What’s up guys,
I’ve been looking for a decent system to control my heating in my home and after some googling I learned about Z-wave and their ability to do a whole variety of things including temperature control. Some of the products that really drew my attention were the Danfoss Living Connect and the Fibaro Home Center 2. I found them for a reasonable price at a Swedish webstore along with more information about smart homes there.
http://www.interaktivahem.se/p/control- ... ter-2.html
http://www.interaktivahem.se/p/thermost ... ostat.html
I was wondering if anyone here had any experiences with smart home systems and what they use to control their home?
Temperature Control
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martynwendon
- Starting Member
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:31 pm
Re: Temperature Control
HC2 is a great Z-Wave controller, it has probably one of the nicest looking UIs out there and understandably has the best compatibility with Fibaro devices. But, it comes at quite a price when compared to something like a MiCasaVerde Vera (Lite or 3).
In my opinion, the Vera is a better all round controller as it can be expanded to include other technologies through the use of plugins - I use a Vera myself and have it integrated with my Visonic alarm panel, SqueezeBox and Sonos music players, LightwaveRF and other 433mhz RF devices using the RFXCom transceiver.
If you're looking at mainly controlling your heating, then the Danfoss or Stellaz radiator thermostats work well with Vera (the Stellaz isn't compatible with HC2). The Danfoss look great and have local display and control but they don't report the measured temperature back to the controller. The Stellaz are pretty ugly and don't have local display or control but do report the measured temperature back to the controller.
One other thing that you would need to consider is a way to "interlock" the boiler. Something like the Secure Thermostat and Boiler Receiver works well for this. Using HC2 or Vera you can then create schedules and scenes that will turn the boiler on / off depending on demand from the radiators.
There's also a dedicated heating system from a company called Heat Genius that's based on Z-Wave with a dedicated controller / software. This uses Danfoss and Secure devices along with Philio motion / temperature sensors to determine room occupancy patterns so that the heating can be controlled automagically. This looks like a good system, but it might be limited as far as expansion is concerned as I believe that the support for non-heating related devices is not there currently. The plus point though is the dedicated heating focused software, although it's nothing that you can't achieve yourself using a Vera or HC2.
Hope that helps!
In my opinion, the Vera is a better all round controller as it can be expanded to include other technologies through the use of plugins - I use a Vera myself and have it integrated with my Visonic alarm panel, SqueezeBox and Sonos music players, LightwaveRF and other 433mhz RF devices using the RFXCom transceiver.
If you're looking at mainly controlling your heating, then the Danfoss or Stellaz radiator thermostats work well with Vera (the Stellaz isn't compatible with HC2). The Danfoss look great and have local display and control but they don't report the measured temperature back to the controller. The Stellaz are pretty ugly and don't have local display or control but do report the measured temperature back to the controller.
One other thing that you would need to consider is a way to "interlock" the boiler. Something like the Secure Thermostat and Boiler Receiver works well for this. Using HC2 or Vera you can then create schedules and scenes that will turn the boiler on / off depending on demand from the radiators.
There's also a dedicated heating system from a company called Heat Genius that's based on Z-Wave with a dedicated controller / software. This uses Danfoss and Secure devices along with Philio motion / temperature sensors to determine room occupancy patterns so that the heating can be controlled automagically. This looks like a good system, but it might be limited as far as expansion is concerned as I believe that the support for non-heating related devices is not there currently. The plus point though is the dedicated heating focused software, although it's nothing that you can't achieve yourself using a Vera or HC2.
Hope that helps!
Martyn Wendon
Vesternet
Vesternet
Re: Temperature Control
I have now placed an order at Interactive Homes.
I did some googling and they seem to have good prices and service.
I have purchased the following:
1 Fibaro Home Center 2
10 Fibaro Dimmers
7 Danfoss Living Connect
4 Aeon Labs 4 in 1 Multisensors
I'm going to build a couple of scenes to cut down on my energy use.
I saw that you could control Sonos with Fibaro aswell, how well do you feel it works with Vera?
I did some googling and they seem to have good prices and service.
I have purchased the following:
1 Fibaro Home Center 2
10 Fibaro Dimmers
7 Danfoss Living Connect
4 Aeon Labs 4 in 1 Multisensors
I'm going to build a couple of scenes to cut down on my energy use.
I saw that you could control Sonos with Fibaro aswell, how well do you feel it works with Vera?