Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

Warning: Working with electricity can result in injury, property damage, or even death if it is not done properly. Please keep this in mind while assisting others. If you are not sure about what you are doing, hire a licensed professional.

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Questions about controlling radiators using TRVs (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by olalof@alien.top to c/homeautomation@selfhosted.forum

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Hi.

I’m helping a friend to control the radiators in his house using TRVs.

The goal is to have a system that requires no to very little maintenance and it needs to be aimple enough for a non technical person to use.

Key features:

App control - he needs to be able to control temperature in each room remotely.
Physical control - preferably through a physical thermostat panel in each room. The panel will only control the TRVs and will only need power. It will not control the heating through wiring.
Range - the house is quite big so any protocol used does need to be to cover the entire house.

My ideas so far includes using Sonoff TRVZB smart radiator valves for each radiator and as many Sonoff Zigbee bridges needed to cover the whole house. Maybe use NSPanel Pro for the physical thermostat.

Questions: Can i control multiple TRVs in a room using the eWeLink app? Can i use another thermostat as the controller in each room?

Any other ideas?

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[–] olalof@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Also: I don't have a problem with the setup being complex. I run Home Assistant myself and am fairly technical. It's just the end result that needs to be simple.

[–] sembee2@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

You need boiler control if that is what supplies the heat if you want to save money.

Given your requirements, an off the shelf solution would probably be better. Evohome is what I would recommend. I have had it for over seven years and it just works. App control of you want, but I don't touch mine other than to turn it on in November and off in April.

You can get a controller for each room, which will also double up as a thermostat for the room, telling the coordinator to call for heat.

[–] pinballgeek@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I’d also take a look at the Fibaro TRV valves, but to get app control you are looking at some form of ZWave gateway.

[–] phil-rob@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

About 8 years ago we installed a Honeywell evohome solution in our home (and later at work)

It radically improved comfort and slashed our heating bills.

After setup the only maintenance is changing the batteries in the valves at each radiator

The schedule can be managed remotely if the user needs assistance but once setup it just works.