Best Wifi enabled thermostat
Discussion
Jobbo said:
shady lee said:
Jobbo said:
In contrast, I bought a Drayton Wiser kit and fitted it myself. Initially the furthest radiator thermostats seemed to be out of range, but I took them off the radiators, brought them closer to the Heat Hub and paired them and they've been fine since and haven't lost connection.
Been thoroughly happy with it. Screwfix may not have stock but Amazon do (though don't buy rad thermostats there at £45), and www.cityplumbing.co.uk do too, including TRVs at the usual £35 Screwfix price.
How long have you had it installed?Been thoroughly happy with it. Screwfix may not have stock but Amazon do (though don't buy rad thermostats there at £45), and www.cityplumbing.co.uk do too, including TRVs at the usual £35 Screwfix price.
I did the same thing with bringing the devices to the heat hub r and re configuration etc.
Seemed to work then fine for a week or so, then one night I checked the baby's room and it was down to 13c with both trv and thermostat lost signal. I wouldn't mind but the range extender they sent was 3ft away.
I'm going to give it a bit longer before I draw any proper conclusions - but I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the hardware and the software just seems to work for me so far. Evohome has been around for quite a while and from what I've read is a pain to install, so at c. twice the price I was always looking for alternatives. My motive is not to save money anyway but to make the house as comfortable as possible to live with (not too hot, not too cold in every room).
But you'd think that if it works fine for a week, then range isn't the issue. It's more likely a software bug than anything, which is all too common with things these days. So much tech looks great on paper, amazing bit of hardware, but then is totally ruined by crap software. Does Drayton have any real experience of low power wireless?
From what I can see, Tado and Evo home use 868MHz, which is a band reserved for low power wireless kit (fire and burglar alarms, home automation, etc). Wiser is apparently trying to run on 2.4Ghz, a band which is totally flooded with RF stuff these days (mainly WiFi, but also bluetooth, baby monitors, video senders, etc, etc). Point is, it's a total free for all, and it only needs one rogue device (cheap, chinese baby monitor etc) to totally saturate the available channel width. Even your microwave oven irradiates at 2.4GHz when you use it.
So not only is trying to use 2.4GHz for a thermostat system likely to be prone to interference from just about anywhere, it's also going to be more power hungry than operating on other frequencies/protocols (it appears Wiser uses standard WiFi stack, which is a bit like trying to thread a needle whilst wearing woolly mittens). So I suspect battery life is also going to be an issue for Wiser.
mjb1 said:
Jobbo said:
shady lee said:
Jobbo said:
In contrast, I bought a Drayton Wiser kit and fitted it myself. Initially the furthest radiator thermostats seemed to be out of range, but I took them off the radiators, brought them closer to the Heat Hub and paired them and they've been fine since and haven't lost connection.
Been thoroughly happy with it. Screwfix may not have stock but Amazon do (though don't buy rad thermostats there at £45), and www.cityplumbing.co.uk do too, including TRVs at the usual £35 Screwfix price.
How long have you had it installed?Been thoroughly happy with it. Screwfix may not have stock but Amazon do (though don't buy rad thermostats there at £45), and www.cityplumbing.co.uk do too, including TRVs at the usual £35 Screwfix price.
I did the same thing with bringing the devices to the heat hub r and re configuration etc.
Seemed to work then fine for a week or so, then one night I checked the baby's room and it was down to 13c with both trv and thermostat lost signal. I wouldn't mind but the range extender they sent was 3ft away.
I'm going to give it a bit longer before I draw any proper conclusions - but I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the hardware and the software just seems to work for me so far. Evohome has been around for quite a while and from what I've read is a pain to install, so at c. twice the price I was always looking for alternatives. My motive is not to save money anyway but to make the house as comfortable as possible to live with (not too hot, not too cold in every room).
But you'd think that if it works fine for a week, then range isn't the issue. It's more likely a software bug than anything, which is all too common with things these days. So much tech looks great on paper, amazing bit of hardware, but then is totally ruined by crap software. Does Drayton have any real experience of low power wireless?
From what I can see, Tado and Evo home use 868MHz, which is a band reserved for low power wireless kit (fire and burglar alarms, home automation, etc). Wiser is apparently trying to run on 2.4Ghz, a band which is totally flooded with RF stuff these days (mainly WiFi, but also bluetooth, baby monitors, video senders, etc, etc). Point is, it's a total free for all, and it only needs one rogue device (cheap, chinese baby monitor etc) to totally saturate the available channel width. Even your microwave oven irradiates at 2.4GHz when you use it.
So not only is trying to use 2.4GHz for a thermostat system likely to be prone to interference from just about anywhere, it's also going to be more power hungry than operating on other frequencies/protocols (it appears Wiser uses standard WiFi stack, which is a bit like trying to thread a needle whilst wearing woolly mittens). So I suspect battery life is also going to be an issue for Wiser.
Really hope evohome is better, Jesus we only live in a 3 bed semi with timber floors.
One thing I even did was reposition the boiler relay so there was a clear line of sight to all devices.
mjb1 said:
What system do you have? Presumably it's not one with TRVs for the zone control, you must have room thermostats separate from them? I can't see how it's possible to get the zones mixed up if it's just done from a TRV?
Sounds like a fairly silly balls up by the installer though!
Yeah Heatmiser room stats, no trv's as its wet UFH.Sounds like a fairly silly balls up by the installer though!
The pipework was all labelled up from the previous owner and what you would think was the lounge used to be his 'music room' (what a ponce
) and what you would think was the study was labelled up as lounge. So a couple of wires swapped about this morning and it should all be 100% now.ST-Alex said:
So I've had a look. The electrician ran a 4 four cable from the Tado to somewhere near the boiler. As you can see in the photos there is a black and brown wire plugged into the Tado NO and COM as I'd expect. I then had a look in the boiler. Strangely there is only one black wire plugged into the Room Stat.
I have a feeling the four core runs from the Tado to the back of the boiler isolation switch. Then another four core cable runs the power from the switch to the boiler (using the forth black wire for the Room Stat input on the boiler.) I have emailed the photos to Tado to see what they come back with. I can run a new 2 core cable from the back of the switch into the boiler if needed.
The Tado and boiler seem to have been functioning fine with the current setup but don't think it would work in the OpenTherm.
Anyone on here any advice? Thanks in advance.
Yes, that's just wired as a normal stat (simple on/off), which will work fine, just won't get any of the opentherm advantages. The opentherm connections are the +/- low voltage ones on the right, which should go into the two opentherm terminals on the boiler. No idea if any old power cable is good enough, or if you need some sort of specific data cable (twisted pair or similar). Got to be worth a try with what's already there I'd have thought.I have a feeling the four core runs from the Tado to the back of the boiler isolation switch. Then another four core cable runs the power from the switch to the boiler (using the forth black wire for the Room Stat input on the boiler.) I have emailed the photos to Tado to see what they come back with. I can run a new 2 core cable from the back of the switch into the boiler if needed.
The Tado and boiler seem to have been functioning fine with the current setup but don't think it would work in the OpenTherm.
Anyone on here any advice? Thanks in advance.
(I'm only guessing here, so you should probably check it out very carefully for yourself) - Yours appears to be wired with the 230v live going into the stat on the COM terminal, then the black wire takes the 230v switched signal back to the boiler. The boiler doesn't need a second wire in the stat terminals because it already has 230v live reference from the brown mains in wire.
Where is the other end of the grey wire going to? I'd use that and the black wire in the opentherm connections at both ends, at least to try it. Obviously, if you're not confident with all this, get someone else in to do it!
No idea if Tado (or the boiler for that matter) needs any config for it to use open therm. Hopefully, it'll just work when the wires are right! When I installed my Tado, there wasn't a general installation manual available (maybe certified installers have access to one). Instead, you contacted Tado tech support with your boiler make and model and then had to wait for them to come back to you with custom wiring/installation details. A neat idea, but for most people it should be possible to wire the stat in from generic instructions.
ST-Alex said:
So I've had a look. The electrician ran a 4 four cable from the Tado to somewhere near the boiler. As you can see in the photos there is a black and brown wire plugged into the Tado NO and COM as I'd expect. I then had a look in the boiler. Strangely there is only one black wire plugged into the Room Stat.
I have a feeling the four core runs from the Tado to the back of the boiler isolation switch. Then another four core cable runs the power from the switch to the boiler (using the forth black wire for the Room Stat input on the boiler.) I have emailed the photos to Tado to see what they come back with. I can run a new 2 core cable from the back of the switch into the boiler if needed.
The Tado and boiler seem to have been functioning fine with the current setup but don't think it would work in the OpenTherm.
Anyone on here any advice? Thanks in advance.
I wouldn't mess with that until you are 100% sure how it is wired, and why you want to change it.I have a feeling the four core runs from the Tado to the back of the boiler isolation switch. Then another four core cable runs the power from the switch to the boiler (using the forth black wire for the Room Stat input on the boiler.) I have emailed the photos to Tado to see what they come back with. I can run a new 2 core cable from the back of the switch into the boiler if needed.
The Tado and boiler seem to have been functioning fine with the current setup but don't think it would work in the OpenTherm.
Anyone on here any advice? Thanks in advance.
Looks to me like the Tado is wired as a standard thermostat. It would depend on the system as to whether this should go to the boiler or to a wiring centre (box which connects timeswitches, thermostats, valves, boiler together).
Quite possibly the latter if the guy that wired it was used to standard system or your tado was a retrofit.
Apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs but that looks standard wiring to me.
My Wiser system has been great now I have got the range extender 
I messed about re-positioning it quite a few times to get it in the 'right' spot which to the untrained eye looks like an awful spot... however if you understand wireless comms then it makes perfect sense!
A 'top tip' is that radiators make very effective at blocking wifi signal so you're better at positioning the base/extender behind walls if it means that the signal isn't trying to go through the radiator as it won't!
Interested to see how you get on with Honeywell Shady.
I messed about re-positioning it quite a few times to get it in the 'right' spot which to the untrained eye looks like an awful spot... however if you understand wireless comms then it makes perfect sense!A 'top tip' is that radiators make very effective at blocking wifi signal so you're better at positioning the base/extender behind walls if it means that the signal isn't trying to go through the radiator as it won't!
Interested to see how you get on with Honeywell Shady.
Edited by Eddh on Tuesday 7th November 20:48
Very impressed with the evohome so far, you really can see where your money goes.
The amount of options and settings is a mile apart from wiser. Trvs seem to be quieter too.
It's hard to put my finger on it, but the Honeywell just feels so much more "developed".
I've ran a coms check and it's come back high on all devices so happy days.
It's true what others have said, it takes a fair bit of setting up (5 hrs), but now it's all bound I've got confidence I won't be needing to touch it again for a while, unlike the wiser which needed constant faffing.
One thing I've noticed is the Honeywell takes 4 minutes to action the boiler on/off when manually overidden.
Time will tell obviously, but so far I've got a very confident feeling about this kit, just seems like less smoke and mirrors (wiser) and more actual development into the product and how it works etc.
The amount of options and settings is a mile apart from wiser. Trvs seem to be quieter too.
It's hard to put my finger on it, but the Honeywell just feels so much more "developed".
I've ran a coms check and it's come back high on all devices so happy days.
It's true what others have said, it takes a fair bit of setting up (5 hrs), but now it's all bound I've got confidence I won't be needing to touch it again for a while, unlike the wiser which needed constant faffing.
One thing I've noticed is the Honeywell takes 4 minutes to action the boiler on/off when manually overidden.
Time will tell obviously, but so far I've got a very confident feeling about this kit, just seems like less smoke and mirrors (wiser) and more actual development into the product and how it works etc.
Wiser works on the 2.4ghz band which a lot of other stuff does too, older generations of 802.11 wifi, baby monitors etc will all operate on 2.4ghz and will cause interference.
Do you live in a densely populated area? If you can see several neighbors wifi routers then those could have been muddying the signal in your house.
I used to live in a modern block of flats and you could see around 30 wireless routers from within our flat, all on the 2.4ghz band, my wifi was next to useless sitting 10m from the router you'd struggle to get around 3mbps down (40mbps internet speed), ping was all over the place and streaming from router to XBOX via Plex was impossible. I messed around with channels which made things slightly better but eventually stumped for an expensive 5ghz router which solved all my problems.
Drayton told me that the Zigbee system will channel hop to find the best channel for it to operate on away from noise but how intelligent that is... I don't know.
As said mines working ok now after a bit of messing around with wireless positioning etc and ensuring that large metal objects (rads) aren't blocking the signal, some of mine are on 1-2 bars but still function fine and don't seem to drop out.
Please keep posting your continued experience with Honeywell as it will be interesting to know how it does over time.
Do you live in a densely populated area? If you can see several neighbors wifi routers then those could have been muddying the signal in your house.
I used to live in a modern block of flats and you could see around 30 wireless routers from within our flat, all on the 2.4ghz band, my wifi was next to useless sitting 10m from the router you'd struggle to get around 3mbps down (40mbps internet speed), ping was all over the place and streaming from router to XBOX via Plex was impossible. I messed around with channels which made things slightly better but eventually stumped for an expensive 5ghz router which solved all my problems.
Drayton told me that the Zigbee system will channel hop to find the best channel for it to operate on away from noise but how intelligent that is... I don't know.
As said mines working ok now after a bit of messing around with wireless positioning etc and ensuring that large metal objects (rads) aren't blocking the signal, some of mine are on 1-2 bars but still function fine and don't seem to drop out.
Please keep posting your continued experience with Honeywell as it will be interesting to know how it does over time.
Eddh said:
Wiser works on the 2.4ghz band which a lot of other stuff does too, older generations of 802.11 wifi, baby monitors etc will all operate on 2.4ghz and will cause interference.
Do you live in a densely populated area? If you can see several neighbors wifi routers then those could have been muddying the signal in your house.
I used to live in a modern block of flats and you could see around 30 wireless routers from within our flat, all on the 2.4ghz band, my wifi was next to useless sitting 10m from the router you'd struggle to get around 3mbps down (40mbps internet speed), ping was all over the place and streaming from router to XBOX via Plex was impossible. I messed around with channels which made things slightly better but eventually stumped for an expensive 5ghz router which solved all my problems.
Drayton told me that the Zigbee system will channel hop to find the best channel for it to operate on away from noise but how intelligent that is... I don't know.
As said mines working ok now after a bit of messing around with wireless positioning etc and ensuring that large metal objects (rads) aren't blocking the signal, some of mine are on 1-2 bars but still function fine and don't seem to drop out.
Please keep posting your continued experience with Honeywell as it will be interesting to know how it does over time.
Yes, and I believe honeywell works on 868MHz, the fact that it is a much lower frequency allows it to go through walls etc much better than 2.4G.Do you live in a densely populated area? If you can see several neighbors wifi routers then those could have been muddying the signal in your house.
I used to live in a modern block of flats and you could see around 30 wireless routers from within our flat, all on the 2.4ghz band, my wifi was next to useless sitting 10m from the router you'd struggle to get around 3mbps down (40mbps internet speed), ping was all over the place and streaming from router to XBOX via Plex was impossible. I messed around with channels which made things slightly better but eventually stumped for an expensive 5ghz router which solved all my problems.
Drayton told me that the Zigbee system will channel hop to find the best channel for it to operate on away from noise but how intelligent that is... I don't know.
As said mines working ok now after a bit of messing around with wireless positioning etc and ensuring that large metal objects (rads) aren't blocking the signal, some of mine are on 1-2 bars but still function fine and don't seem to drop out.
Please keep posting your continued experience with Honeywell as it will be interesting to know how it does over time.
Also 868 is currently not used too much, a few weather stations, home automation stuff, so the band is no where near as congested as 2.4G but there is every change that will change as this stuff gets more popular.
Connectivity issues:
They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
WinstonWolf said:
Connectivity issues:
They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
I moved mine 50cm away from the boiler and with a clear line forward of it to all devices.They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
Set up a couple of ifttt actions for now, can't seem to get the evo home to turn back to schedule whenever the first family member returns through life360 though?
The only options are to set it to away or eco temps or custom?
WinstonWolf said:
Connectivity issues:
They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
Mine is about 10cm below my boiler so has the boiler above it and the copper pipes behind it, I have a plan to move it but only had enough cable to position it where it currently is, I don't seem to have any connectivity issues where it currently is but will probably move it just because I like things to be better!They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
brman said:
Yes, and I believe honeywell works on 868MHz, the fact that it is a much lower frequency allows it to go through walls etc much better than 2.4G.
Also 868 is currently not used too much, a few weather stations, home automation stuff, so the band is no where near as congested as 2.4G but there is every change that will change as this stuff gets more popular.
868 does have better penetration than 2.4GHz, but the EIRP is 25mw, whereas 2.4GHz is 100mw. So all else being equal there probably isn't a huge difference in range, but 868 will be much more battery friendly than WiFi. It's just interference on the 2.4GHz band that is the issue. Problem is you can use 2.4GHz for pretty much anything on an unlicenced basis. 868MHz is semi reserved for home automation stuff, and is much tighter controlled in terms of minimising interference. It's also a much narrower band, so will only ever be useful for low data applications. Not saying it'll always stay that way, but it's a much safer bet than 2.4GHz.Also 868 is currently not used too much, a few weather stations, home automation stuff, so the band is no where near as congested as 2.4G but there is every change that will change as this stuff gets more popular.
Drayton choosing 2.4GHz is a bad design decision IMO, but I still think there's more to the problems than purely interference. Suspect buggy software is the main culprit.
shady lee said:
One thing I've noticed is the Honeywell takes 4 minutes to action the boiler on/off when manually overidden.
Is that manually over ridden from the stat itself, or from the mobile app? It might be that the stat only checks in every few minutes to pick up instructions that have originated on the app. I'm amazed by the speed that Tado picks things up though - a manual over ride from the app on my phone always takes less than 10 seconds before I hear the relays click on the stat (usually only 2 or 3s). Eddh said:
Wiser works on the 2.4ghz band which a lot of other stuff does too, older generations of 802.11 wifi, baby monitors etc will all operate on 2.4ghz and will cause interference.
Do you live in a densely populated area? If you can see several neighbors wifi routers then those could have been muddying the signal in your house.
I used to live in a modern block of flats and you could see around 30 wireless routers from within our flat, all on the 2.4ghz band, my wifi was next to useless sitting 10m from the router you'd struggle to get around 3mbps down (40mbps internet speed), ping was all over the place and streaming from router to XBOX via Plex was impossible. I messed around with channels which made things slightly better but eventually stumped for an expensive 5ghz router which solved all my problems.
Drayton told me that the Zigbee system will channel hop to find the best channel for it to operate on away from noise but how intelligent that is... I don't know.
As said mines working ok now after a bit of messing around with wireless positioning etc and ensuring that large metal objects (rads) aren't blocking the signal, some of mine are on 1-2 bars but still function fine and don't seem to drop out.
Please keep posting your continued experience with Honeywell as it will be interesting to know how it does over time.
I have Philips Hue (ZigBee, 2.4GHz) and if I'm downloading a large file (think Gb's) on my PC upstairs over WiFi (PC only has 2.4GHz, not 5GHz) then all my Hue bulbs become unreachable until the download ends!Do you live in a densely populated area? If you can see several neighbors wifi routers then those could have been muddying the signal in your house.
I used to live in a modern block of flats and you could see around 30 wireless routers from within our flat, all on the 2.4ghz band, my wifi was next to useless sitting 10m from the router you'd struggle to get around 3mbps down (40mbps internet speed), ping was all over the place and streaming from router to XBOX via Plex was impossible. I messed around with channels which made things slightly better but eventually stumped for an expensive 5ghz router which solved all my problems.
Drayton told me that the Zigbee system will channel hop to find the best channel for it to operate on away from noise but how intelligent that is... I don't know.
As said mines working ok now after a bit of messing around with wireless positioning etc and ensuring that large metal objects (rads) aren't blocking the signal, some of mine are on 1-2 bars but still function fine and don't seem to drop out.
Please keep posting your continued experience with Honeywell as it will be interesting to know how it does over time.
mjb1 said:
Is that manually over ridden from the stat itself, or from the mobile app? It might be that the stat only checks in every few minutes to pick up instructions that have originated on the app. I'm amazed by the speed that Tado picks things up though - a manual over ride from the app on my phone always takes less than 10 seconds before I hear the relays click on the stat (usually only 2 or 3s).
Ahh.. Would seem that's normal if adjusting the devices manually.4 mins! Ha I guessed the time right then.
brman said:
I wouldn't mess with that until you are 100% sure how it is wired, and why you want to change it.
Looks to me like the Tado is wired as a standard thermostat. It would depend on the system as to whether this should go to the boiler or to a wiring centre (box which connects timeswitches, thermostats, valves, boiler together).
Quite possibly the latter if the guy that wired it was used to standard system or your tado was a retrofit.
Apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs but that looks standard wiring to me.
I've heard back from Tado. They confirm the room stat is battery powered so doesn't need any power. They have confirmed it needs a 2 core cable running from the + and - to the OpenTherm in the boiler. They also need confirmation from me when / if I do it as they make changes at their end for the Tado to work.Looks to me like the Tado is wired as a standard thermostat. It would depend on the system as to whether this should go to the boiler or to a wiring centre (box which connects timeswitches, thermostats, valves, boiler together).
Quite possibly the latter if the guy that wired it was used to standard system or your tado was a retrofit.
Apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs but that looks standard wiring to me.
I might look at doing it at some stage but no great rush.
WinstonWolf said:
Connectivity issues:
They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
I had a 6 rad Evohome installed in our flat on Monday. Monday evening and Tuesday, it failed many times, all communication errors with HW & CH relays.They all appear to recommend you place the unit 30CM away from a large metal surface (such as a boiler). Seeing as many controllers sit right under the boiler are any with connectivity issues of you relocating them?
My controller is probably 10CM from the boiler hence asking.
The installer cited them in the boiler cupboard and more than 30cm from metal objects. However, ours is an Aztec electric heater and so was emitting big EMFs as it switched ON/OFF. The installer has now sited them a good distance away and high up, and, touch wood, everything now seems to be working well.
Generally, I agree with others here, the system seems well developed. Hopefully it will be robust in the longer term.
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