Best Wifi enabled thermostat
Discussion
ADogg said:
I’ve taken the plunge and ordered Wiser from Screwfix... I’ll let you know how I get on - I’ve got a 4 storey Victorian B&B so am dubious as to whether it’ll work, but fingers crossed! Each rad will have a TRV and there will be 11 zones...
Wiser support have been good with my preliminary enquiries - it supports up to 32 devices and 16 zones which would work for me - and range extenders are free if you ask for them.My reservations: I really liked the temperature graphs and auto away-from home capability of the tado (which nothing else seems to do either)
Device support: Thinking about some wet underfloor in the future. But support say "watch this space"
The evohome has wider future support but looks so dated. And is limited to 12 zones unless you get two controllers. But it does appear to do things the wiser and tado can't (like hot water temperature monitoring).
Jabes said:
I moved into a new house a few weeks ago. It's a bit larger than our old house and I thought it'd be an ideal time to install a smart heating system.
After having done some research I opted for tado. Now, as a background we have 27 radiators and I identified 18 zones that I wanted to use. Ordered the kit from tado and set it all up.
First of all there were quite a few problems with devices dropping off. I repositioned the internet bridge more centrally (using a powerline ethernet adapter); and support told me that I should wait for the firmware to update on all the devices as it improves range. Next problem was that it was unreliably turning on the heating. I discovered that it actually only supports 10 zones with heating control *sigh*. But some of my zones are "less important" (like ensuite bathrooms etc), and support were able to unbind these from calling for heat so they just work as smart trvs to moderate the temperature.
In the meantime we discovered some problems with the boiler and had to call out british gas a few times - each time I did I swapped back to our old system to save their diagnostic problems.
I think our heating problems are resolved, and tado is working. But I'm sending it back anyway.
Why? Well, I don't like the fact that if the internet goes down then it will not turn on and off. Second, there is no way to see if the heating should be on and override it with a switch (as someone diagnostic boiler problems would need). Third, we were still getting some slight coverage issues.
I'm already missing it though, so thinking about trying something different. Wiser looks interesting with range extenders to solve any issues (and you can press on the programmer to turn heating/hot water on/off for diagnosis; ... and it works with the internet off).
I think I may go for a smaller number of zones and just run standard TRVs in the rooms I don't care much about. My motivation is mainly comfort rather than energy saving.
Any comments? Perhaps I should go evohome but I don't like the look of the trvs and it feels old; and I have too many zones...
EvohomeAfter having done some research I opted for tado. Now, as a background we have 27 radiators and I identified 18 zones that I wanted to use. Ordered the kit from tado and set it all up.
First of all there were quite a few problems with devices dropping off. I repositioned the internet bridge more centrally (using a powerline ethernet adapter); and support told me that I should wait for the firmware to update on all the devices as it improves range. Next problem was that it was unreliably turning on the heating. I discovered that it actually only supports 10 zones with heating control *sigh*. But some of my zones are "less important" (like ensuite bathrooms etc), and support were able to unbind these from calling for heat so they just work as smart trvs to moderate the temperature.
In the meantime we discovered some problems with the boiler and had to call out british gas a few times - each time I did I swapped back to our old system to save their diagnostic problems.
I think our heating problems are resolved, and tado is working. But I'm sending it back anyway.
Why? Well, I don't like the fact that if the internet goes down then it will not turn on and off. Second, there is no way to see if the heating should be on and override it with a switch (as someone diagnostic boiler problems would need). Third, we were still getting some slight coverage issues.
I'm already missing it though, so thinking about trying something different. Wiser looks interesting with range extenders to solve any issues (and you can press on the programmer to turn heating/hot water on/off for diagnosis; ... and it works with the internet off).
I think I may go for a smaller number of zones and just run standard TRVs in the rooms I don't care much about. My motivation is mainly comfort rather than energy saving.
Any comments? Perhaps I should go evohome but I don't like the look of the trvs and it feels old; and I have too many zones...
It’ll be interesting to see if the Wiser connectivity issues may have been fixed since Shady Lee and I returned ours.
Evohome has been great since I installed it to replace Wiser. And may even cover its installation costs with savings on oil over a year; I’ve been surprised how efficiently it’s running in this cold snap.
Evohome has been great since I installed it to replace Wiser. And may even cover its installation costs with savings on oil over a year; I’ve been surprised how efficiently it’s running in this cold snap.
Jobbo said:
It’ll be interesting to see if the Wiser connectivity issues may have been fixed since Shady Lee and I returned ours.
Evohome has been great since I installed it to replace Wiser. And may even cover its installation costs with savings on oil over a year; I’ve been surprised how efficiently it’s running in this cold snap.
Mine too, although I have had to turn my boiler temp up a little, but that's to compensate for the gale force winds battering our un insulated house walls.Evohome has been great since I installed it to replace Wiser. And may even cover its installation costs with savings on oil over a year; I’ve been surprised how efficiently it’s running in this cold snap.
Nothing to do with evohome
Edited by shady lee on Saturday 3rd March 09:07
shady lee said:
Jobbo said:
It’ll be interesting to see if the Wiser connectivity issues may have been fixed since Shady Lee and I returned ours.
Evohome has been great since I installed it to replace Wiser. And may even cover its installation costs with savings on oil over a year; I’ve been surprised how efficiently it’s running in this cold snap.
Mine too, although I have had to turn my boiler temp up a little, but that's to compensate for the gale force winds battering our in insulated house walls.Evohome has been great since I installed it to replace Wiser. And may even cover its installation costs with savings on oil over a year; I’ve been surprised how efficiently it’s running in this cold snap.
Nothing to do with evohome
dickymint said:
Doesn't Evohome have "weather compensation"?
The opentherm receiver can control the boiler temp to offset a cold room warmup,my vokera doesn't have opentherm capabilities.none of the systems have "true" weather compensation, most are internet based now.
True weather comp is a wired sensor on the property, that in turn can adjust the heating curve.
Honeywell has optimum start, that calculates how long it will take for the zone to reach set temp by set time and sets off heating the room up to whatever number of hours you decide in the settings.
Plus with tpi it only heats each zone the minimum it needs to maintain temp. So no big overshoots. This is done by the trvs, they can open from 0-100% depending on what demand is needed to heat the room from its calculations.
Bet you wish you hadn't asked now don't you haha
Whether they work or not is something of a different matter.
It has to be said that Drayton do appear to pursuing a fairly aggressive roll out of firmware updates to improve the product including recently boosting the transmission power of the mains powered units.
The more I read about Wiser the more I'm convinced they just released the product before it was ready rather than there being anything fundamental wrong with it.
It has to be said that Drayton do appear to pursuing a fairly aggressive roll out of firmware updates to improve the product including recently boosting the transmission power of the mains powered units.
The more I read about Wiser the more I'm convinced they just released the product before it was ready rather than there being anything fundamental wrong with it.
For me therein lies the issue, poor judgement from the company.
Schneider pushing them to release a unfinished system, partly to mask the pathetic migenie they launched to rival hive and nest.
Look at centrica and how they released hive....it took off and has been stable since. Drayton pushed migenie under the carpet after 1 year.
Buying from a company who rush products to market before stable and quickly abandon products that they can't get to work or don't sell.... No thanks.
Honeywell still offer a repair service to some of its oldest (15 years old) thermostats for free most of the time.
Now that's brand commitment.
Schneider pushing them to release a unfinished system, partly to mask the pathetic migenie they launched to rival hive and nest.
Look at centrica and how they released hive....it took off and has been stable since. Drayton pushed migenie under the carpet after 1 year.
Buying from a company who rush products to market before stable and quickly abandon products that they can't get to work or don't sell.... No thanks.
Honeywell still offer a repair service to some of its oldest (15 years old) thermostats for free most of the time.
Now that's brand commitment.
Future support is certainly an important factor. Given that Wiser is ~30% cheaper than Evohome, I suppose it comes down to willingness to take a risk to save some money up-front. It's not like the product will just stop working if they stop supporting it (one hard requirement I have on any such system is that it isn't artificially reliant on "cloud" systems, it needs to be capable of serving its primary purpose entirely offline).
Jabes said:
Well, I don't like the fact that if the internet goes down then it will not turn on and off. Second, there is no way to see if the heating should be on and override it with a switch (as someone diagnostic boiler problems would need). Third, we were still getting some slight coverage issues.
If the internet goes down it behaves as per the pre-programmed settings and can be manually controlled if needed. No internet just means a loss of remote access via the app: https://support.tado.com/hc/en-gb/articles/2073731...Not sure what you mean that you can’t see if it’s meant to be on? You can see the temp v set temp and the 3 ‘flames’ icon show the demand. If you want it to be on just turn the temp up.
KTF said:
Jabes said:
Well, I don't like the fact that if the internet goes down then it will not turn on and off. Second, there is no way to see if the heating should be on and override it with a switch (as someone diagnostic boiler problems would need). Third, we were still getting some slight coverage issues.
If the internet goes down it behaves as per the pre-programmed settings and can be manually controlled if needed. No internet just means a loss of remote access via the app: https://support.tado.com/hc/en-gb/articles/2073731...Not sure what you mean that you can’t see if it’s meant to be on? You can see the temp v set temp and the 3 ‘flames’ icon show the demand. If you want it to be on just turn the temp up.
as far as I’m concerned Tado works like a dream.KTF said:
If the internet goes down it behaves as per the pre-programmed settings and can be manually controlled if needed. No internet just means a loss of remote access via the app: https://support.tado.com/hc/en-gb/articles/2073731...
No, it doesn't - or at least not according to tado support. It continues on the current set-point and will not advance according to the schedule.[quote]
Not sure what you mean that you can’t see if it’s meant to be on? You can see the temp v set temp and the 3 ‘flames’ icon show the demand. If you want it to be on just turn the temp up.
The particular issue I had is that I had boiler problems as well and couldn't turn the heating on/off on demand easily (or at least the other half couldn't) - which caused some doubt about whether everything was working. I had to switch back to the old programmer to support the heating engineer and that isn't something my wife would be able to do if she called them out if I were away on work. I'm not sure this area has been thought through properly.
If it wasn't for this, and tado followed the schedule without the internet then I probably would have persevered but my 30 days was running out.
Best wishes
James
shady lee said:
I find it odd when the guy above has sent tado back due to reception then contemplates wiser with 9 thousand range extenders lol
As I understand it, Evohome and Tado work on the same basic transmission system. Neither support range extenders so it either works, or it doesn't. The drop-outs on one zone on tado were just one of the combination of things which made me send it back - probably if there had only been one niggle I would have fought through it.The drayton does at least support range extenders. So if you have a problem with range you can fix it.
Best wishes
James
Jabes said:
As I understand it, Evohome and Tado work on the same basic transmission system. Neither support range extenders so it either works, or it doesn't. The drop-outs on one zone on tado were just one of the combination of things which made me send it back - probably if there had only been one niggle I would have fought through it.
The drayton does at least support range extenders. So if you have a problem with range you can fix it.
Best wishes
James
Evohome has Ramses II , do you know if this is the same RF protocol as tado?The drayton does at least support range extenders. So if you have a problem with range you can fix it.
Best wishes
James
I always thought Honeywell developed there own signal and it far outdid others.
Regarding Drayton range extenders, mine didn't work, simple.
Funny that even with all the receivers,trvs etc in the same place as the wiser (as well as a range extender I might add) the Honeywell is showing no less than 4 out of 5 bars reception on all zones.
Wiser barely had 3 bars and that was the zone next to the boiler receiver.
Throwing good money after bad.
Just my personal experience after having wiser then dumping it for evohome.
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff