There are a few companies doing this.

Spline in Thalwil is one.
But, judging by the sort of houses it has been implemented in, it's going to be at the high-end of the price range.

While I have you geeks all here. Anyone know of a lower power board that can run linux? I'm after something that can be battery powered and has a current draw in the mA (or better still uA) range.

I assume you mean without wifi as that is really power-hungry.

I'm not sure you'll find anything -definitely nothing in the uA range.

The only way you'll do that is have a microcontroller in sleep mode which wakes up periodically, boots the linux machine (which then does it's stuff) and then turns it off again until the next time.

You can get off-the-shelf linux servers with a couple of days battery life.

What are you trying to accomplish?

A PI Zero runs at ca. 80mA if it isn't doing much; you could probably even reduce that if you drop the clock speed.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blogs/j...-pi-zero-power

So even off a bunch of decent rechargeable AA cells in series to get the voltage, you'd get about a day (24 hours).

If you ran it off a LiIon power pack it could easily go several days.

Stuff I did this afternoon - apart from the temp and humidity sensors which are on order.

I've set rules so if the temp or humidity drop below preset levels, we get a warning - and a thumbs down.

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Hello!

I'd like to automate my underfloor heating, but don't quite understand how I can connect a smart home system to the heating valves. I have what seems to be quite a standard heating system with multiple manifolds and 220V actuators like the one on the attached image. Is there any way to control these actuators from any of the usual smart home systems like Nest or similar? I imagine there should be some kind of controller that can drive these actuators. Did anyone here manage to set up a thermostat to control a heating system like this?
Thanks.

Depending on how many are grouped together you can decide to place a board on there that you connect to wifi or cabled to the network and hook up a bunch of 5V/12V relays on that, or use IP controlled relays directly.

Assuming you want zoned heating, you need one thermostat for each zone and as Edwin wrote, a relay board with one relay for each valve (or Zone).

If the temperature drops in a zone, the thermostat opens the valve for that zone and that zone warms up.

But, that's probably what you have already so what exactly are you trying to achieve over and above that (or how do you think you can make it smarter?)

does anyone have experience with remote control of heating?
we have a holiday home and would like to, for example, switch on the heating in the morning so that it is nicely warm in the evening?
or perhaps even doing it the night before so that I benefit from the reduced night tariff.

this is for an electrical heating.

Professionally fitted or DIY?

Professionally, here's a a company that allows you to control your heating via smart phone.
650CHF + annual subscription.

Most of these sort of companies charge a yearly subscription.

How often? Do you have internet? Do you when leaving already know when you come back?

If you have internet: http://www.instructables.com/id/Ardu...ith-Teleduino/

And connect a relay on it which replaces (or parallel with) the thermostat.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Cont...-Arduino-with/

(one of many methods which in the end are very equal.)

Google will easily tell you how to hook up a thermostat and other things if wanted.

Thanks! Good to know it's possible. A control board like like Arduino mentioned above should be able to do this then?

One thing still confuses me - the actuators I see online seem to be on/off only, without gradual valve position. Is it really so, or am I missing something here?
IP controlled relays sound like an easier solution. Any advice on which ones are compatible with Swiss heating systems, and can be controlled from an app or anything with some interface?

My current setup doesn't work properly, some actuators are broken and, anyway, the current controls aren't real thermostats but just simple dials. I would like to install a system where I can set a temperature in each of the 6 zones, ideally even with some simple scheduler for weekday/daytime/nighttime. Wireless system would be best; it would be quite a hassle to pull cables everywhere. What are the preferred solutions people use here?

The room thermostats are ON/OFF (with a bi-metallic strip or electronics) but with hysteresis to avoid continuous on/off/on cycling.

These connect the underfloor heating valve actuators to the supply voltage which heats up a plug of wax in the valve which then melts and opens the valve against a spring allowing more warm water to flow - thus heating the room.

So it's an ON/OFF mechanism but the melting wax causes the valve head to raise and lower slowly.

They are thermostats - bi-metallic ones.

You can do that with your current thermostats if you have one already for each zone.


Most underfloor heating works best when just left alone. It takes hours for any change to filter up through the floor substrate and actually affect room temperature (unlike room radiators where the air temperature change can be felt after a few minutes).

So, it's a moot point whether 'automating' it all is a waste of time and money.

Benefits though are being able to turn it off when you are away, turning off zones when not in use for long periods (such as in a guest room), being able to turn it back on before you return after a holiday and others too.

In our old place, once adjusted, I never touched the thermostats in years. It was minenergie though and heating costs were very low.

Yes, I understand. However, I do need to do something, because my heating doesn't work properly and it's way too hot in the apartment. I need to replace most of the actuators anyway, so it's a good time to explore more modern options. Also, I only have 3 thermostats for 6 zones; it would be nice to be able to control the temperature for all 6 zones independently.

Don't go into changing the temp several times a day with floorheating, system is way to slow for such. By the time the floor might be cooled down you already start heating again, and thus use more energy than keeping it at a constant rate.

Everything is possible, you can install more thermostats, bring 'em all to an aquino board and program/set whatever you please. You can also buy 6 on wifi and have an iPad on the wall for control.

As for the zones, replace your actuators with new ones and have a relayboard next to them that connects over wifi or cabled (cabled is always better)

If it is wise to do it like you want is another discussion.

Ok, I don't argue, I see that I probably don't need to mess with the temperature settings. However, I do need to be able to set the heating once to a comfortable temperature, preferably with a separate thermostat for each zone (currently, some zones are too hot, and some zones without thermostats are too cold). A set of independent wifi actuators connected each to its own wireless thermostat would probably be the simplest solution, but I didn't find any online. Would you recommend anything?

I would use normal actuators and have them behind a relay board (also very likely cheaper), hook the relay board on ethernet, have some wifi thermostats, and (I have no experience with those) there are app's to control all of this. And set alarms in the app for the temperature or connection loss, you don't want in winter things to freeze over when things go down.