortly before a set temperature reduction. This way, depending upon how cold or warm it is, evohome will turn the heating off early, allowing the temperature to fall by 0.5 degrees Celsius.

I used Life360 IFTTT support for home/away actions but unfortunately that service is no longer available.

[gpaolo79]

Optimum Stop behaviour is described as follows:

Optimum Stop is an energy saving feature. If enabled, it will allow you to save some energy shortly before a set temperature reduction. This way, depending upon how cold or warm it is, evohome will turn the heating off early, allowing the temperature to fall by 0.5 degrees Celsius.

Yes, that is what I understood, but in my case the schedule was being anticipated of one hour or more. From the schedule, the temperature at 11PM was set at 18 and from midnight to 15 degrees, while the controller was showing 15 degrees already at 11PM. This is what surprised me.

I used Life360 IFTTT support for home/away actions but unfortunately that service is no longer available.

Ah, IFTTT... I need to look at it, I registered long time ago but never used it at the end.
I'm stuck with Domoticz, apparently there is a lot of information to install it on Synology NAS but close to nothing for ReadyNAS and the only instructions I have found are years old and not working...

[kevinsmart]

Yes, that is what I understood, but in my case the schedule was being anticipated of one hour or more. From the schedule, the temperature at 11PM was set at 18 and from midnight to 15 degrees, while the controller was showing 15 degrees already at 11PM. This is what surprised me.
.

Evohome is predicting that you won’t lose more than 0.5C from 11pm to midnight, so stops further heating. You should see a Euro sign displayed in the zone to indicate this.

[gpaolo79]

Another question. In the last week, the Evohome station has lost twice the wifi connection, without connecting back by itself. In both occurrences, I had to manually disconnect and reconnect.
The first time I thought it was due to the fact that the 5GHZ and 2.4GHZ networks share the same name, as it has become common, and I have created a separated 2.4GHZ network and connected to this one. Tonight, after a few days, it lost connection again. I have tried now to connect to my other access point (this was the BT hub) but the signal is a bit weak there, but I wanted to check if it's a hub incompatibility or something else. Needless to say, wifi works well with any other device, Nest (or any other device, I have three wifi cameras which have no issue) never lost connection in years. I'm a bit concerned because I'm going to leave for three weeks and I count on the remote control to go back to a warm house, is there any known issue with wifi?

[gpaolo79]

Ok I did find something. There was some mention about Evohome not supporting channels 12 and 13. I'm not sure if it's still true, because my wifi was set on channel 13, so obviously it was connecting, but it might be bugged. I have changed the channel and I'll see how it goes.