I don’t know if the Homey developers are listing to this threat, but if you do so, you should definitely take note of this suggestion, as you could be a first mover among competitors offer such intelligence:
My z-wave Danfoss LC13 radiator thermostats have, like all other IoT devices I presume, the Wakeup interval function found under “Advanced” settings. I.e: How frequent the thermostats should make a call to the Homey controller and ask for any changes and updates + send settings and battery status. Logically, the more often they wake up, the more battery power they consume.
Each of my 17 thermostats eat a pair of Duracell AA batteries every 6 months! And the more devices I add to my setup, the more often I need to change batteries and react on low-level warnings. With, say 50 devices, this is a serious issue (my wife gets annoyed with me for going all in on IoT).
And, here goes my point:
During the summer I only, in very rare cases, turn the heating on. Furthermore, during the weekdays, we are may not be home between 08 and 14, and for this period there is no reason to wake up the thermostats more often than every 5-10 minutes.
However, during the winter, I would like the radiators to wake up much more frequently. Like every single minute or so. But it only makes sense when we are home! All other calls are just wasted energy!
The same goes for e.g. movement sensors. How often should they wake up and communicate to the controller, unless there is activity registered? During the summer time the dimmer relays are not even needed, and there is no reason to wake up often during the night neither.
Why not make a battery-saving flow for advanced users, found under “advanced settings?”
If: "There has been no activity/ interaction with the heaters for the past hour
And/or: The time frame being from 08-16 monday to friday
And: No activity (movement) in the house for 1 hour
*Then set the wakeup frequency to every 10 minutes.
An advanced flow-function for battery-saving modes would save the environment SO MANY resources, and would make it much easier maintaining an intelligent house, when not having to worry about battery statuses all the time. As well as this also has an impact on the private economy…
Am I the first person on this planet finding such functionality needed?
