Drayton Wiser operating questions

[e9508686]

Couple more questions, do we think Drayton Wiser systems might go on sale when the temperature warms up? I would imagine demand for smart heating declines in the summer.

Secondly, how would someone write an application which interfaced with OpenTherm? Is there an API? Where is the documentation?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ian1182]

I think the last sale was around black Friday weekend. It may also go down in price for Amazon prime days.

As for opentherm interface. Take a look at

Drayton Wiser Home Assistant Integration

Hey all, thought its about time I contributed to the HA community. Ive recently moved to the Drayton Wiser Heating platform (from the Max!Cube stuff) and Ive written a Home Assistant Component . Its probably best described as “beta” and available here...

community.home-assistant.io

From what I can see formal documentation is lacking and they are reverse engineering the interface. Their project is far more than just opentherm.

 

[e9508686]

That looks interesting thanks but I was more talking about building an app which could control the boiler directly through Opentherm. So nothing related to Drayton Wiser. As far as I could quickly tell, that HA project is all about building an app which interfaces with the Drayton wiser products.

Do people not build mini smart hubs on things like raspberry pi and connect directly to the opentherm connection on the boiler?

 

[ian1182]

That looks interesting thanks but I was more talking about building an app which could control the boiler directly through Opentherm. So nothing related to Drayton Wiser. As far as I could quickly tell, that HA project is all about building an app which interfaces with the Drayton wiser products.

Do people not build mini smart hubs on things like raspberry pi and connect directly to the opentherm connection on the boiler?

I suspect there are some opentherm projects out there if you search.

 

[Mister Banks]

Bit of an update on my experiences as a new Wiser user. I think Wiser is going to be a keeper mainly for the control it gives me on how I heat my house and the even temperature levels I now have resulting in a more comfortable environment without any big temperature swings that I had with the old mechanical room thermostat. Not sure its saving me any money on energy bills.

Not everything is rosy though such as.............

TRV's are not very accurate measuring room temperature. They apparantly use an algorithm to estimate the temperature in the centre of the room but IME can report upto 3 degrees c high so a TRV reports 19c when the room is actually 16c. This varies room by room. The room thermostats are accurate so in a room where an accurate temperature is desired then use a room thermostat to control the TRV.

I am using the Wiser Heat app on both Android and IOS, both versions are 6.1.5. The Android version is slower to react to key presses than IOS but not annoyingly so. Both platforms have the same issues, the setting for heat source and relay type are missing since the previous version, the outdoor temperature reporting is usually wrong by up to 4 degrees c (I dont know where they get this info from) which is frustrating as I think the ECO mode relies on this for its operation. The app needs some enhancements to improve usability for example why does a single boost result in the app reporting the boost on a per room basis, so 5 rooms boosted together once is reported as 5 boosts. Sometimes when I select heat reports the selection does nothing and I have to shutdown the app and restart it. The Away Mode needs to have the ability to set a time frame after which it automatically turns off.

There have been reports online of Wiser hub WiFi dropouts but I have not experienced this issue yet. The good thing about Wiser is that it still operates 3ven if WiFi and/or Internet is down.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Yeah the app is definitely a bit clunky. One irritant- if it is Monday and you are editing a schedule for a different day it often drops you back into Monday.
I suspect it gets outside temperature from the same source as the freebie Android AccuWeather service, mine tallies exactly with the 'feels like' temp.

 

[Mister Banks]

Yeah the app is definitely a bit clunky. One irritant- if it is Monday and you are editing a schedule for a different day it often drops you back into Monday.
I suspect it gets outside temperature from the same source as the freebie Android AccuWeather service, mine tallies exactly with the 'feels like' temp.

I wish they did use the same source as AccuWeather as that is normally close to my actual temps whereas Wiser is nearly always wrong.

 

[Mister Banks]

Anyone else using Wiser and finding insights is not loading? I have also noticed that in settings the "Unlock Insights+" option is missing.
According to the Wiser status website everything is working as expected.

 

[ian1182]

Anyone else using Wiser and finding insights is not loading? I have also noticed that in settings the "Unlock Insights+" option is missing.
According to the Wiser status website everything is working as expected.

Insights is loading for me but at a snail like pace. Took about 5 minutes to respond

 

[Mister Banks]

Insights is loading for me but at a snail like pace. Took about 5 minutes to respond

Managed to get it to load but like you say its very slow. Is your insights+ missing in settings?

 

[ian1182]

No sign of insights+ in Wiser settings. That said, I'm not eligible as my miserable energy supplier refuses to repair or upgrade my faulty smart meter.

 

[Mister Banks]

No sign of insights+ in Wiser settings. That said, I'm not eligible as my miserable energy supplier refuses to repair or upgrade my faulty smart meter.

I'm eligible and I have been contemplating for a week or so whether to spend the £15 on the IHD, this evening I decided to go for it but the option has disappeared from the settings menu. It appeared briefly once but then dissappeared in front of my eyes! Hopefully everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

 

[Mister Banks]

Insights is back now and I have ordered the IHD for Insights+.

 

[Mister Banks]

I decided to get insights+ and have been using if for a couple of weeks. Insights+ tells me my recent energy consumption for the last 30 minutes, my total monthly spend to date, allows me to set budgets and after some learning time will predict my next 7 days heating costs. It seems to work well so far.

 

[Mister Banks]

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