Drayton Wiser operating questions

[ian1182]

The latest app version (v6.1.6) hasn’t fixed any issues but apparently the updates within it are not for UK systems.

I have had issues with one of the TRV’s and room thermostats intermittently going offline, a Wiser smart plug positioned between the hubr and the affected devices has fixed the issue.

I am experimenting with ECO mode, I had some great info from Schneider support on how ECO works and some good advice within this thread from @ian1182

Initially I had an incorrect view on how ECO worked. My current understanding is the system will switch to eco mode if it determines the setpoint temperature will be maintained until the end of the scheduled window. For example if the setpoint is 21C until 22:30 and current room temp is 21.5C you may well see eco cut in around 22:00. That said the criteria must have some variability, last night eco started at 21:35 when the actual room temp was 20.9C (i.e. 0.1 below setpoint). At 22:30 the temp had dropped to 20.6C so perhaps that's within the "rules".

Looking back in February eco mode has only enabled 5 times with the cutoff period varying from 10 to 85 minutes.

Comfort mode is much more predictable and enables every morning generally 2 hours prior to raise the room temp by 3C.

 

[Mister Banks]

I have been using ECO mode for a few weeks and have seen it is active many times however it appears that v6.1.5 and v6.1.6 of the Wiser app has a bug and doesn’t record any eco savings. Some good info from Schneider below following my request for clarity.

“The primary function of Eco Mode is turn the boiler off early, and allow thermal inertia to carry the system up to the scheduled set-point. For example, if a room is climbing to 20c, the boiler may shut off at 18c and then the remaining heat in the system will carry it up to set-point. These small periods of time where the boiler switches off will gradually collate over time and generate energy expenditure savings.

How does eco mode work?
Eco mode will activate at the end of a heating period, if the room temperature is near the setpoint and if the algorithm predicts that the temperature will not drop to more than 1 degree below setpoint due to the heat still present in the house (for example in the walls, in radiators). In these ‘eco’ conditions the algorithm tells the boiler to turn off by lowering the current setpoint earlier than scheduled.
Note, that eco mode does not know if your boiler is on or off – all it looks at is the setpoint, current room temperature and intelligently calculated thermal properties of the house (how fast the house heats up, how long it takes for it to cool down etc). This means that eco mode can activate (icon will turn green) even when the boiler is off i.e. when the room temperature is way above setpoint.

How we calculate savings generated by Eco Mode?
To calculate savings generated by eco mode we look at the room temperature during activated eco mode – if the temperature is below, or near the setpoint, it means that the boiler would still be on if it was not for the Eco Mode, as your Wiser would keep calling for heat trying to maintain the temperature. We measure the time such situation was lasting, and calculate how much gas, in kWh, you would have used during this time, and knowing your tariff, we convert it to pounds saved. If, however, during activated Eco Mode, the room temperature was way above setpoint, we do not count it as savings as your boiler would not have been on anyway (meaning without activated eco mode the boiler would still be off).”

 

[Mister Banks]

For the second time this week I have a solid red light on my hubr. According to the user manual this means that the hubr has either lost the connection to cloud services or is doing a firmware update. However on both occasions whilst the light is solid red I have been unable to connect the app to the hubr. If the red light is due to losing the cloud connection then I should still be able to connect the app to the hub and if the red light is due to a firmware upgrade then why hasn't it upgraded? I also note from my router that the hubr loses its WiFi connection. Has anyone else seen this happening? Whilst this is going on the heating still works.

 

[DP]

Thank you. I am aware of the temp schedule rather than on/off, my bad for the poor wording. Shame only 6 transitions are available, I think tado can be configured to change every 30mins, overkill I know but 6 may be a couple short for what i wanted.

But is 30 minute remapping really necessary. I have 4 temperature changes on the Evohome with some channels using 5 time slots. Not had the urge to go for 6.

 

[Mister Banks]

But is 30 minute remapping really necessary. I have 4 temperature changes on the Evohome with some channels using 5 time slots. Not had the urge to go for 6.

I am experimenting with 6 set points in one of our rooms to try and get the ECO mode to work a bit better. At the moment I am finding ECO shuts off the heating a bit too aggressively.

 

[ian1182]

But is 30 minute remapping really necessary. I have 4 temperature changes on the Evohome with some channels using 5 time slots. Not had the urge to go for 6.

The Wiser system permits 8 changes per day per room to a granularity of 1 minute. There is nothing preventing you setting a 1 minute period if you wished, not that it would make much sense of course. I'd agree that gaps of 30 minutes or less between scheduled changes is not really necessary but it's not a system limitation.

 

[ian1182]

For the second time this week I have a solid red light on my hubr. According to the user manual this means that the hubr has either lost the connection to cloud services or is doing a firmware update. However on both occasions whilst the light is solid red I have been unable to connect the app to the hubr. If the red light is due to losing the cloud connection then I should still be able to connect the app to the hub and if the red light is due to a firmware upgrade then why hasn't it upgraded? I also note from my router that the hubr loses its WiFi connection. Has anyone else seen this happening? Whilst this is going on the heating still works.

Looking on the Home Assistant forum this is an ongoing problem. It's more prevalent if you have mesh wifi but not exclusively. I've seen the problem on a few occasions over the past couple of months. Generally it clears itself within 30-60 minutes but if not going in & out of setup should resolve. Press setup button, wait 10 second and press again to leave setup.

I think those running automation checking the hub on a frequent basis are more aware of the issue than the normal user who may not even spot the red light. There does seem to be a new firmware under test to address the problem but no eta. The last update by Jamie from Drayton was at the end of January.

 

[Mister Banks]

Looking on the Home Assistant forum this is an ongoing problem. It's more prevalent if you have mesh wifi but not exclusively. I've seen the problem on a few occasions over the past couple of months. Generally it clears itself within 30-60 minutes but if not going in & out of setup should resolve. Press setup button, wait 10 second and press again to leave setup.

I think those running automation checking the hub on a frequent basis are more aware of the issue than the normal user who may not even spot the red light. There does seem to be a new firmware under test to address the problem but no eta. The last update by Jamie from Drayton was at the end of January.

I have seen the reports and thought the issue was caused by the polling rate of HA but I guess that theory is inaccurate.

Schneider support tell me there is an update coming “soon” for the hub and app.

 

[ian1182]

Based on the HA forum I suspect the polling rate does contribute but it is not the only cause. Hopefully the new firmware will fix the problem.

 

[Mister Banks]

More fun and games last night with one of my TRV's. I've noticed it making a horrible grating sound when opening or closing a couple of times but last night it went on for about 15-20seconds so I thought I would recalibrate the TRV. This failed and the TRV went into a random flashing lights dance whilst making an awful grating sound like before. I tried to recalibrate a few more times with the same result and then the TRV lost signal. I decided on a factory reset which took a few attempts until it eventually worked. All seemed OK this morning but I reported the issue to Scheinder support who looked at the logs and couldn't see any issues! This evening the grating sound has happened a couple of times again. I wish the TRV's were quieter but I do wonder if the valve bodies are a contributing factor.

 

[Mister Banks]

I have v6.2.0 of the Wiser Home app on Android and IOS devices. This is the latest version released recently. The app generally works well but I have the following observations. Has anyone else spotted these issues?

1. In setup/devices/hub/Hubr the relay type setting is no longer available. This has been missing for the last 3 app versions.

2. In setup/devices/appliances the smart plug firmware version is blank.

3. Within Insights+ the "Smart Savings" section never updates. It didn't update in v6.1.5 either.

4. Within Insights+ the "How the weather affects your heating" section displays the last 30 days of heating activity but only displays the last 21 days of outside temperature. I had this issue in v6.1.5 too.

5. Even though the system time in the app is correct, the graphs in Insights+ appear to be half an hour to an hour behind. In v6.1.5 they weren't as far behind to update.

Its disappointing that the app seems to be going backwards!

 

[ian1182]

I have v6.2.0 of the Wiser Home app on Android and IOS devices. This is the latest version released recently. The app generally works well but I have the following observations. Has anyone else spotted these issues?

1. In setup/devices/hub/Hubr the relay type setting is no longer available. This has been missing for the last 3 app versions.

2. In setup/devices/appliances the smart plug firmware version is blank.

3. Within Insights+ the "Smart Savings" section never updates. It didn't update in v6.1.5 either.

4. Within Insights+ the "How the weather affects your heating" section displays the last 30 days of heating activity but only displays the last 21 days of outside temperature. I had this issue in v6.1.5 too.

5. Even though the system time in the app is correct, the graphs in Insights+ appear to be half an hour to an hour behind. In v6.1.5 they weren't as far behind to update.

Its disappointing that the app seems to be going backwards!

1. I can see a "Control Type" field and can change it via the app. That said the value is not shown as you enter the device details page. However it's only really applicable when opentherm is in use and the Schneider implementation seems to be a work in progress.

2. agreed

cannot comment on 3-5 as I don't have insights+

 

[Mister Banks]

1. I can see a "Control Type" field and can change it via the app. That said the value is not shown as you enter the device details page. However it's only really applicable when opentherm is in use and the Schneider implementation seems to be a work in progress.

2. agreed

cannot comment on 3-5 as I don't have insights+

I can see che Control type ok, it was fixed in v6.2.0, but the relay type has been missing for a while now. There were only three options; relay, opentherm and on/off load compensation. The different types are explained below......

Relay - On/Off Load compensation algorithm executed with mechanical switch (called relay).

OpenTherm - Modulation algorithm executed with OpenTherm interface (no mechanical switches)

ON/OFF load compensation - On/Off Load compensation algorithm executed with OpenTherm interface (no mechanical switches)

Both OpenTherm and ON/OFF load compensation require OpenTherm compatibility and connection.

Relay should be used when you do not have an OpenTherm boiler.

The additional option was made available to allow OpenTherm users to chose whether they would like to use a modulation algorithm or ON/OFF load compensation.

 

[ian1182]

I can see che Control type ok, it was fixed in v6.2.0, but the relay type has been missing for a while now. There were only three options; relay, opentherm and on/off load compensation. The different types are explained below......

Relay - On/Off Load compensation algorithm executed with mechanical switch (called relay).

OpenTherm - Modulation algorithm executed with OpenTherm interface (no mechanical switches)

ON/OFF load compensation - On/Off Load compensation algorithm executed with OpenTherm interface (no mechanical switches)

Both OpenTherm and ON/OFF load compensation require OpenTherm compatibility and connection.

Relay should be used when you do not have an OpenTherm boiler.

The additional option was made available to allow OpenTherm users to chose whether they would like to use a modulation algorithm or ON/OFF load compensation.

Unless I'm missing something. The "Control Type" field is where you select "Relay", "OpenTherm" or "On/Off load compensation". Those are the 3 choices I see

 

[Mister Banks]

Unless I'm missing something. The "Control Type" field is where you select "Relay", "OpenTherm" or "On/Off load compensation". Those are the 3 choices I see

Sorry, I'm getting mixed up! It is called control type not relay type. So you can see all the options? They have been missing in the app for quite a while for me and others.