Choosing Zigbee or Z-Wave radiator valve (TRV)

Hardware
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#1

Hi,
I have a ZHA and also Z-Wave network set up, so I am deciding which route to go for smart TRVs.
I have also looked into Tado, but found some posts that these are not that “smart” meaning, they either fully open or fully close the valve, instead of doing it gradually.

I searched through forums and found out 2 candidates.

Either Aeotec Z-Wave Plus TRV https://aeotec.com/z-wave-home-automation/thermostat-radiator-valve-trv/ (which is probably just rebranded Eurotronics with maybe newer firmware).
-States that it does gradually opening/closing valves.

And for Zigbee - Zigbee 3.0 certified Danfoss Ally https://zigbeealliance.org/zigbee_products/danfoss-ally-radiator-thermostat/

Basically I want something that does not blast open the valve, overshoots the temperature, then closes it and repeat it again. As thats gonna be noisy and not that comfortable. (I head it stated, that tado and some valves do this.)
What about battery? Has anyone experience if there is difference between Z-Wave, Zigbee TRVs in battery life?

What would you recommend, if you have experiences in both of these protocols?

Have a nice day!

3 Likes
#2

This is incorrect. I have 6 Tado valves and am logging their “% of opening”, also when holding my hand on the radiator I feel the difference between 0, 50 and 100 for example.

I have 2 Eurotronic Zigbee valves as well, they work but when they drop from the network it takes half an hour of messing around to get them to join again.

So far I’m really happy with Tado, works well over the internet as well as with the HA homekit integration (local control).

I also find the tado’s quieter than the Eurotronic ones. But anyway, you only hear them when they do a significant change in opening or closing, the small corrections I almost never notice.

Example of one of my Tado’s:

Screenshot 2020-10-27 at 20.07.02
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#3

Ah! Thanks for correction and your feedback.
I will just put here a source where I read it:



if these claims are overstated, then I would not be against Tado, Netatmo. This was the main gripe. Otherwise I think its probably good to have something with ongoing software support. Do you use them over cloud or through HomeKit controller?

Great, so more to choose from :smiley:

#4

Both, I use HA geofencing to trigger the home/away mode in tado (so not having to pay for the subscription) and taking advantage of tado’s scheduling system. But I can also use either the cloud or homekit entities to control the setpoint for the valves.

#5

Nice, that you can use both of them. Ok then, thanks a lot for info. I must say, the tado ones have a really stylish design.

#6

So update today.

Before deciding if I will be going Tado way to large rooms with more radiators, I bought a Danfoss Ally TRV. Its a new Zigbee 3.0 certified device. Worked right away with ZHA. Will test how big/small noise it generates.

It has also a rounded wheel for changing the temp, which is much more friendly than buttons. Also the Zigbee should be pretty energy efficient, so lets see how long it lasts. I am actually using rechargeable Nimh batteries, which lasts sometimes even longer, but these Zigbee devices are set up for Alkaline voltage curves, so the reporting is always not accurate.

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4 Likes
#7

@MarhyCZ, I also want to buy these TVR. Please are these TVRs capable of continously regulate the flow or are they just on/off TVRs? Thank you

#8

@iqlogic - I could not find a Zigbee endpoint that would report a current valve opening, but they seem to be able continously regulating. When I turn on a boiler I hear them one, two times as they are trying to match the temperature and then I dont hear them the whole evening, so I would guess they are partially open.

And its working great so far. No dropouts from the Zigbee network, responding like in 1s. I would like to find out, if Zigbee allows group binding of radiators - so if you have 2 in the room, if they can regulate themselves together.

#9

Do the Danfoss show humidity as well? I’m thinking of replacing my Tado’s because it’s the only cloud-dependent service I have left. Having their gateway plugged is also a little annoying. Would prefer something locally controlled.

#10

FYI You could use the homekit integration to locally control the Tado valves

3 Likes
#11

I’m curious if these, or any TRV controllers could be used to adjust the knob on a baseboard heater. Most baseboard heating units have a “relative” display of warmer vs colder. They are not actual temperature control units. This could be a nice intelligence upgrade.

#12

These TRV as they stand for, Thermostatic Radiator Valves.

For baseboard control look at this topic/post:

For custom solution turning a knob, I have just seen this post. But this is a convection gas heater:

[Album] Thermostat for controlling gas convection heater
#13

Sorry, I forgot to mention, as a TRV it physical controls a valve on the radiator by pushing a pin in to close, or let it out to open the valve.
Electric TRVs does this by a motor and measuring the temperature and comparing with the setpoint.
A traditional TRV has some sort of heat reactive material inside which changes physical behaviour hardens and softens with temperature change. The turn knob adjust the position of the material to physically open/close the pin with temperature.

If your knob does similar task, then you might can fit a TRV instead the knob, but I believe you better with line voltage control or a device which turns the knob as I wrote above.

1 Like
#14

Where are you based? I recently looked into it and in the end decided to go with the Drayton Wiser system - to say I am happy is an understatement. It works superb, every room is its own zone, it has scheduling, burst and eco modes, adapts to the outside temperature etc - if you havent made you mind up give it a go - batteries last apparently 18months I was told by someone who uses it a bit longer

#15

Have you seen this review? I think it is absolutely genuine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/review/B075GSQDZF/RAJ4X4K0UIZHZ?ref=pf_vv_at_pdctrvw_srp

I am using some Wiser TRVs without the Hub as I have a complex heating system and cannot be replaced by the Hub. The TRVs are communicating on the Zigbee protocol, but it is not listed anywhere that Wiser uses that for the TRVs and Range Extenders (pocket socket).

I’ve created my own integration last Winter for SmartThings and using the valves since that. They are really chatty creatures, they send messages every minutes or even more often. The battery life maybe 18 months if you keep them shut or open all the time and the motor doesn’t have to do any work. But I haven’t managed to get more than a few months. When the battery starts to be depleted the TRVs are unable to fully close the valves and the room keeps overheating.

It is a good choice if you can get the TRV for some discounted price. (I did get my TRV for about 10 Euro each as they were display models somewhere.) But honestly a Tuya Zigbee TRV can do more.

Otherwise they (Wiser TRV) should work with Zigbee2mqtt without any issue.

#16

Hi Marhy, are you able to set the temperature through the interface with ZHA?

When I for instance set the temperature to 6 celcius, I don’t hear the motor whirring. But if I use the physical thermostat, it whirs after a few seconds.

#17

I got my Danfoss Ally thermostats today. I’m using ZHA with a Conbee 2 stick. They paired with no problems, even though my network is pretty large and one of them is far away. Regulating from HA works, and the display on the unit updates. Regulating on the unit also updates to HA. They’ve been installed for 9 hours now, and as far as I can tell everything works beautifully.

Feature wise they are pretty boring. At least with ZHA, what you get is only the climate device and a battery sensor. Will miss the sensors (temperature, humidity and especially “heating”) that came from Tado, but getting to remove my last bridge and cloud service is so worth it.

Looking forward to make some neat automations with “proximity”, weather etc.

#18

Ok, so I found this “pi_heating_demand” attribute on the Danfoss Ally and it looks like it’s reporting the opening of the valve (went from 71 to 9 when I decreased setpoint temperature by one degree). So with some template sensors, the *_heating sensors I used from Tado are back! :slight_smile:

- platform: template
  sensors:
    bedroom_heating:
      friendly_name: "Soveværelse opvarmning"
      unit_of_measurement: '%'
      value_template: "{{ state_attr('climate.bedroom_thermostat', 'pi_heating_demand') | int }}"
    livingroom_heating:
      friendly_name: "Stue opvarmning"
      unit_of_measurement: '%'
      value_template: "{{ state_attr('climate.livingroom_thermostat', 'pi_heating_demand') | int }}"
    sofias_room_heating:
      friendly_name: "Børneværelse opvarmning"
      unit_of_measurement: '%'
      value_template: "{{ state_attr('climate.sofias_thermostat', 'pi_heating_demand') | int }}"
1 Like
#19

This might help others also.

Today I got my Danfoss Ally thermostats. My plan was to set them up with the Ally Gateway, so they would be updated. After I got them all updated and tried to pair them with ZHA it would only show the temperature and not let me set the temp etc. I tried all of them thermostats and repairing a gazillion times. Then I took the power to the Ally gateway and tries and now it worked. All paired and are fully controllable by ZHA.

tl;dr Make sure the Ally gateway is not powered on when pairing with ZHA

#20

It would be beautiful if Danfoss would publicly release the firmware, so they could be automatically updated in a similar fashion to the Trådfri bulbs.

1 Like