Thank you, what is your radiator valve body?
My radiators have old Giacomini bodies installed, so I used plastic reduction when installing the valve.
Although the body is not stuck, it requires quite a force to push down the thing (close the radiator).
Not sure if it is OK, or there exist other valve bodies that can be closed more easily.
Apart from that, what batteries did you use?
I am based in Denmark and through Google I think they are called Danfoss RA-N.
But the Danfoss eTRV came with multiple adaptors. And I am using the batteries that also were supplied with the eTRV.
Ha, strange… Mine came without batteries. I have been using it from February and i have 80% battery left. I assume it will take a year to replace. However, i am not planning to shut it down in the summer because if have heard that water needs to flow in the radiator even if it is not hot water.
I needed to purchases an adapter for my Hertz valves:
@palir - for Giacomini you should use the following adapter although according to the below screenshot it is supplied in the box:
Here is the document: https://www.elektrika.lv/att/documents/0/32/195.pdf
Might have been a cost saving exercise on their end. Irregardless any AA battery will do. 
Thank you, mine came without batteries as well, I just read somewhere that it might be better to use lithium over alkaline (or vice versa, not sure anymore), regarding the life duration in valves. But this probably won’t make that huge difference - 1 month vs year or two.
The Giacomini adapter was not included but I managed to buy it and install properly. I was only curious if different types of valve bodies can require different strength to close the valve, as my bodies seem to have quite a resistance. I thought it might be the reason the batteries die so soon.
Anyways, I’ve contacted the company meanwhile and it seems that 2 months is a “normal expected battery life-time with this product”. Although, they say the newer version of the product is improved and the batteries would last much longer.
Such a shame I’ve already bought 8 of the old ones…
2 months seems too fast to discharge the batteries… i would suggest to check the pin on your valve. Before i install mine, i took pliers and moved the pin in an out. Actually, i am doing this on all valves before the winter and sometimes i have noticed that some of them need a bit more power if they haven’t been moving for some time. That’s why i wrote before that i am not planning to disable the TRV and keep my automations running also during the summer. It will keep the pin in motion so it won’t stuck.
Yes, I checked the pin, it moves smoothly, does not get stuck, although it requires quite a strength to push it down completely - seems like the spring is quite hard, I cannot close it completely by a bare finger, have to use something hard, e.g. a screwdriver. But probably I cannot affect that…
Try to sell your Immax products, to get some of the money back and then buy the Danfoss ones.
Has anyone in Australia bought the Danfoss Ally? If so where from?
I bought two of this and ordered two more.
I have it for a month maybe. Heating was on for a few days and they are working fine. I’m a little bit concerned about battery consumption. I use some common battery from store. I’m not sure how long batteries will they last during winter. One actuator battery is on 91 % and another is on 94 %.
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Thanks.
Can I ask what the rest of your heating is? How does this interact with the boiler?
For now, all my other radiators have manual valves. My plan is to install smart ones. I have buderus logomatic 2107. Its old buderus furnace without any smart technology. I dont plan to change it as this is high quality furnace made by buderus. Buderus can be programmed and heating can be fine tuned with this furnace but it doesnt have wifi or any other network connection.
It calculate needing heating power based on outside temperature and various variables that can be set on furnance. Everything is based on some mathematical algorithm made by buderus. But this is working very precise and with no to very little maintenance.
Right - sounds like you’re in a similar position to me. I have a Bosch boiler and mechanical valves. The bit I don’t understand is whether I need to do anything for the boiler to ensure it is generating enough (or not too much) heat as the valves open and close.
I’m also considering the Meross (I have their garage opener and am very happy).
Well its a bit much more complex than it seems. If you are living in a house, and I believe you do, than it deepens on material your house is build. My house is build with bricks and enforcement cement with insulation from the out side. As I was exploring this subject a bit, I found out that bricks and cement are materials that have high thermal mass, meaning that they can store and release heat and cold to the inner space.
Now, the problem with this is that you will have to heat your house with enough energy to keep walls and floors warm. If you dont, house will become very big fridge. That mean that american way, turn the heating off when I leave and turn in on before I come home wont work because they have houses with nearly no thermal mass. As I monitored my house temperature during this winter I concluded that inner house temperature will be adjusted by the thermal mass of the house. Too much heat or too high temperature will be lost very quickly. House natural temperature during winter is around 20 - 21 downstairs and 18 - 19 C upstairs in the bedrooms. With that temperature house has the lowest heat lost.
I did fine tuning on my buderus based on the data I collected from temperature sensors around the house. I also noticed that some parts of the house are warmer and some are colder that the average temperature. Usually south facing parts of the house are warmer than the north facing parts.
I want to install smart radiator valves so that I can do on the fly temperature tuning. The basic concept is to turn off or reduce heating in rooms that dont need it and increase heating in rooms that need more heat. I use buderus in reheating mode. That mean it will turn the heating on, heat the radiators and turn it of for some time. And the cycle will repeat. How often and with how much energy is determined by outdoor temperature and various furnace settings.
In theory, closing or reducing radiator valves around the house should result in less energy needing to keep the house on its optimal temperature. Of course furnace setting should also be adjusted.
Sorry for the long post, but its a bit hard to understand and to explain how house is working during winter time.
Thanks. That post really helps.
For context: 4 bedroom weatherboard house in
Australia. 14 panels throughout the house powered by a Bosch boiler ( https://www.reece.com.au/product/bosch-condenser-5000w-boiler-18kw-natural-gas-9503295). I also understand your American reference.
My motivations are similar to yours, but with an addition: my wife works shift work, and sometimes gets up at 3am. In that scenario I’d like to heat up the ensuite only, but leave the rest of the house cold until we all wake up closer to sunrise.
My understanding is that tuning the balance of temperature throughout the house I can probably ignore the boiler. But in order to heat the ensuite I’ll need the boiler on - does this mean I need to either ensure the boiler is separately programmed on, or do I need to also get some means of smart controlling my boiler.
I suspect the right thing for me to do is to first get back into the RF sniffing which I failed at last time because i bought a newer model Sonoff which I couldn’t make work.
I have buderus g234. Its 44 kwh gas power furnace that looks similar to this
This furnace has automation but it has to be set up on the furnace it self. You have a newer boiler. I dont know about your boiler but maybe it can have smart thermostat on it. My furnace cant be retrofitted with smart thermostat.
In my point of view you have basically two options. You can program your boiler to start heating in the middle of the night, program all radiator valves to be shut off except the one you need.It should consume much less energy to heat just one or two radiators.
Maybe you can install smart thermostat to your boiler which will be triggered by a radiator valve.
Those smart radiator valves shut be able to start boiler but they will need some smart thermostat that will fire up boiler.
Yep - I think you’re right. Thanks.
If my wife’s work was regular, then this would be easier. However she works irregular shift work, but loads her roster into her google calendar.
My plan is:
- Google calendar integration (easy, done)
- Read her calendar, deduce her wake-up time based on her work shift
- Set (yet to be purchased) smart valves to relevant positions
- Turn on boiler (yet to be solutioned)
My existing thermostat for the boiler uses RF to talk to the boiler - until I discovered this I thought I’d just put in an ecobee thermostat (or similar), but that relies on wires 
Indoor thermostat
Boiler controller
I suspect I’m better off heading down the RF path as it co-exists with what already works so I can “develop in production” safely.
Thanks for listening. It helps me to have a sounding board.
Cheers,
Dim
Hello @palir,
I have the same issue: I’m looking for several Giacomini adapters (to M30×1.5) and also an adapter M28×1.5. Could you please share where you found them?
Thanks a lot!
If you are interested to integrate your Buderus controller into HA, have a look here.
Tnx, I already have done this. I integrated it in ha and everything is working perfectly.