Can I integrate Hive Active Heating into HA without the Hive Hub?

Good luck, sorry I can’t be of much help. I can tell you that it was way easier to pair just one heating zone than two.

With two zone, each receiver would show two climate entities where only one would actually do anything. So once I found out which controls which I disabled the unless ones.

Hope this helps

@jampez77 how did you get the boiler unit into pairing mode? Is it the pink flashing light or the two amber flashing lights?

it’s the amber flashing lights.

The pink light will just pair it to the thermostat.

Hold down the button on the boiler unit to change the pairing mode.

FYI I found it easier to pair by only pairing the thermostat after the boiler unit has been paired. I had issues when I tried to pair everything at once to HA.

Hope this helps

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Many thanks @jampez77

Writing up the procedure for others’ benefit

  1. Remove the thermostat from the wall and remove a battery
  2. Turn boiler off, then on again - this should cut power to the boiler receiver
  3. Hold down central heating button on the boiler receiver until light turns pink then release
  4. Hold down the central heating button again until the light turns amber with double flashing then release
  5. Pair (the boiler receiver) with Home Assistant - I will be using ZHA’s ‘add device’ function
  6. At this point the amber double flash may change to a single flash
  7. Stop ZHA from searching for devices by pressing back
  8. Replace the battery in the thermostat and allow to boot
  9. Press and hold the menu and back buttons, a countdown should appear on the screen, allow the countdown to finish and release when you see ‘welcome’. After selecting a language, it will enter pairing mode.
  10. On ZHA (or similar), select the boiler device you added earlier, now click “ADD DEVICES VIA THIS DEVICE” - the Thermostat must be connected to the ZigBee network via the boiler receiver we added earlier
  11. The thermostat should now pair to the boiler receiver. The amber light on the boiler receiver should turn green.
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Perfect!!!

I’ve had a Hive system for a few years and also been interested in the Zigbee query, mostly for fun/experimentation but also to have the possibilty of escaping the clutches of BG’s server. So recently I bought from eBay a boiler controller (Hive SLR2b) to tinker with, not wishing to possibly confuse my real system.

The Hive SLR2b paired immediately with my cheapskate CC2531 easily, no tricks, no fidgeting, no problems. I can send MQTT commands to it and get correct messages back, and nice clunks from the controller as it switches. If Hive Zigbee is a subset, I’ve not yet found what is missing.

Someone clever at zigbee2mqtt has done the hard work; all credit to them.

No excuses now chaps :wink:

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Thanks I’ve been wanting to do the same thing and looked on eBay for a cheap one to me about with.
What’s putting me off mainly is how would I recreate the schedule and boost etc as I would lose the hive ones.
What about the hive wall thermostat have you paired that also ?
If so does that still work the same ? As in the built in schedule syncing with HA and the rotary dial.

As it is summer here, I’m using only the hot water, which is just 2 slots/day, unchanged for years. I’ll probably just do this switching with a cron job as being easy for now.

I’m still looking for another Hive wall thermostat for experimenting but I don’t expect any problems with pairing it.

I’m backing away from using HA for this project. I was contemplating doing something with Node-Red as so many wax lyrical about it. It looks like someone has already had a go with Hive and Node-Red; maybe the ideas could be worked into HA.

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I got a SLR1b from eBay… as I have a combi boiler so no need of hot water on the 2b…

I paired mine with z2m- it looks like it’s paired correctly however the receiver is now slow flashing orange, and I cannot set the occupied_heating_setpoint - it just reverts to 1C every time I change it or publish the corresponding mqtt topic/payload.

I don’t have a thermosta, planned to use my wall-mounted tablets via Lovelace instead…

Any tips?!

I feel like it might be due to the receiver staying in some sort of pairing mode (waiting for the thermoatst maybe)?

Holding down the heat button on the receiver itself switches between this current mode, and a white flashing light, which does nothing except drops connection to z2m….

Hi @Chiny
Following on from your other post i bought i a thermostat and single channel receiver that i saw going cheap on ebay.
It seems they were going cheap as i think they are older models the thermostat is WPT1 branded British gas but it paired to my zigbee stick ok after i reset it now after pairing it’s just searching …which i presume is for the receiver ?
So the receiver model is SLR1 not SLR1b that i see people use but it looks exactly the same.
I didn’t want to disconnect my working receiver for testing so i’ve wired the SLR1 into a plug and plugged it into a normal socket thinking it would at least power up and let me try the pairing but nothing on the status LED at all.
Doe’s it have to be wired onto the boiler for it to power up as i know it’s missing to common and heating on connections.
Thanks

apols wasn’t replying to you correctly in last post:

I have a SLR1b - I was able to power it on (and pair) in the same way you suggest just using some flex and a 3-pin plug, without any connection to the boiler. My issue is once paired its not working, but maybe I’m one step ahead of you… (without the thermostat)

Oh right that’s good to know…or maybe not good to know in my case as i’m not getting anything from plugging mine in.
Do you know what the differences are between your SLR1b and my SLR1 ? i’ve tried looking online but can’t find anything.
So did you pair yours to your zigbee in HA ? i wasn’t sure how things paired up do the receiver and thermostat pair to each other and then to HA or are they all paired individually to HA
EDIT…
So it turns out my fuse had blown in the plug ha ha.
it has now powered on any synced straight away to the thermostat and the thermostat turns on and off the receiver ok.
But when trying to pair it to zigbee2mqtt it tells me it’s a unsupported device (SLR1)

@Steveuk Re SLR1/1b, it does appear that the SLR1 is not listed as supported but it is hard to believe the differences are great. Worth examining the relevant log for MQTT messages, perhaps looking with the app “MQTT Explorer” perhaps re-pairing as you do so.

@vonagio At the time of my last post, I had only the boiler controller SLR2b (no thermostat) and so had the slow flashing orange LED but that did not stop the boiler controller functioning. If you get white (arguably a pale pink), then you can press the heating button then release to get the slow flashing orange, which is the boiler controller looking for the thermostat. Possibly you could publish an MQTT message from an imaginary thermostat to stop the flashing.

Now I have the thermostat as well as the boiler controller, I’ve got it all working under node-red and everything appears to be working fine, manual on/off, timers, override, replacing all the stuff that BG Hive servers provide. So, it can be done. In my case, I’ll be running it on the bench for a week or so, just to see whether it is reliable, before swapping over to my boiler for real use.

@Chiny Thanks, can I ask when you had just the receiver connected, how did you get the heating relay to toggle? Simply turn occupied heating setpoint up above the local temp, and have the mode on heat?

So on mine, via z2m, it reports a local_temperature of 21C, which never changes. (Not a huge deal as the receiver is in a daft location, I have other thermometers around to use)
It has modes: off, auto, heat.
Ans an option to set the occupied_heating_setpoint to a desired temp…
I’m struggling to find a way for the receiver to actually toggle the relay itself, rather than pushing the physical button… any ideas?!

I’m mostly interested in using this as a simple relay toggle, for now.

EDIT: for clarity if anyone comes to this post - I relented and bought a SLT3 on ebay (£10!). Since z2m has been updated, I’m not sure if I need this but its got high WAF so i’m keeping it. See my reply below for more

@vonagio Head over HERE where someone has been helping me getting my SLR1 supported.
But he is also re writing code for the other ones.

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Thanks @Steveuk - as it happens Robert is also helping me! I’m following his progress on this PR…

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Thanks to Robert Alexa’s work on the converter and readme over on z2m, I now have a perfectly working thermostat with some basic scheduling included. I tried Schedy but it did mad things with a whole range of entities I hadn’t asked it to (including spooky TV/music/light changes at random times!!) so I just deleted it and went with a more manual set up…

Thought I’d share my thermostat package file and lovelace cards in case anyone has similar case needs something similar:

EDITS: handful of edits to clarify some bits incase anyone comes down wanting to duplicate this in the future.

Config

I use packages, with this in configuration.yaml:

## /config/configuration.yaml

homeassistant:
  packages: !include_dir_named packages

and the package:

## /config/packages/house_thermostat.yaml
## Hive Thermostat 

# Switch for frontend to toggle heat/off - with both system_mode and heating_setpoint_hold
switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      thermostat_mode:
        value_template: "{{ is_state('climate.house_thermostat_receiver','heat') }}"
        turn_on:
          service: mqtt.publish
          data:
            topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
            payload: '{ "system_mode":"heat", "temperature_setpoint_hold":"1" }'
        turn_off:
          service: mqtt.publish
          data:
            topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
            payload: '{ "system_mode":"off", "temperature_setpoint_hold":"0" }'
        icon_template: >
          {% if is_state('climate.house_thermostat_receiver','heat') %}
            mdi:fire
          {% elif is_state('climate.house_thermostat_receiver','off') %}
            mdi:power
          {% else %}
            mdi:alert
          {% endif %}

# Adds a temperature sensor to HA from the thermostat temperature
template:
  - sensor:
      name: house_thermostat_temperature
      icon: mdi:thermometer
      state: "{{ state_attr('climate.house_thermostat_receiver','local_temperature') }}"
      state_class: measurement
      unit_of_measurement: °C
      device_class: temperature

# Scheduling - input times to change temperature
input_datetime:
  thermsched_01:
    name: Thermostat Schedule 1
    icon: mdi:numeric-1-circle-outline
    has_time: true
    initial: 06:00:00
  thermsched_02:
    name: Thermostat Schedule 2
    icon: mdi:numeric-2-circle-outline
    has_time: true
    initial: 09:00:00
  thermsched_03:
    name: Thermostat Schedule 3
    icon: mdi:numeric-3-circle-outline
    has_time: true
    initial: 16:00:00
  thermsched_04:
    name: Thermostat Schedule 4
    icon: mdi:numeric-4-circle-outline
    has_time: true
    initial: 21:00:00

# Sheduling - corresponding input temperatures for each input time
input_number:
  thermtemp_01:
    name: Thermostat Temperature 1
    icon: mdi:numeric-1-circle-outline
    initial: 21
    min: 5
    max: 32
    step: 1
  thermtemp_02:
    name: Thermostat Temperature 2
    icon: mdi:numeric-2-circle-outline
    initial: 18
    min: 5
    max: 32
    step: 1
  thermtemp_03:
    name: Thermostat Temperature 3
    icon: mdi:numeric-3-circle-outline
    initial: 21
    min: 5
    max: 32
    step: 1
  thermtemp_04:
    name: Thermostat Temperature 4
    icon: mdi:numeric-4-circle-outline
    initial: 15
    min: 5
    max: 32
    step: 1

# Automations
automation:
    # Scheduling automation - change temp at corresponding time
  - id: house_thermostat_schedule
    alias: House Thermostat Schedule
    description: 'Sets house thermostat temperature based on input_datetimes and input_times'
    trigger:
      - platform: time
        at: input_datetime.thermsched_01
        id: '01'
      - platform: time
        id: '02'
        at: input_datetime.thermsched_02
      - platform: time
        id: '03'
        at: input_datetime.thermsched_03
      - platform: time
        id: '04'
        at: input_datetime.thermsched_04
    condition:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: climate.house_thermostat_receiver
        state: heat
    action:
      - choose:
          - conditions:
              - condition: trigger
                id: '01'
            sequence:
              - service: mqtt.publish
                data:
                  topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
                  payload: >-
                    {"system_mode":"heat","temperature_setpoint_hold":"1","occupied_heating_setpoint":"{{ states('input_number.thermtemp_01') }}"}
          - conditions:
              - condition: trigger
                id: '02'
            sequence:
              - service: mqtt.publish
                data:
                  topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
                  payload: >-
                    {"system_mode":"heat","temperature_setpoint_hold":"1","occupied_heating_setpoint":"{{ states('input_number.thermtemp_02') }}"}
          - conditions:
              - condition: trigger
                id: '03'
            sequence:
              - service: mqtt.publish
                data:
                  topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
                  payload: >-
                    {"system_mode":"heat","temperature_setpoint_hold":"1","occupied_heating_setpoint":"{{ states('input_number.thermtemp_03') }}"}
          - conditions:
              - condition: trigger
                id: '04'
            sequence:
              - service: mqtt.publish
                data:
                  topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
                  payload: >-
                    {"system_mode":"heat","temperature_setpoint_hold":"1","occupied_heating_setpoint":"{{ states('input_number.thermtemp_04') }}"}
        default: []
    mode: single

    # Fix accidental auto mode selection from the SLT - switch to heat mode.
    # This makes sure the HA schedule is used instead of the SLT internal one.
  - id: house_thermostat_auto_fix
    alias: House Thermostat Auto Fix
    description: 'Switches auto mode to heat mode. Maintains HA schedule rather than Hive schedule'
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: climate.house_thermostat_receiver
        to: auto
    condition: []
    action:
      - service: mqtt.publish
        data:
            topic: zigbee2mqtt/house_thermostat_receiver/set
            payload: '{ "system_mode":"heat", "temperature_setpoint_hold":"1" }'
    mode: single

Note: I have SLR1b and SLT3. The SLR1b has entity climate.house_thermostat_receiver.

Lovelace cards

I have a few custom cards included stack-in-card, simple-thermostat, mini-graph-card, and slider-entity-row

For basic thermostat control, on my wall tablets, I have this card:

type: custom:stack-in-card
mode: horizontal
cards:
  - type: custom:stack-in-card
    cards:
      - type: button
        entity: switch.thermostat_mode
        tap_action:
          action: toggle
        hold_action:
          action: more-info
        show_name: false
        show_icon: true
        show_state: false
        icon_height: 30px
      - type: conditional
        conditions:
          - entity: climate.house_thermostat_receiver
            state: heat
        card:
          type: custom:simple-thermostat
          entity: climate.house_thermostat_receiver
          header: false
          layout:
            mode:
              names: false
              headings: false
              icons: true
            step: column
          step_size: '0.5'
          decimals: '1'
          control: false
          sensors: false
  - align_header: right
    color_thresholds:
      - color: '#4B88B0'
        value: 16
      - color: '#e7710f'
        value: 20
      - color: '#FC0E34'
        value: 24
    decimals: 1
    entities:
      - sensor.house_thermostat_temperature
    font_size: 75
    hours_to_show: 24
    show:
      icon: false
    name: Lounge
    type: custom:mini-graph-card
card_mod:
  style: |
    ha-card {
      --ha-card-background: #04021C;
    }

Which looks like this when on:
image
and like this when off:
image

To adjust the scheduling, I then have this card in a popup_card when long pressing the switch, and other dashboards I use on desktop:

type: entities
entities:
  - entity: input_datetime.thermsched_01
  - type: custom:slider-entity-row
    entity: input_number.thermtemp_01
    full_row: true
  - entity: input_datetime.thermsched_02
  - type: custom:slider-entity-row
    entity: input_number.thermtemp_02
    full_row: true
  - entity: input_datetime.thermsched_03
  - type: custom:slider-entity-row
    entity: input_number.thermtemp_03
    full_row: true
  - entity: input_datetime.thermsched_04
  - type: custom:slider-entity-row
    entity: input_number.thermtemp_04
    full_row: true

Which looks like this:
image

We find we don’t need any additional schedule changes, or different between weekday/weekend (joys of working from home!)… but extra schedule times should be simple enough to implement, and with a workday sensor, and/or additional input_datetime it should be fairly straightforward to make much more complex schedules.

Still to do:

  • find a way to set temp based on current/last temperature when turning it on - as manually toggling the heating now reverts to 19C when turned on. I imagine we might never turn heating on/off, except at the end of winter - instead simply setting a lower temperature when away, for frost protection (Hive may automatically do this with its internal frost level? I need to investigate).
  • lower the temperature when we leave the house/preheat when we’re coming home. to do this, I’m working on a granular home occupancy state based on our distance from home (eg going for a walk near home = only lower temp a little bit, going to visit friends for the night = lower temp completely, etc etc). Currently my basic away mode just turns the heating off - not ideal when we’re out for the day and its freezing when we arrive home…

Long post, I might have been better to start a new thread!

2 Likes

Great info all this.
You’ve done some great work, I’ve only had chance to skim through it as I’m at work but I’ll be looking at this later.
I still have not actually hard wired my SLR1 in place but it’s plugged into a socket running on a very simple schedule with Node Red.
I’ve been trying to get my head around boost as that’s what my family tend to use often.
So I’m wanting 3 independent buttons for 30/45/60 boost times and I’ve kind of managed it with Peters code in the GitHub link.
On your Hive wall thermostat are you leaving that set to manual all the time and letting your automation deal with it?
What happens if the boost button is pressed on the Hive SLT3 ? Does it actually sync with HA and perform the boost and if so what happens after the boost has ended.
Thanks

Yes, this is what I do. In my package file above, I included a small automation house_thermostat_auto_fix to automatically switch back to manual mode if auto is selected directly on the thermostat unit - eg by the wife/in-laws! This ensures the HA schedule is always used instead of one set on the SLT itself.

The boost mode works as it’s meant to, initially, but as soon as the next scheduled time comes around the boost is superseded by the HA schedule, ie if you boosted 25 mins before the next schedule time, it would only boost for those 25 mins… then revert to the previous scheduled time, which is not great!

I think you might add a condition to the schedule automation to make sure emergency heat mode isn’t on… then probably some way to revert back to the schedule after it ends, I’m not sure how this would work - maybe a template which could refer to the most recent last schedule time…?!

For us, I’ve not explained the SLT boost mode to my wife, so she doesn’t know it exists, solving that issue! I might make a HA boost button/switch if I get round to it this winter.

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Quick addition: @Steveuk, if you decide to use or follow my scheduling automation above - I have amended the package.yaml in my earlier post, to use mqtt.publish service rather than climate.set_temperature, as the first method was a bit finicky, sometimes it just doesn’t work, so directly controlling the device through mqtt (including the "temperature_setpoint_hold":"1" command) without HA translation from the climate entity works flawlessly.

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