Hello! I’m in the process of moving and I’m taking a bit of a jump start in figuring out all the new hardware I need for automating the house.
What I’m struggling quite a bit with, is finding a nice electric floor heating thermostat that supports zigbee. There’s plenty of wifi options available (meaning Tuya), but I have decided that I will not desecrate my new place with those (sorry, if someone actually likes the stuff). I’m fine with Tuya zigbee devices though, as with those I don’t need any Tuya specific integrations or apps, and I can be sure they will not even try to access the internet. Matter+Thread devices are also fine with me.
I would really like the thermostat to have an actual physical knob instead of touch screens. Something like this or this is what I’m looking for. For the former though, I can’t even find where to purchase one (is it an actual existing product that is sold somewhere?). Looking for first hand experience and recommendations for thermostats like these with Home Assistant.
Jesus christ I suck at using this forum. Here’s what I tried to post as a reply to you:
Current non-smart thermostats (there’s two different areas with separate thermostats) have sensors inside the slab, so I would want to leverage those. They are 10kOhm at 25C.
One NTC input is enough. I would buy separate thermostats for different areas. I plan on adding more floor heating later and ideally I would have a physical knob style thermostat in every room, and I could control them all wirelessly via zigbee with Home Assistant.
I’m actually just pumping you to post information needed to give some suggestions (that I don’t have). Zigbee is must for what? Just for Tuya crap or for some other reasons.?
I would prefer zigbee (or matter+thread) because that way I know everything happens locally. My current setup has almost a 100 devices with an IP-address, and I would like to avoid that at my next house if possible. Yeah, I can block such devices from accessing the internet by having them in their separate VLAN with no access outside etc, but I feel like it’s just extra hassle. A zigbee mesh feels safer and easier to me. There will be WiFi enabled devices in my setup that feature wise are too complicated for simple messaging via zigbee to cut it, but for things like light switches, outlets, thermostats and the like, I just don’t see any benefit in them being connected to a WiFi. Also, a big portion of the WiFi enabled IOT devices are Tuya, and I hate it with a passion. When it’s not Tuya, it’s some other proprietary protocol that requires yet another integration that requires constant updating. Either that or replace the firmware with Tasmota or ESPHome which even when possible, is again just more fiddling when it could be avoided completely if the device just used zigbee.
I asked that because you might exclude some options just for nothing. Think of Shelly devices, they are 100% local, zigbee or not. They don’t have thermostat for you but some other manufacturer might have.
Yeah. I do have a few Shelly devices at the moment (a smoke alarm, a few smart buttons, relays). But I do think that for these too, I’m not getting anything with the Shelly integration that I wouldn’t get if the device just used something like zigbee. To me, it’s just yet another integration that I would prefer not to have. It’s a different peace of mind when you can be sure that the device is physically incapable of accessing the internet, instead of having to rely on manufacturer promises.
But for the topic at hand. I know there are some thermostats out there that don’t require WiFi as I found the few examples with a form factor I like, but I’m really looking for first hand experiences of similar devices so I don’t end up ordering something, realizing it doesn’t quite suit my needs, and then ordering something else. I went through that path when I first started experimenting with home automation, and ended up with a box full of light bulbs, light switches and smart outlets, that did not make me happy. That is the origin story of my infinite hatred towards Tuya.
I agree, all zigbee is obvious preference, if available.
Not to forget what your insurance company thinks about a device that doesn’t have certifications or even name of the manufacturer traceable when things go wrong…
