Re: xAP enabling Honeywell heating controller

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The heating system is an ongoing project here. I keep looking at
what's
available and what I already have and in the end always come around to
thinking a 'do it myself' approach is probably going to be the way to
go.  I know there's a lot of  things to learn here and Neil is a guru on
the subject. Actually I approached Sensible Heat when they were
exhibiting at the NEC and although I thought there would be some
difficult issues  with my particular  setup (large rambling property
with solid 3 foot stone interior walls) it was agreed they would come
and do a site survey - but they never followed up on this so I lost
interest.   At that stage the external automation control interface was
not quite ready and they didn't have any RF repeaters so everything had
to be within range.  It looked a promising system though with lots of
possibilities.

I have since zoned a lot of my rooms and individually control these with
room thermostats / timers but I haven't gone much further than that -
some of the zones are controlled by xAP Netiom outputs .  I still would
like to play with proportional control  in some form of loop feedback
system - although again I'm told the practicalities of this may not reap
the apparent benefits (loop latency). I'd like to benefit more from
optimum start in a couple of the rooms too.  This whole topic interests
me though and I would love to reduce my gas bill . In fact when I typed
the current electricity and gas figures into uSwitch the other day it
complained they weren't 'residential' consumptions and I was a business
user .... and so I had to reduce them to see the best supplier.  I fell
for joining PowerGens 'business' tariff a couple of years back and gas
was indeed about 10% cheaper but they then added full VAT on the bills,
and insisted this was mandatory on a business tariff  - despite their
sales person assuring me that as a private user I would still enjoy the
lower VAT rate

I think it would be useful to think through exactly what you might want
the xAP part of the integration to do and what (if any) dependencies you
introduce there.  I have tried to ensure that all the fundamental
functions of the house can work autonomously from any HA things I layer
on top, eg lighting, TV, heating  operate even if the HA PC has died.
Some extra bits may not happen like lights coming on as you enter a room
or the hot water circulatory system stopping when you leave the home.
If the HA fails whilst I'm away I need everything to still work
reasonably. If you've ever had to deliver those lines ' Sorry,  I'll fix
it when I get back but in the meantime you'll have to sit in darkness
and watch Coronation Street without sound' then you know where that
leads... . Here I'm also trying to go 'embedded' and do away with PC's
wherever possible except for the very fancy stuff (emails , TV listings
etc).  In the past PC's are usually where my problems have arisen from.

Happy to be an interested party here but time is my obstacle at the
moment (so type shorter messages I hear you all say). So many things on
the todo list...

K


Paul Gale wrote:
>
> I?ve been speaking to Neil Ball (from UKHA_D) about their Honeywell
> Hometronic system for my loft conversion. The Honeywell system look
> really good and can have wireless radiator controllers along with
> supporting a wide range of HVAC options. Neil?s company (sensibleheat)
> have developed an interface to the Honeywell controller with web and
> other interface options.
>
> http://www.sensibleheat.co.uk/
>
> I?m keen to get this in and maybe xAP enable it. From the protocol
> docs I?ve seen, it looks fairly simple (although I?ve not gone into it
> in depth).
>
> Is anyone interested in looking at this? I think Neil would be happy
> to provide loan kit or maybe discounted kit etc??? Anyone planning to
> replace or supplement their heating system?
>
> Alternatively, I may be interested in paying someone to develop
something?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paul.
>
> _