I’m about to invest in new electric radiators for my flat, and I want to be able to control them with home automation without selling my soul to Jeff Bezos (ie. open source, Home Assistant). Electric radiators with APIs in open source platforms proved very tricky to find, but the Mill heaters seem to answer that need. I can then hopefully eg. send a command to say I’m working from home, or ask Mycroft or similiar voice command API to turn up the heat.
My question is, are there any other options that I’ve missed? I can write code, but can’t do any custom electronics with installing wifi relays to conventional heaters - plus I want to set a thermostat, not an on button.
I found this too:
But this requires setting up hardware and software for extracting info from API calls from the app, and seems much less used.
The only thing that puts me off about Mill is that if they go down or decide to ‘force obsolesce’ my radiators, the app still relies on their servers so my heating goes - this is the whole reason I wanted to go open source in the first place. But that is hopefully unlikely, and if it happens, we then have this great guide from john-arvid to hack the control that will hopefully serve as a backup:
I’m keen for anyone’s experiences of setting this, or any other electric heating system, up!
It all very well picking the item that fits your control concept, and it may work out well for you but what about any other considerations?
Aesthetics, colours, manual control (what happens when you move out?) and have you considered just using a ‘normal’ radiator with a smart plug?
These would be easy to move and the manual controls would be available via the standard heater.
Do cost/benefits comparison before you buy
Good luck
Good point, I shouldn’t be so keen to get automation of my heating that I forget about the heating . It is a happy coincidence though that the Mill heaters are great looking, within my budget, available in my area and otherwise well-reviewed.
I should have been more clear that I’m looking at fixed, wall-mounted radiators.
When I move, I hope to get back what I invest in the increased value of my flat in replacing my current tired, partly broken 15-year old electric radiators with fancy ones with the mass-market appeal of ‘app-controlled heating’. Edit: that said, I’m mostly buying because my current ones don’t work. I’m freezing
Yeah, but if the person moving in is a 70 year old lady who is a technophobe and wouldn’t know the difference between HA and “one of those foreign food things” (you know the type) then you are reducing the value. (you may actually save enough money between now and then not to care but…)
There is nothing stopping you from having fixed radiators fed by a plug.
They will need periodic inspection and testing (smart plugs you can take out) how will the radiator cope with a 1000v insulation test ?
Just things to consider
I’m in a building in the absolute centre of one of the UK’s largest cities, it’ll be 100% young professionals and young families here fortunately! But when I move, they are under no obligation to use the HA setup over Mill’s app.
Generally although fixed equipment wall heaters come under PAT testing regulations as they are connected via a flying lead (the wire comes out of a wall connection box to get to the appliance) the cable is exposed and subject to damage, so it is inspected. It is a domestic installation so not subject to frequent inspections so ‘should’ (under the regulations, though most people ignore them) be tested every 3 years. The ‘propery’ should be subject to fixed wiring inspections every 5 years. Again most people ignore but should either cause a fire or death, your insurance will not cover you and you will be personally liable for any losses and/or criminal prosecution. You did check that the property was covered by a ‘recent’ installation check by an niceic approved contractor didn’t you? Part of this check is a general insulation check which is normally carried out at 1000v, though you can get a reduced voltage test done if you show that possible damage would ensue.
Talk to an electrician to get specifics about your installation, you sound like you’d need to get one in anyway for your install so he may advise you for free.
Edit: Depending on the property lease agreements, you may need to apply for approval of changes to infrastructure, wiring may be considered part of this as your changes may affect other properties (unlikely) but is also depends on the borders of any ‘fire entities’ within the building. ie how does a fire affect neighbouring properties?
I’ve just purchased a MILL NE600WIFI steel Wifi heater and set it up with HA.
One of the immediate flaws I’ve discovered is that the Mill heater is designed in such a way that you have to choose between controlling via Wifi or the physical buttons on the heater. You can’t have both options available at the same time… I was hoping they were smart heaters that could also be operated manually by vistors etc. So rather than a WiFi enabled heater its a WiFi-only heater OR just ‘dumb’ one if you turn off the WiFi mode.
Once registered with the mill app the heater defaults into ‘program’ mode this means this allows you to set ‘comfort’ ‘sleep’ and ‘away’ schedules and set points (from the mill app). However in this mode I don’t seem to be able to do much more than just turn the heater on or off from HA. So in this scenario HA could be used to manually override the on/off state until the next change in schedule: e.g. away mode -> comfort mode.
I don’t find this particulalry useful.
I then dicovered a mode called ‘Control device individually’ within the mill app. In this mode the mill schedule is ignored and the heater can be turned on or off and the set point adjusted.
Importantly i now have the ability to change the set point from HA in addition to turning it on or off. I don’t really care about the Mill scheduling system and would prefer to use HA automations for that. So it’s good that this is disabled.
So to get this integrated with HA its pretty straight forward with the Mill integration. The big flaw for me is that you have to choose between WiFi or the physical buttons on the raditor. Not being able to use them both at the same time is a bit of a deal breaker for me. I might keep one radiator but will probably be returning the other ones.
It’s a bit late but you can control the device with WiFi and buttons at the same time if you remove it from “Room” in the Mill app. It will still be available as independent device with it’s own set of timers.
. It is a happy coincidence though that the Mill heaters are great looking, within my budget, available in my area and otherwise well-reviewed.
I was hoping they were smart heaters that could also be operated manually by vistors etc. So rather than a WiFi enabled heater its a WiFi-only heater OR just ‘dumb’ one if you turn off the WiFi mode.