Small comparison of TRV’s based on hands-on testing; Aqara, Eurotronic and Danfoss (Z-wave).
I am disappointed by all 3 brands (or possibly Homey PRO integration) and the lack of quality in TRV’s available (at least in Sweden);
I read the HP Best Buy guide, but only found these 3 choices available (in Sweden).
Only 1 of 3 was acceptable, the other 2 brands were returned;
Aqara Smart Radiator Thermostat e1 - best look, features, connection worked fine BUT it was too noisy and woke us at night time, plus HP app was buggy and gave null pointer exception sometimes - returned!
Eurotronic Comet Z-Wave - worthless, could not connect to Homey Pro - returned!
Danfoss Ally Thermostat (Z-Wave). It connected quite well to Homey PRO after some initial glitches. It works, or at least partly;
1000 ms timeout every time I change temperature (even though I bought Aeotec Z-Wave extender)
Often the ”set” temperature (manually or flow based) is ignored (maybe due to Z-Wave com problems?)
I have the impression manufacturers are backing away from Z-Wave, at least for TRVs, which is what I am looking for. Many of the TRVs on the Z-Wave product list seem no longer made or otherwise are unavailable.
I am about to start from scratch with a new HA project to sort out my heating. I want a network that is rock solid and won’t become a lifelong hobby. I spent my Christmas holidays reading everything I could find on various forums and concluded Z-Wave was more stable than Zigbee. But now I am finding it hard to find Z-Wave devices and keep coming across horror stories about Z-Wave controller firmware being buggy and bricked USB - Z-Wave sticks.
I am not yet fully committed to Z-Wave as I have not yet invested in the 35 TRVs plus other stuff I need. I know this community has lots of experience, some of which acquired the hard way, no doubt. I’d be grateful for any opinions on this.
I should have said: I live in Belgium in the Kempen and my house has all brick internal walls and concrete floors and is quite big. So I thought Z-Wave would be best due t its wall penetration. Is that correct?
I’ve got loads of zwave lights and they work well under zwave. I’m also having the same issues with TRVs though. I’ve been using Aeotec/Eurotronic Spirit TRVs, and they work very well - once you work around their firmware bugs. (I’ve got a special flow that works well). However, I need some more and they have been discontinued and are tricky to find.
It doesn’t look like there is much on the market :(.
I’ve just bought a batch of second hand Danfoss devices (the ones with three buttons), but they don’t appear to send the temperature back to Homey, so are pretty useless as it is not possible to signal the heating relay to switch on when the radiator calls for heat :(.
