Week 6.
This seems like the perfect time to sum up our experience so far and end the weekly diary as everything has settled down and there is really not much to report. We'll still update when something happens or more importantly if something does not happen that should. We will instead divert our attentions to the huge pile of home automation gear that needs our attention for our youtube channel.
Anyway back to the heating....
The Honeywell support team finally came back to us after some more chasing and once I'd had an email from their team in the UK they answered my question the same day.
Readers of the blog will recall we wanted to know if Alexa should be able to report the hot water temperature. We'd not been able to get this to work but it seemed reasonable it should as its just another zone with a temperature. Our hopes were shot down instantly (instantly after 6 weeks of trying to get the answer) as we're told this is not a feature. If I'm honest I'm still not sure that's the proper answer, it still just feels like something that simply does not work (for the logic above), however it looks like we will be continuing to use the app or the master unit to check the water temperature.
We've noticed the boiler kicking in during the middle of the night as one of the colder rooms in the house drops past the system night time temperature of 16 degrees now things are much colder outside. Due to the main bedroom being placed just over the utility room where the boiler is this means you can hear the system kick into life as every sound is amplified in the quiet of the night. This is not normally an issue but for any light sleepers its the perfect excuse for a little rant!. We decided the best fix was to drop the night time temperature of the rooms to avoid this (or at least reduce it as much as possible). It seems to have worked and will save a little energy as well.
So after six weeks would we recommend the Evohome system ?.
In short yes, it's effective and does exactly what we'd hoped and from our experience so far is reliable. There is the TRV noise issue but that's going to be a factor with all systems like this, at least until we see "whisper" motors hit the market, get rid of the noise and that would be a perfect system.
Control over each room really does make traditional heating systems feel old fashioned in comparison, even those with flashy modern thermostats at their heart. It's easy to see why more and more offerings like this are hitting the market, it really does feel like the only way to control heating now the technology is simple and cost effective. It should not be forgotten that heating is a critical system in your house and something you will need to rely on for years so choosing a system should be done with care as the home automation market is littered with systems that pop up and then vanish again just as quickly and you don't want your heating to stop working because someone has taken their servers down. This does involve some crystal ball gazing of course, so to help protect yourself I'd recommend you ensure any system you choose can work stand alone without the need to talk to the outside world.
Of course no system is perfect. We still have an error showing on the hot water actuator (and it still continues to work without issue) and we find that when heating rooms in the morning during the colder weather the system tends to overshoot the target temperature by around 1.5 to 2 degrees. This should get better as it learns so we will be keeping an eye on it as this seems quite a large amount and we will be wanting it to get better. If we see no improvement then we'll have to adjust the settings to compensate, that would be a decent work around if needed.
The app whilst basic compared to other offerings available is a very good way of programming the system and making tweaks, and lets be honest it's not something you'll be using very much once you're set up.
All in all it's been a very positive experience and we're delighted with the system so far. Hopefully our shared thoughts and experiences are useful for anyone researching heating systems and wanting to take that first step into next gen heating control.
If you have any questions or would like us to look at something specific please leave me a note in the comments below.
This seems like the perfect time to sum up our experience so far and end the weekly diary as everything has settled down and there is really not much to report. We'll still update when something happens or more importantly if something does not happen that should. We will instead divert our attentions to the huge pile of home automation gear that needs our attention for our youtube channel.
Anyway back to the heating....
The Honeywell support team finally came back to us after some more chasing and once I'd had an email from their team in the UK they answered my question the same day.
Readers of the blog will recall we wanted to know if Alexa should be able to report the hot water temperature. We'd not been able to get this to work but it seemed reasonable it should as its just another zone with a temperature. Our hopes were shot down instantly (instantly after 6 weeks of trying to get the answer) as we're told this is not a feature. If I'm honest I'm still not sure that's the proper answer, it still just feels like something that simply does not work (for the logic above), however it looks like we will be continuing to use the app or the master unit to check the water temperature.
We've noticed the boiler kicking in during the middle of the night as one of the colder rooms in the house drops past the system night time temperature of 16 degrees now things are much colder outside. Due to the main bedroom being placed just over the utility room where the boiler is this means you can hear the system kick into life as every sound is amplified in the quiet of the night. This is not normally an issue but for any light sleepers its the perfect excuse for a little rant!. We decided the best fix was to drop the night time temperature of the rooms to avoid this (or at least reduce it as much as possible). It seems to have worked and will save a little energy as well.
So after six weeks would we recommend the Evohome system ?.
In short yes, it's effective and does exactly what we'd hoped and from our experience so far is reliable. There is the TRV noise issue but that's going to be a factor with all systems like this, at least until we see "whisper" motors hit the market, get rid of the noise and that would be a perfect system.
Control over each room really does make traditional heating systems feel old fashioned in comparison, even those with flashy modern thermostats at their heart. It's easy to see why more and more offerings like this are hitting the market, it really does feel like the only way to control heating now the technology is simple and cost effective. It should not be forgotten that heating is a critical system in your house and something you will need to rely on for years so choosing a system should be done with care as the home automation market is littered with systems that pop up and then vanish again just as quickly and you don't want your heating to stop working because someone has taken their servers down. This does involve some crystal ball gazing of course, so to help protect yourself I'd recommend you ensure any system you choose can work stand alone without the need to talk to the outside world.
Of course no system is perfect. We still have an error showing on the hot water actuator (and it still continues to work without issue) and we find that when heating rooms in the morning during the colder weather the system tends to overshoot the target temperature by around 1.5 to 2 degrees. This should get better as it learns so we will be keeping an eye on it as this seems quite a large amount and we will be wanting it to get better. If we see no improvement then we'll have to adjust the settings to compensate, that would be a decent work around if needed.
The app whilst basic compared to other offerings available is a very good way of programming the system and making tweaks, and lets be honest it's not something you'll be using very much once you're set up.
All in all it's been a very positive experience and we're delighted with the system so far. Hopefully our shared thoughts and experiences are useful for anyone researching heating systems and wanting to take that first step into next gen heating control.
If you have any questions or would like us to look at something specific please leave me a note in the comments below.
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