Good evening
This is my first post here. I am new to Sonoff and at a pretty basic level of implementing home automation.
I have a holiday let, which I wish to put some heating controls in. There are 8 electric oil radiators and no central thermostat.
I’ve ordered and installed an NS Panel, a zigbee bridge pro, zigbee temperature/ humidity sensor and 8 zbmini switches.
I’ve managed to set everything up, pair all of the devices and link to the EWeLink app.
I chose zigbee because the internet can be a bit patchy and I’m hoping that as long as I can get a reasonable signal to the zigbee bridge then hopefully the mesh will work ok by itself
I’ve also set up some scenes to switch on / off all of the radiators at certain times and up to a maximum temperature.
It doesn’t seem that the zigbee devices fully integrate with NS Panel. For example, I don’t appear to have a group function available which is a bit of a pain because I’ve had to enter in each rad detail for each of the scenes.
What I would like to be able to do is add a boost function scene which would show on the NS Panel andallow all of the radiators to switch on for eg an hour. But I can’t seem to see how to set a time for a manual scene, only for individual devices.
It would also be great to be able to add an advance function for the next heating cycle.
And ideally have a way of getting the NS panel to work more like a thermostat and have temp increase decrease buttons.
But for now, the key part is a boost function
Hope this makes sense
I’m hoping to eventually move over to ifttt or HA but for now, I really hope I can get this system working
Thanks
Steve
Can I understand it this way? you want to control all switches/radiators with one tap, and set a timer for them all?
Hello Yitie
Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do. I’ve changed from the NSPanel to NSPanel Pro to use the thermostat function which appears to be better enabled in the pro panel.
Unfortunately the thermostat will only control one device directly so I’ve set it up as follows
Thermostat function on NS panel pro. Create schedule for heating control using zigbee temperature and humidity device. Use the schedule to control the lounge radiator (same room as nspanel)
Create 2 new scenes which switch on all other radiators when lounge radiator is on and all off when lounge radiator is off
This should give me basic control
But I would like our guests to be able to push a button on NS panel which turns all radiators on for 1 hour, but without affecting the thermostat schedule.
How can I do this? I can’t see how to use inching within a smart scene.
Also, is it possible to group zigbee devices because at the moment i have to add them all individually
Thanks
Steve
Hi Yitie
Any update on this?
I can set up a timer for a device, which runs for the amount of time I set.
But the control for this appears to be either enabled or disabled.
So, I could create a scene whereby a push trigger would activate the device and let it run for the amount of time
But, I also am using that same device in a number of other automation scenes, specifically to switch on and off with temperature conditions.
Therefore, it appears that when used in these scenes, the device will also switch off again, which I don’t want.
What needs to happen is that the timer control for the device is available to be set up within scenes, rather than as a standalone function.
Then, I could create a scene, which when triggered, the device will switch on for the amount specificed by a timer, but only when activated via that scene, and not when other scenes are activating the device
Does this make sense, and can it be implemented?
My specific need, as you know is to set up a “heating boost” manual scene which can be on the NSPanel screen and allow our guests to activate a heating boost for an hour, but without affecting the background heating schedule.
Most modern thermostats have this sort of functionality and so it’s important that it’s also available on NSPanel / Pro / Ewelink
Thanks
Steve