Simple heating control

Flows
1

I have a Devolo thermostat, devolo mains switch and I have a simple flow. When temperature goes below target temperature turn on the switch. Obviously there’s a heater attached!

It’s just not reliable… right now it’s 15 degrees and the switch is off.

Now sometimes it works but I think it’s only working if I heat the room to above the target and let it cool to below. Then it turns on. Other times is just doesn’t bother. I do have an override button that I can press which bumps the target to 21 degrees and switches on the switch so I know it’s not a zwave issue. I have another flow which monitors when the actual temp is above target and that is also unreliable, sometimes it never switches off.

I also use Homey Heating Scheduler and have tested the flow using that and have the same problem.

Does anyone use this method in a flow or have any suggestions?

Thanks

Graham

2

Share your flows please.

  • If you are using this:
    If…
    sensor X - Temperature became lower than 15

The flow only gets triggered again, if the measured temp first got above 15 degrees.
Quite like a thermostat.

  • The alternative triggers every time the temp changes and it is below 15 / got below 15:
    If…
    sensor X - The temperature changed
    And…
    logics card [is less than] - local tag (of Sensor X) [temperature] 15

Note: this flow also triggers when the temp changes from 12 to 14.5 degrees…

3

Thanks Peter_Kawa,

Yes my flow is as you guessed, I suspected it was to do with the fact that it would only trip on the temperature tripping the set point although it will always trip that at some point it seemed to just give up after a few days. I was as if it missed the fact the temp had changed. I have just checked and there’s a 29% TX error on the power device (whilst others in the room don’t have that), ironic really as it’s the only mains powered device in there and I would have expected it to be better. I have told it to heal it’s connection.

I’ll give that flow change a try.

As an aside, does anyone know how to get and update the firmware on Devolo devices? They seem to have shut down their smart home division now.

Thanks

Graham

4

YW, Graham.

You can check if a flow gets triggered or not / if a triggered flow fired the action cards or not / if a device doesn’t respond while the action card was fired, by adding log cards / timeline notifications / push messages in both THEN and, if an AND condition card was used, THEN ELSE parts of a flow.

It sounds like you have to add an additional powered router device between Homey and this one.

5

Thanks again, I hadn’t seen the logging cards, now I know they exist I’ll take a look at adding them to the flows that I have trouble with. Still getting used to Homey! I’ve been in IT for a long time but home automation is not in my skill set (yet).

I’m not sure about needing a bridge for the power device, seems odd that the battery devices are fine in the same room as I would expect them to have a worse aerial arrangement unless these devolo sockets are poorly designed. The difficulty is that this is in a brick outbuilding about 3 metres away from the main house (there is a Devolo socket just next to the wall of the house). I’m not sure if there is any way to adequately serve this area since there doesn’t seem to be a concept of having ethernet connected bridges (I do have a cat6 feed and a decent switch in the outbuilding).

6

Idk the range of the Devolo sockets. The Fibaro ones should go over 10m with 1 wall in between.
The wireless stuff is trial-and-error sometimes with different models and brands.

Hint: via https://homeybackup.web.app/login/
you can add Papertrails logcards to all flows in one go.