I’m completely new to the Smart Home world and in the middle of deciding which thermostat to buy.
I’ve read a lot about the potential options and I feel like I have a decent picture of what’s potentially available. One thing that left me really confused is the topic of noise that TRVs produce. I’ve read a lot of conflicting information regarding this. Even when people talked about the same model the opinions completely conflicted with each other, ranging from “they’re almost silent/unnoticeable” to “they’re unbearably loud to the point where you can’t be in the same room with them”. I’m planning to also use them in the bedroom, hence why limited noise is a big topic for me.
Here’s a list of options I have looked into, but I’m completely open to any solution that might fit here. I’m from Europe if that changes anything availability-wise. Bear with me, I looked at a lot of options:
Sonoff TRVZB: apparently pretty loud, not sure how bearable and controllable that is through stuff like better thermostat etc. The low price and prevalence in the community seem like a big plus. Also, the newest firmware should make smooth ventil opening adjustments possible, I’m not sure if that helps with noise at all. Are there any other hacks to control the noise or are the built-in mechanics just too loud?
Aqara E1: I’ve read that they should be somewhat quieter than the Sonoff, but a few people stated otherwise. The pros of the Sonoff also apply here and if noise really is better with those I would definitely be willing to pay the extra price.
Aqara W600: mechanically speaking these seem to be exactly what I’m looking for, but apparently their firmware and HA integration seem extremely inconsistent. I’m not sure if it’s worth the risk or if the hassle won’t be worth it with them, especially with the higher price tag. They are also relatively new and seem to not have nearly as much community exposure as the prior 2. They also seem to not work great with external room temperature sensors. Any opinion on this TRV model?
Bosch Thermostat II (+M): build quality and noise level seem good, but some users reported that they don’t work great in HA with the Zigbee mode with the Bosch gateway. There seem quite a few inconsistencies and I’m also not sure if they work consistently with external sensors that aren’t Bosch, because these + Bosch sensors would probably be too expensive for me.
Danfoss Ally: They seem to be the only company that actually advertises their noise level, which is a very big plus for me. But I’ve read very mixed things about this model in HA, ranging from great to awful, so I’m unsure what to make of that. Also, community exposure seems small and I didn’t read a lot about using them with external sensors from other companies (again, their own sensors being rather expensive).
Homematic IP: build-wise they seem good and quiet, some of them even having a whisper mode. But using their proprietary standard would mean really high costs, especially because they don’t seem to work with sensors from other manufacturers.
AVM Fritz: I own a Fritz!Box but these seem to defeat the purpose of using HA. Build quality seems pretty good but I didn’t look to far into them tbh, correct me if I’m wrong here.
I’m mostly drawn to Zigbee due to the open standard, but if any alternative is just flat-out better here, I would be willing to bite the bullet.
If possible I would love to make configuration not overly complex, but if that’s necessary to limit noise, I’d be willing to dive deeper into that. Obviously if I could just use them with Z2H relatively out-of-the-box, that would be the dream scenario. But I don’t expect that to be the reality.
Any input here would greatly be appreciated. I’m really sorry for this giant wall of text.
I have deployed Danfoss Ally TRVs at my moms house and they are pretty quiet, but they come with a built in learning for how the heating should be done in that specific setting.
This can be nice if you use it, but annoying if you try to override it, like with HA controlling it directly.
In my own place I use Homematic IP devices and they are really well integrated into HA.
Homematic provide a CCU device, which is their version of a hub and might be a bit pricy, but they also provide a cheap USB radio stick, which, together with the HA RaspberryMatic addon, can work as an emulated CCU, and then it is suddenly rather cheap.
So not get the Telekom version. It is a crippled version in relation to HA compatibility.
With TRVs the important thing though is to keep the vavlve working smoothly and it is pretty cheap and easy to replace the pin on many radiators and that makes a bit difference in noise regardless of brand of TRV.
I recently replaced my Aqara E1 thermostats with Sonoff TRVZB and copared the noise. The noise of the E1 was acceptable and quite constant across radiators, slightly depending on the stiffness of valves. The Sonoffs are quieter on some radiators, but seem to resonate with others, making them noticeably louder. I guess that’s another reason for mixed reports, despite the subjective perception of loudness.
I replaced the E1 because of multiple weaknesses compared to the Sonoff:
breaks under high pressure on stiff valves
needs repairing and sometimes reconfiguration after battery change
unusable battery level reporting with rechargeables
I owned both Sonoff TRVZB and Tado TRV (the first gen).
I have 10x Sonoff TRVZB and they have bearable noise but noticable. As far as I know, Sonoff TRV control the TRV by completely turning it on or off, this makes the displacement fairly long and therefore the noise last long and noticable. They cannot be both connected to the Sonoff app and home assistant. I have to use HA app Z2M UI or building some UIs for basic setting adjustment and some of them are not very ituitive. I also failed to upgrade the TRV firmware in Z2M for some reasons.
As comparision, Tado TRV(the first gen) I owned even has louder noise when it tries to turn on and off completely. However, it offers to turn it on by step based on the temperature difference bewteen the target temperature and current temperature, and the noise becomes way less loud and not noticable at all because the valve does not move far at all. Therefore, instead of using the built-in temperature offset calibration feature (which makes a lot of noise as it tries to clear its calibration setting), I used an external temperature sensor to always apply the difference on top of the current tado TRV target temperature to make sure it once it opened, it always moves the smallest step. This is additional work in HA though. I have 16 of them for 5 years and I do not have any complain at all. They work in home assistant great via cloud integration in the past but recently they start to charge for API so I move to homekit integration. It is still working well for me for another year.
As long as you can connect TRV to home assistant, calibrating the offset by an external temperature won’t be a problem no matter if the device itself support such feature. You can always work around by home assistant, there are just unfortunately additional work.
Therefore, my recommendation here is to not only just the noise level but also to see if TRV offers to open in steps instead of always in fully open or closed position.
N.B. Sonoff TRV seems to support Valve opening degree (numeric) in Z2M which I haven’t used yet. There may be something we can play around to achieve the same functionality as moving in steps to produce less noise. But these are additional work.