Adding Smart Control (via Home Assistant) to central heating and hot water control

[Whiffle]

Hi there.

I have a regular Y Plan heating system that.

I have a regular timer controller that turns the heating on and off on a timer.

The central heating is set to run continuously as that is connected to a programmable thermostat that we use to turn the temperature up and down at set times.

I was toying with the idea of replacing the timer with a 2-channel Zigbee relay. Can anyone perhaps recommend anything in particular?

I was hoping to get the possible following benefits:

1. Turn off the heating when it senses that both mobile phones have left the home.
2. Ability to pre-heat water when away from the home.
3. If someone wants a bath in the middle of the day - our timer has an "extra hour" button but this is often not enough. With HomeAssistant, we could set up a button for any length of time.
4. Ability to set an away scene, so hot water is not heated if it knows that you are away for the weekend.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

 

[413x]

Not sure about home assistant set up but with tado (and others) I do exactly that.

Detects when away from home and as you get closer to home it gradually raises the stats so that when you get home it's warm.
Doesn't turn heating off if I go for a walk.
But we are both 100 miles away heating will be set to "away" then as get closer and closer it gets closer to its target.

We also have a tank and I pop that on couple of hours before a bath (for example)

So I'm sure HA can be set up exactly same.

 

[Whiffle]

Thank you.

I was thinking of going the whole hog and getting a Zigbee smart thermostat but I am pretty sure that just using a two channel relay with my existing thermostat will probably be enough.

I won't have the sophistication of changing the temperature but having it on or off will definitely be better than what I have.

The only issue I might have is if everyone is out and the temperature gets very low - might have to get a separate Zigbee temperature sensor to ensure that the thermostat does not get disconnected below a certain temperature.

 

[Coran]

The basic Drayton Wiser system does everything you describe too. You just need the basic kit with a single thermostat.

It has good Home Assistant support see GitHub page. Using HA or the Wiser app, you can boost hot water and/or heating (e.g. for 30mins, 1h, 2h etc.). You can set it to away mode and define the min temperature (defaults to 12C I think).