Everyone has that at home these days, so why not talk about it too?
I have conducted the test again with TRVZB firmware ver 1.4.1 and can confirm that WITH BOOST ACTIVATED TRVZB DOES NOT OPEN TO THE DEFAULT VALUE OF 100%. It only opens to the % value as set in TRVZB Valve Opening (%). This may explain why users with Heat Pumps (I don’t have a Heat Pump) are experiencing problems.
You’re right. Maybe we’ll finally get a proper description of the purpose of each function implemented in the latest TRVZB firmware release. I haven’t found anything like that. Some options are obvious, but many of them are not easy to make sense of. For now it feels more like a quiz.
Besides, a general cleanup and the removal of those rather debug‑oriented entities wouldn’t hurt anyone.
They really need to improve on the documentation for software/ firmware releases, but that being said Sonoff products were originally designed for the DIY market so looks like it’s FIOY (Find It Out Yourself). We the Consumers are the testers.
It seems there’s a small mix‑up here. Sonoff does have a DIY heritage, that’s true, but TRVZB isn’t part of that world at all. It’s a consumer‑grade Zigbee device meant to compete with Aqara, Tuya, Eurotronic, etc., not something for hobbyists to flash and reverse‑engineer.
So expecting users to “FIOY” might make sense for the DIY line, but applying that logic to a fully commercial product is… let’s say, a bit optimistic. Devices in this category should come with proper documentation, stable firmware and predictable updates. Without treating customers acting as the QA department.
I don’t have a heat pump but looking at that Weather Compensation Curve it looks a very similar principle to a Gas Condensing Boiler. With Gas Condensing Boilers they run the circulation water at lower temperature that Non- Condensing Boilers (55 deg C v 60+ deg C). It means that for the same ability to warm rooms to a target temperature a heating system using a Condensing Boiler will need larger radiators and larger bore pipe work than a system using a Non- Condensing Boiler. It looks like a similar principle applies to a heating system using a Heat Pump. Radiators have a Delta Rating that gives their heating capabilities for different flow temperatures. When upgrading any heating source, Boiler, Heat Pump etc. the other components, radiators and pipework. of an existing heating system should be considered to establish if they up to the job. Systems that have radiators that have higher temperature delta value and microbore pipework can mean that a higher efficiency heat source has to be run at a much lower efficiency.
I totally agree with your observations and we as customers should not be having to act as their software ‘bash’ testers/ QA for products of this calibre.
We keep bouncing between different heating scenarios and heat sources, yet it struck me that no one has brought up using TRVZB in communal heating systems - the kind you see in Europe: i.e. over Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, or the Czech and Slovak regions. And considering that communal heating is standard across northern China, especially in cities like Beijing, the TRVZB firmware team should be more than familiar with this kind of setup. The existing “central heating” option in the NSPanel Pro only loosely fits this category.
Sure, you can wrestle it into working through settings alone, but I can’t help thinking it deserves its own dedicated profile.
I heard that gas boilers also have a heating curve. I already mentioned exactly what you said, that it also depends on how much heat the radiator can transfer. I still say that it is impossible for a heat pump to reach a room temperature of 35 degrees, even if it gives 60 degree water. Therefore, boost mode is currently unsuitable.
We found that District (Communal) Heating systems here in the UK seem to use just conventional TRV heads with some using ‘smart’ TRV heads that have a little screen on them and can be programmed or for a bit smarter with wi-fi and voice control the Saswell 801-DF or something similar. The TRVZB should also be suitable. just don’t need to use the Heating & Keeping Status.
There is a big difference between doing something and trying it in a controlled environment, or when the user tries it involuntarily. Which has all the possible combinations. Therefore, if it works for them, it may not work for us.
This is nothing, try to buy HikV***** technical support does not work and devices when they do not go straight to the trash. What HikV***** cost me nerve and rude words.
I have alarm system from them. AxPro turns off the sensors it wants whenever it wants, whenever it needs to guard the house. Technical support has not responded to this problem for 4 years. I am already at this stage that I will throw it away and throw it.
What good is a video doorbell if it can’t transmit video? Tech support ignores my tokens.
I’m already installing HikV***** and will get rid of all the devices this year.
I don’t think that you would want to get a room to 35 deg C and I’m certain that 35 deg C would not be achievable with a gas boiler unless the room was a small cupboard. I can see why they have chosen 35 deg C for their boost temperature as being a virtually unachievable temperature it ensures the valve is open and in ‘Heating’ status during the boost function. I do a similar thing in the summer and set all of my TRVZBs to 35 deg C (but not triggering the boiler) so that the valves are open and their washers do not stick on their seats. You could create scenes to have your own ‘Boost’ function set to realistic target temperatures. I have done this by creating node-red virtual ‘Boost’ switches (I’m running this system on iHost) that when switched ON set the TRVZB to a target temperature of eg 25 deg C for a defined time period. It can be triggered by Alexa by saying “Alexa Living Room Boost ON”- it works ok. But if using Alexa it just as easy to say “Alexa set Living Room to 25 degrees” and the TRVZB will be set to 25 deg C in Manual Thermostat Mode for an indefinite time. To counteract the possibility of the TRVZB being set at a high target temperature for an infinite period I have scenes (24 of them) that run at 59 minutes past each hour that set every system TRVZB to AUTO.
From this point of view, boost mode is correct.
If you have iHost it has an integral home security alarm system which with some additional components can be interfaced with Alarm Bells and security diallers, IKEA Vaalhorn sensors work very well with it. You can also use the sensor ‘Motion Detected’ outputs to influence the heating system to raise the TRVZB Target Temperature in rooms that have people moving around.
CENTRAL HEATING BLOCK SCHEMATIC redacted ver 9.pdf (140.2 KB)
Zigbee was recommended to me by a friend so I tried it and stayed with it. I am gradually changing HikV***** to zigbee sensors.
Sonoff has one big drawback and that is that when the alarm is triggered. It only comes with a vague notification.
I use a mixture of Zigbee and wi-fi devices. In the event of an alarm the dialler calls my and other nominated telephone numbers to alert. The interface to control the dialler is a Sonoff Wi-Fi basic switch modified to give clean volt free relay contacts. This means that the eWeLink app also gives alarm notifications to any device logged into it. The eWeLink is much more robust for notifications than iHost CAST and they also have a paid for service that can send notification emails. Having an alarm dialler also means that an alert will be received even if the system is not connected to the Internet.
It can be seen that the heat pump was turned on 2 times and each time it was turned on it heated for 4 hours to raise the temperature in the room by one degree. Energy consumption 8.8kWh. Here in boost mode it is a problem to set the time and target temperature so that it is effective.
Today it was heating for 3 hours and the consumption was 5.48kWh, so it also had to raise the temperature by one degree.
It would be best if the user could set the target temperature and time limit in boost mode. Then it would be universal, depending on what they need.
With iHost you can create a custom pseudo Boost with scenes for each TRVZB. In the screenshots the CAST ’ LOUNGE BOOST’ button is a node-red virtual switch which when tapped turns ON and runs the LOUNGE BOOST auto scene which triggers the LOUNGE BOOST tap to run scene- it is this scene which in this case sets the TRVZB to Manual with a target temperature of 25 deg C for 20 minutes after which it toggles the virtual switch to OFF and sets the TRVZB back to AUTO. You can set the temperature and duration variables to suite your requirements. This has the advantage that you can do a pseudo boost from CAST (which is something you can’t do with the Sonoff real Boost.)
And it was all supposed to go so well 