Drayton Wiser install Expansion
In part 1 we set up the 3 channel controller and room thermostats to replace our conventional versions. That satisfied a number of our selection criteria for a smart home heating system but we still had some issues outstanding, including zoning individual rooms. This is when the Wiser Radiator valves play a key role.
Picture: Each box includes Valve, 2 AA batteries and 2 adapters
Zoning In
The cost of the base components for Wiser are competitive compared to many other products, but the cost of the radiator valves is where we see the biggest difference. The table below illustrates a basic cost comparison of different smart heating control brands based on implementing a similar systems to the one in our home. This puts the Wiser solution value into stark contrast as it’s between £500 to £700 lower than the other currently market offerings.
Base Kit
Room stats (2 off)
Radiator valves (18 off)
Celkom
Difference to Wiser
Notes
Drayton Wiser
£200
Included in base kit
£630
£35ea
£830
3 channel controller
Honeywell Evo Home
£250+£95
£56
£1,116
£62ea
£1,573
£631
£95 for hot water control
Heat Genius
£295
£70
£70ea
£1,080
£60ea
£1,445
£615
Danfoss
£100+£80
£136
£68ea
£1,080
£60ea
£1,396
£566
£100 for z- wave hub £80 for boiler switch
LightwaveRF
£130+£80
£160
£80ea
£990
£55ea
£1,380
£550
£80 for boiler switch
Fibaro
£255
Nie je k dispozícií
£1,296
£72ea
£1,551
£721
Home automation hub
Tado
£199
£109
£1,062
£59ea
£1,370
£540
Netamo
Nevyžaduje sa
£300
£150ea
£1,260
£70ea
£1,560
£730
Energenie MiHome
£70+£30
£180
£90ea
£900
£50ea
£1,180
£350
Home automation hub
Notes: prices found at time of writing and are for diy installation. This is not a direct functionality comparison, rather an indicative cost comparison. Some systems will offer more functionality than others i.e. zone control of valves, geofencing, HomeKit support, display on radiator valves etc. The user needs to identify their own specific needs and determine the value. We have not compared costs to Nest or Hive as their own room / radiator control is unavailable at this time.
Radiator Valve Install
We purchased 2 of the Wiser TRV’s from Screwfix for £34.99 each as a trial before committing ourselves to a full rollout.
There are two rooms where we suffer wide temperature variations, the kitchen / family room and the lounge. once the oil fired cooking range has been on for a while in the kitchen the room quickly heats up. due to the slow response of the traditional TRV the room often overheats before getting down to a comfortable temperature later in the evening. We would be fitting a Wiser stat on the vertical radiator in this room.
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Náhľad
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The lounge wall area has approximately 60% glass which faces south. On a sunny day it can be like a greenhouse if the blinds are not pulled, even on a bright day there is a degree of solar heating. Whilst the lounge has low-e double glazing and 300mm of loft insulation it still looses a lot of heat in the evening. We have found traditional TRVs just don’t cut it. The lounge has three radiators, we would be fitting the highest capacity radiator with a Wiser stat.
First impression of the stat is that it looks similar to a regular TRV. There are no buttons or displays on the valve so they differ from 90% of smart valves on the market. Actuation of the valve is achieved by a simple twisting action of the top of the valve, plus will increase the temperature and minus will decrease it. The system will either increase or decrease the temperature by 2 degrees for 1 hour.
Fitting the stats was straightforward. There’s no instruction leaflet included but there are some points printed on the inner flap of the box so don’t thrown the packaging away just yet. The process for adding a radiator thermostat is:
01. remove the existing TRV. This Is secured by the knurled locking ring. Pushing down on the TRV body takes some of the pressure off the locking ring. This will expose the valve pin and the threads to screw on the adapter, in our case a M30 thread. This is the most common type and an adapter is supplied in the box for it and the Danfoss type. contact tech support if these do not fit as more adapters may be available.
02. fit the appropriate adapter ring, in our case the M30 threaded adapter.
03. open the Wiser app and go to settings and then rooms and Devices. We were creating new rooms and adding new devices. obviously if you have already created a room then the following sequence will change.
04. tap on add devices and update the number of radiator thermostats you want to add and then hit Next. This was a familiar process after adding two room stats.
05. At this point we created the new room names and assigned them to the channel on the hub we wanted them to control. We added the kitchen and the Lounge. The channel assigning step may not be needed if you have a single channel controller. Tapping next in the app takes to to the next screen advising to fit the batteries to the TRV’s.
06. remove the battery cover on the thermostat body by pushing the tab on the base and pulling the cover away from the body.
07. Insert the two AA batteries. There are no obvious markings in the battery compartment for battery orientation but a closer look and you will see a plus and a minus symbol punched out of the battery tabs. Insert the batteries.
08. once the batteries are inserted you may hear the motor running, we think this is to ensure the actuator is fully retracted. then the three LED lights will flash. Red under the plus symbol, blue under the negative symbol and the centre will flash orange and green.
09. next rotate the top of the thermostat in the plus direction to initiate connection to the ZigBee network, the center LED will flash green. The LED will turn solid green once the device has connected to the network. We had to do this a couple of times with one of the devices, we don’t know why as there were no specific error messages.
10. The next step is to screw the valve onto the adapter. once screwed on the valve top should be twisted to the minus symbol for 5 seconds. This will initiate the calibration process where the actuator learns the travel distance of the valve pin. We did find the valve LED’s did not align to the front of the valve when tight so we loosened the locking ring, repositioned and tightened the locking ring. We found the entire valve body twisted if the valve is not secured tightly. We cannot help but think there could be a tendency for the valve head to loosen over time after repeated twisting. If it does, there is a temptation to put some thread locking fluid between the valve and the adapter ring to secure it.
11. That’s it, the radiator thermostat appears in the room on the app. similar to the room thermostats in rooms & devices you can see the battery strength and signal strength.
After adding the two thermostats we went about tailoring the schedules for the two rooms. Our experience in the 10 days since we installed them is the temperature between the rooms is much more consistent than with conventional TRV’s. When in action theAkčný ovládač TRV emituje mechanický zvuk bzučania, keď poháňa kolík ventilu nahor a nadol. Zistili sme, že tento hluk sa mierne líši v tónovom a objeme v závislosti od toho, na ktorý chladič bol namontovaný. Väčšinou sa jeho operácia nepovšimla, ale v spálni by sa mohla líšiť. Porovnal som to s inteligentným TRV Z-Wave, ktorý sme namontovali a boli porovnateľné v objeme.
Nastavenie Alexa
To bolo niečo, na čo sme sa tešili. Mali sme málo skúseností s Alexou, takže by nám to pomohlo pochopiť praktickú aplikáciu. Tu je základný proces, ktorý sme sledovali:
Nainštalovala aplikáciu Amazon Echo na iPhone
Hľadal múdrejšie teplo v sekcii zručností a umožnil ju
Prepojené s naším draytonským múdrším účtom
Hľadal zariadenia a to je do značnej miery
V priebehu niekoľkých minút s nami Alexa hovorila, bolo to také jednoduché. Po jasných príkazoch sa rýchlo nasledovali jasné odpovede:
Alexa Aká teplota je v salóniku? – „Je to 18 stupňov v salóniku“
Alexa zvýši teplotu v salóniku na 20 stupňov – „Zvýšil som teplotu“
To je celkom skvelá funkčnosť. Koľko použijeme túto funkciu, je ešte potrebné vidieť, ale fungovalo to priamo z krabice. Budeme experimentovať s Alexou, aby sme zistili, či ju dokážeme naučiť nové príkazy – „Alexa je tu zima“ – „Dobre, vykurovanie v spoločenskej miestnosti som na 22 stupňov“.
Zoznam rastúcich želaní
Pri hľadaní aplikácie v obchode s aplikáciami iOS sme zistili, že Wiser je značka, ktorú používa Schneider Electric na mnohých platformách od domácej automatizácie, správy energie a riadenia osvetlenia. Dúfajme, že tu vo Veľkej Británii uvidíme rozšírenie ekologického systému. Ak bude predstavený s podobným trhovým vedúcim cenám ako Drayton Wear, potom veľa konkurentov bude mať na rukách bitku.
V časti 1 sme zostavili zoznam želaní niektorých funkcií, ktoré by sme chceli vidieť, a v časti 2 Drayton láskavo odpovedal s množstvom užitočných informácií.
Teraz s niekoľkými ďalšími skúsenosťami musíme pridať niekoľko ďalších položiek. Ako sme diskutovali v našom predchádzajúcom článku, nie sú to problémy so systémom, ale vylepšenia, ktoré niektorí zákazníci môžu považovať za užitočné a potrebujeme, aby sme vývojový tím zaneprázdnil!
Pri zvýšení zóny tlačidlo Boost v aplikácii sa zmení na zelenú, bolo by dobré, keby sa tento zmenil na časovač odpočítavania, aby ste videli, koľko času zostáva na podporu.
Pridajte podporu pre nosenie, tj Apple Watch. Rýchly pohyb zápästia vám povie teplotu a poskytne vám možnosť zistiť, kedy sa vykuruje ďalej a možnosť zvýšiť.
Zmeňte alebo zmeniť a doplniť ikonu sily signálu, aby ste ukázali percentuálnu silu signálu – viac o tomto návrhu v nasledujúcej časti.
V „režime preč“ poskytnite možnosť nastaviť dátum a čas „som späť“, takže si nemusíte pamätať na zapnutie kúrenia, keď sa vrátite z cesty – geofencing to tiež môže vyriešiť.
Do niektorých z týchto užitočných zdrojov pridajte odkaz na stránku ponuky nastavenia. Aj keď ide o intuitívny produkt a nastavenie je v aplikácii dobre vedené, existujú niektoré jemnosti, ktoré sa naučíte iba z čítania podrobných sprievodcov.
Schopnosť vidieť, ako dlho sa vykuruje. Súbor denníka alebo lepšie grafické zobrazenie.
Možnosť, ako stáť vplyv na prejdenie do režimu ECO. Získajte systém na porovnanie časovania kotla Eco Mode vs konvenčné načasovanie. To by používateľom poskytlo náznak „úspor“.
Schopnosť vyladiť prenosovú silu zariadení, takže ak je termostat na slabom mieste, môžete sa rozhodnúť dať mu väčšiu energiu, samozrejme pochopenie výdrže batérie v dôsledku toho klesne.
Schopnosť zariadiť miestnosti alebo zóny v hierarchických úrovniach. V súčasnosti sa na domovskej stránke objavujú miestnosti v poradí, v akom ich pridáte. Bolo by užitočné mať možnosť ich objednať logickým spôsobom. Príklad Organizácie:
Dom – všetky izby všetky zóny
Dolu – obývacie izby
Kuchyňa
Obývať sa
Štúdium
Jedáleň
Na poschodí – spálne
Hlavná spálňa
Detská spálňa