Alexa turning on Hive heating or hot water randomly out of schedule

[Mysterae_]

Has anyone with an Alexa device and a Hive heating system noticed any random heating or hot water events occurring out of their programmed Hive schedule?

I'd been having some random calls for hot water out of the schedule and have been checking my system over, thinking it was a wiring fault on a zone valve (stuck contact) or whatever, but I've not found an issue.

I was discussing this with a colleague at work and he tells me that his friend was having similar issues and with them being away from home frequently, their house was being heated unnecessarily. They contacted Hive and when they looked at the logs it appears the calls for heat were coming from Alexa. The solution was to remove the skill from Alexa so it could no longer address the Hive system.

I've not called Hive myself so don't know if it was the cause of my problem but I have removed the Alexa skill anyway as we very rarely used that function anyway.

This is a bit anecdotal I'm sure you'll agree but I thought it worth sharing. If you have both a Hive system and an Alexa device with the Hive skill loaded watch your heating/hot water system for unscheduled calls. With the current cost of energy it's something we could do without.

 

[Relentless81]

Alexa linked to Hive and no issues here

 

[Mysterae_]

I re-enabled the Alexa skill for the Hive to see if I'd still get any issues and it looks like Hive has done it again, this time turning on the upstairs heating randomly. The upstairs Hive thermostat is/was set to "Off" with 7c being the default for frost protection.

When my other half noticed the boiler coming on she checked the Hive app and said it was set to "Manual" and a temperature target of 30c !. You can see the trace history below where the boiler came on around 5pm and ran for 12 minutes, which is when she turned it off via the app.

 

[ci_newman]

I actually have the opposite problem, it seems periodically Alexa actually turns off my hot water. We usually have it on a schedule, but from time to time it moves into the "off" setting and I only discover it when we run out of hot water and my shower is cold.

My guess is that Alexa has misunderstood a command to control something else (e.g. a light) and turned off the hot water instead. I haven't removed the whole Hive Skill because we do use it for handling lights etc, but I have disabled the Hot Water device in Alexa.

 

[d_brennen]

Imagine when these things are driving for us... "Alexa, why am I at the Zoo?"

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Frost protection should be around 16C IMO!

 

[Mysterae_]

Frost protection should be around 16C IMO!

I thought frost protection should be set at 5C?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I thought frost protection should be set at 5C?

It depends how long you want to spend reheating your house I guess. If you maintain some heat in the thermal mass then it’ll heat up quicker

 

[Mysterae_]

At the moment the heating is technically switched off but with the Hive it defaults to 7C as it's frost protection measure. We never let the house get that cold though!

 

[Mysterae_]

Came home tonight and upstairs was roasting, damn Hive had set the temperature for the upstairs to 32C. The downstairs zone and heating were unchanged.

It's not Alexa doing this, it's a bug with the Hive and has happened in the past, article from Feb 2016 - apologies for the Daily Fail link - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...hit-glitch-sends-users-homes-soaring-32C.html

Going to be calling Hive tomorrow to see what they say, prepared to be fobbed off as these companies usually do. This will be costing a fortune in heating oil.

 

[Mysterae_]

I spoke to Hive on their live chat today, they checked the logs and gave a few ideas on how to remedy the situation but at no point did they say it was a known bug, I'd been hacked or that it had anything to do with Alexa despite telling them that I had a Echo Show 8. They couldn't determine what had called for the heating to be on and for it to be set to 32C but could see that it occurred.

The conversation was particularly steered towards other wifi devices causing interference, such as wireless mice, baby monitors and Sonos wireless speakers either of which I don't have. They did see that the wireless signal strength was low between the hub and the zone receivers and then set about selling me a Hive signal booster or smart plug. Interestingly they did mention that the smart plugs double up as signal boosters so I might try that.

 

[NickK]

At the moment the heating is technically switched off but with the Hive it defaults to 7C as it's frost protection measure. We never let the house get that cold though!

That also depends on your boiler. Ours has a normal temperature settings but the frost protection setting is separate and sits at 5degC. The boiler itself also has it's own settings for frost protection irrespective of the controller normal settings - it will start circulating the water then as it gets colder it will start heating. Given the boiler is in the roof on the gable wall and the controller is in the living room that makes more sense. Unless you have Alexa monitoring every room (and attic) then it's sort of guesstimating on the safe side at 7 degC.
We have the controller base station in the old airing cupboard and central to the house, so same signal regardless on which room it's in. The base station to boiler control is wired.

 

[Mysterae_]

That's a good point @NickK, I'm not sure if the oil boiler has internal frost protection, I'll have to check. The other boiler which is a biomass type (logs) definitely has no frost protection as it can't fuel and light itself . Frost protection is quite important as both boilers are in the garage which can get quite cold in the winter.

I'm currently making up a list and buying bits for the central heating system to make it more efficient so if the oil boiler doesn't have internal frost protection I'll add it myself with a pipe thermostat and a little change to the wiring circuit, thanks for the idea!