Light and smart plug tiles fade out when they are set to Off, which makes it easy to immediately see that the device is inactive. In contrast, the thermostat tile relies on the dot color to indicate states such as inactive, heat, or cool.
In the Matter standard, TRVs are defined as thermostats, and this definition explicitly includes an “Off” mode. I believe most Zigbee and Z-Wave TRVs also support an Off state.
It would significantly improve visibility and overall user experience if the thermostat tile faded out when the device is set to Off, just like other device types do. Most other hubs I’m familiar with already reflect the Off state in this way.
Yes, and now it is getting interesting: standardization of ideas, functions and concepts
A TRV is a Thermostatic Radiator Valve? That is different thermostat then the one on the wall. My EvoHome radiator thermostats HR92 don’t have a on/off switch. And the central control panel of Evohome which controls among others the week program is usually also called thermostat. So there the confusion is already starting.
you could try Advanced Virtual Device to prototype what you want.
I agree. The Matter thermostat device type is a unified standard that covers both TRVs and wall thermostats. TRVs, for example, usually don’t support cooling.
Unlike Zigbee, the Matter standard strictly defines each feature and exactly where it is represented in the data model, which enables true interoperability — there is very little room for interpretation of core capabilities. At the same time, Matter does not require every device to expose all possible features.
From a developer perspective (and in this case on Homey’s side), at least for Matter devices it should therefore be quite straightforward to check whether an explicit off state is exposed and, if so, adapt the tile behavior accordingly.
Well, for an outsider implementation of his idea is always simple. However you eighter have to convince the developer, do it yourself or pay some/a lot money to realise your product improvement
I’ve worked in software development for many years (outside of Java and Node.js), and in the end programming principles are largely the same across languages. So yes, it would require some work and of course I don’t know how Homey’s internal libraries are structured, but assuming they’re reasonably well designed, this shouldn’t be a large or particularly complex change.
Beyond the technical side, it’s also about UI consistency. Tiles fading out when a device is set to OFF is already a common pattern across Homey, just not for thermostats. This would be a good opportunity to align that behavior.
In any case, the point here isn’t whether it’s complicated or time-consuming for Homey to implement. It’s simply an idea and a suggestion — for Homey and for the community to agree with or not.
These are Bosch TRV (Bosch Thermostat II [+M] - Matter over Thread), but my Eve are exactly the same. In this screenshot one is heating and the other not, but all these TRV have OFF/HEAT settings. Setting them to off does not change the tile visually. The tiles should fade as the bulbs in the screenshot.
Just out of curiousity: I red the manual and could not find on/off. Is it on the TRV itself? My EvoHome controller has more modes, including off. So I can imagine your on/off has been seen as “mode”, as discussed earlier in this thread (in the original location). I wonder how Matter would represent this.
When I switch to off, the set temperature is set and shown as 15 degrees.
Another discussion point could be to present the actual or the set temperature.
Matter defines a set of standard operating modes for thermostats. The core ones are typically OFF and HEAT, and depending on the device there may also be COOL or other modes. What Matter does is strictly define how these modes are represented in the data model to ensure interoperability — but it doesn’t force a device to expose all possible modes.
That’s why my Bosch and Eve TRVs only expose OFF and HEAT, which makes sense for radiator valves.
I believe BOOST or similar functions are covered by optional features in the Matter model, but none of my thermostats currently expose them.
Note: I paired my TRV by choosing ‘install without app’ so there is no app behind that may add features or modes.
