I’m new to HA and am looking to get it up and running in my new house soon. I’m still learning so please be gentle!
I’m about to fit a new boiler and could use some advice. I currently have an ancient one, there is no thermostat, and no TRV’s for individual control on the radiators.
My goal is to have HA running on a raspberry pi mounted on the wall, with a floor plan to control everything. I would like individual remote control / scheduling of the temperature in each room if possible. I would also like to know whether it is possible to get away without the expense/effort of installing a thermostat, if I could instead click a smart TRV onto every radiator in the house and control them with my phone/pi (I gather this is not without its problems?)
What would be the best system to achieve this? I have looked at Tado, Honeywell, Netatmo etc and they all look good. I am looking at a Worcester Bosch boiler, and am based in the UK. A steer towards systems that users on here have successfully got up and running would be very helpful.
I use Tado thermostat, extension kit and currently 1 TRV but plan to add more. I have been really pleased with it. It integrates well into HA. I believe you can use the TRV’s without a thermostat but you may still need the extension kit.
I have the Tado TRV’s running without the Tado thermostat, as mentioned above by @EGO01 - you just need the extension kit for them to work. I’ve had them for maybe 9 months or so now and I would recommend them to anyone who was looking for room by room control.
The only thing you will find with the TRV’s is the temp might not be 100% accurate, when your boiler is off they will read the ambient temp of the room. But when your boiler is on, they will start to pick up the temp from the rad & pipes. This can be fixed by using the offset that is built into the Tado app.
I use a Sonoff TH16 to turn the boiler on/off, which is also a Worcester Bosch.
Hi, I have installed the tado V3 smart trv’s in My home on all but bathroom radiators and it does what you require. Each TRV can demand heat from the boiler so you only heat which rooms you require. You will need to install the wireless extension kit with this system but won’t need to buy a separate smart thermostat. You can schedule the temperature of each room for any time of the day and use the geofencing to turn off the heating when you are out. Manual adjustment of the heating can be done via the app,or by voice control with alexa/google and best of all Can also be configured via home assistant. My usage case was that kids bedrooms were always too hot and living room never warm enough. Now we have the temperature in each room set up exactly right making a more comfortable house without wasteful energy usage. If your interested in tado Take some pictures of your trv’s And boiler and send them to tado support to see if this will work with your system before committing to buying.
Plus points:
Easy to use
Good customer support
Geofencing works great
Reliable system
Multi zone control
Can save on heating bills
Bad points:
Reliant on internet connection for any changes ( although there is a manual override to switch boiler on constant if you have an internet outage or reverts to schedule heat settings)
all zwave, so local, and all working fine. Coming up to the third winter. I’ve developed the logic somewhat over this time, but overall it’s not been touched much since install. Recommended.
@gpbenton@EGO01@Galvinized83 I’ve been tempted by the Tado radiator valves, I currently have a Nest exposed to HA but would like more control over individual rooms with winter coming.
Are you able to control the temperature of the valves from HA?
Is the Tado sensor value that calculates the temperature when the radiator is on exposed to HA? Not a Biggie if it’s not as I have Xiaomi temp sensors in each room
Are you able to share a screenshot of on of you GUIs showing control of the Tado valves?
You can control the temperature of the valves by overring the smart schedule. I have several automations that turn them down when windows or doors are open I also have an override automation which switches the radiator on in the daytime if the tv is switched on.
I think it does. I can’t honestly remember since with the smart schedule in the tado app itself and the automations I have I have rarely had to mess with it.
I can for my heating definitely so I am sure it’s possible for the trv’s
I think the extension kit is required if you have more than 1 heating zone. This allows tado trv’s to call for heat from the boiler unlike ordinary trv’s. However since you have nest which is controlling the boiler I don’t think the extension kit will work well if at all.
I am sure they will work fine without it just without call for heat function.
Wouldn’t the starter kit that includes and internet bridge be enough for this setup?
That’s the same as what I have = no extension kit.
iirc, the extension kit is only required in cases when you have the Tado Thermostat & want/need that thermostat in a remote location (not wired into the boiler as a switch).
As mention by @EGO01 if you have Nest, then effectively that will be the switch to turn the boiler on/off.
While not an off the shelf kit I am in the process of speccing out a heating system for my house based on the following:
a smart thermostat controllable via HA to simply turn the boiler on and off (This is the last piece of the puzzle for me - I need something simple, wireless, and attractive to tick all the WAF boxes. While also being controllable from HA, not just readable).
A Thermal Actuator (used for underfloor heating, but handily has the same thread as existing TRV valves)
A sonoff to control the Thermal actuator with a DHT22 temp/humidity sensor connected to it and obviously wired to a 3pin plug going into a standard wall socket.
Each Valve should cost around £15-£20 so a lot more manageable per radiator, especially as most of my rooms have two radiators.
This way I can set up a schedule on the standard thermostat (to keep the wife happy, she wants to be able to over-ride it via the standard looking thermostat incase her phone has died ) and can set timers on HA to control the sonoffs based on if we are usually in rooms or not.
The radiators can also turn themselves off when the room has hit the required temp for the room (via the sonoff).
However, we also dry clothes on the radiators, so I can set up a automation on HA so that when I press the standard sonoff button it will “boost” the heating (turn on for 2hrs and set the temp to something it will never hit, like 25c) for that radiator, that way, as we load up the radiators in each room we can press the button and move onto the next.
You can also integrate window sensors easy enough.
If Anyone has suggestions on thermostats, let me know
If I had my own way I’d just wire a Sonoff into the boiler, and mount a tablet on the wall displaying the Lovelace Nest Thermostat card…
I used the tado component to integrate to home assistant. I only have a few automations for the heating as it generally pretty self sufficient. Automations mostly relate to turning heating/rads off or down if certain windows or doors are open.
I use the temperature offset in the tado app to manage some of the differences measured by the TRV. This generally works OK but does require some tweaking as the offset applies when the radiator is off as well as on. Therefore I have to take that into account when setting target off temps.
I see no reason why you couldn’t use an external temperature sensor and home assistant to manually control the radiator, but you would lose some of the benefits like early start and other weather compensations.
Try the temp offset if you haven’t already. Like I said it takes a bit of tweaking to get it right. I usually set it and monitor for a few days as it takes a while for their servers to learn how the house responds and settles down, then adjust by only a degree or so untill you get the balance right.
have a look at the GeniusHub system - I have that in my home as the 1st project on HA that I pursued (I bought a kit as my wife would kill me if the heating didn’t work!). We are now looking at a 2nd house and I am thinking of replicating some of the functions using home assistant - the main reason for this is the temp/motion sensors in the geniushub solution eat batteries and give no warning of impending or actual failure. I’m therefore thinking of using some that will accept an external power supply but provide the same function.
It uses a local controller - that continues to work on local wifi without Internet - and doesn’t (allegedly) copy data into the cloud (something that was a large part of the original reason I chose it). It does allow remote control (so I can boost the heating as I travel towards home) and builds it’s own time plans based on the level of activity seen by the sensors - and it detects open doors and external weather as inputs. I reckon my complex system still paid for itself in the first 2 and a bit winters.
TBH - if the GeniusHub team had added some options on the sensor list I would probably have bought another system from them - the current house has 8 zones, 12 try’s and 7 motion /temp sensors and works well - apart from the battery issue.
) and can set timers on HA to control the sonoffs based on if we are usually in rooms or not.