Im still in the process of getting HA up and running and swapping cuticle systems over.
As its comming closer to winter, my attention ia turning towards our cenral heating.
My wife has been pestering me for a Nest or similar device, and i would like to intergrate this into HA is possible. If not im open to any options but like the idea of using the mobile native app for the product for my wife.
Ideal soultion would be:
work with external temprature sensors
TVs on each rad in the house and abilitly to turn up or down via home assistant.
configure scheduals per TRV / room
Control from native app when away from home.
But i want to add some TRVs and be able to set schedualls up for each room.
Equipment wise, i have Wifi, and Amazon Alexa and understand i may have to go down a hub route depending on suggestions.
If anyone has any good suggestions please let know or what to avoid.
Pet topic of mine! This is a broad question that could have a huge range of answers. To focus in on a short-list it might help to define your use-case even further. Things to consider might be:
Are you going for a whole new heating system or just smartifying an existing one?
Gas / Electric / Solar / Solar water / Heat pumps?
Aiming to improve efficiency and/or reduce bills?
Where are you in the world? Someone in Bangkok will have a different view to someone in Helsinki.
Budget constraints?
Work at home or out all day?
I’ve just rebuilt my house and specified a whole house wet underfloor heating system. Controversially, I installed a gas boiler but built the system to accept any heat source. I’m in the UK, south east of London, my wife and I work from home. I zoned all the rooms individually and am using Heatmiser controls.
Previously we had a 1960s electric system which I was partially controlling using HA.
One issue to be wary of: If you only have one house thermostat, but then you add TRVs to the rads, you can get into a conflict. If the main thermostat is not demanding heat then none of the rads will get hot water even if the rads themselves are demanding it. The flip to this is if the T-stat is demanding heat but the rads are not then the boiler and pump will be running needlessly. You need the system to be integrated properly. IMHO: zone everything to give granular control, or at least have controls in the important parts of the house - living areas, work areas, sleeping areas.
Oh, and if you have the option: hardwire everything. Don’t rely on a wifi network nor internet connection for your heating to function.
This is not easy thing to do so probably no one is replaying to your post.
The things is…
If you are living in typical american house made out of paper where people easily go through walls then you are just heating air.
If you are living in typical eu house, not included gb housing, than your heating system is heating walls and floors as they have a lot of thermal capacity. So your heating should basically run most of the day, as it will fill your thermal capacity to the max and then release heat it in the rooms when heating is off.
If you leave in typical gb housing… then you are basically screwed as this is disaster.
From my perspective I am still using gas furnace. All the people that are working on central heating systems told me the same thing. Never ever replace this no matter what. Use it till it disintegrate it self. Its Buderus logomatic 2017. One of the last Buderus furnaces that was made properly. And I think they are right about it.
I improve it using esphome board that I purchased online. I can control it now remotly using home assistant. My biggest problem was domestic hot water as I have a fairly large tank to store it. A lot of gas usage was used on keeping hot water hot all day long. Using automations I managed to keep the hot water on minimum when no one is home and crank it up when it is needed. That reduced gas consumption a lot. A rought estimate by 1.000 cubic meters per year.
Using smart trv I can set temperature in rooms that are not used to a lower temp keeping rooms that are used on higher temp. That also reduced gas consumption as furnace is not heating ie 20 radiator then 10. It need less fuel for less radators. But on the other hand it is keeping at least 17 degree temperature on parts of the house that are not used.
Buying this esphome board was far the best thing I ever bought for my smart home. And that is my experience with it.
Of course I replaced window and door sealing on all pvc doors and windows by myself. I bought a good quality ones made out of silicone, added windows and doors hardware as they were lack some of it and bit by bit I managed to reduce my gas bills for at least 1/3 on the year basis keeping house warmer than it was before.