[Solved] Eurotronic spirit z-wave battery consumption

[mm148881]

Hello everyone,
I have read that batteries in the Eurotronic spirit z-wave radiator thermostat should be lasting at least 6 months of normal usage. The problem is that my thermostat battery (I have only one as I have been testing it in the last month) after a month is already at 30 %, in the same period a Popp Danfoss thermostat has batteries at 80 %. I am wondering if there is a particular setting for energy saving. I have the following setting:


2. LCD Timeout:
5 (sec) (actual: 5)

3. Backlight:
Default: Backlight enabled
4. Battery Report:
Default: Send once a day
5. Temperature Report Threshold:
5 (0.1°C) (actual: 5)

6. Valve Opening Percentage Report:
10 (actual: 10)

7. Open Window Detection:
Default: Medium sensibility

8. Measured Temperature Offset:
21 (actual: 21)

The Eurotronic seems to have no settings for wake-up periods, like in the Popp Danfoss. Apparently, the Eurotronic thermostat is never asleep.

Thank you for any help

[Domoberry]

Hi,
I can provide my experience for reference. I'm using two Eurotronics ZWave+ controllers. They are on a timer program. They are installed mid June with the supplied batteries.
If I check the battery status via setup / devices for the activated devices (I have for each thermostat 2 of the 3 device active in the UI: 'Thermostat mode' and 'Setpoint'), each of these have a battery status (with mouse-over):

• Thermostat A - Mode: 100%
• Thermostat A - Setpoint: 95%
• Thermostat B - Mode: 85%
• Thermostat B - Setpoint: 85

What surprises me is that the battery levels for thermostat A are not identical.
Both Thermostat A and B are used similarly, so not clear why there is a difference. Thermostat B is a bit further away from the Zwave controller.
These are the settings in my case:
2. LCD Timeout: 0
3. Backlight: Backlight enabled
4. Battery Report: Send once a day
5. Temperature Report Threshold: 1 (=0.1°C)
6. Valve Opening Percentage Report: 1
7. Open Window Detection: Medium sensibility
8. Measured Temperature Offset: 0

[mm148881]

Hi,
Thank you for the reply. Could you tell me how many months of actual usage? That is with heating on. In my case the thermostat is in the room next to the controller. That is there is a wall in between them(just dry wall), they are at about 7 m from each other. I am controlling it programmatically with some script in blocky. Could this make a difference? As far as I understand, through the script the controller is communicating with the thermostat every minute. I see this in the log.

[Domoberry]

I installed them mid June. Not much heating in summer, but as the thermostats are controlled with the default timer from the Domoticz UI, each of them has at least 4 changes every day.
I have understood that most energy is on average used by transmissions by the thermostats.
Looking at Domoticz UI, the thermostat related devices regularly turn 'red', which afaik indicates some longer time without communication. As mentioned, the thermostats are contacted 4 times a days for a new setting, and I assume they send back some confirmation. Furthermore, my setting (yours as well btw) force the thermostat to (also?) send a temperature update with a change of minimally 0.1C. In short: in my case communication is certainly well below once every minute.
I would consider 'once per minute 24/7' too much for a battery powered device. Would it be possible in Blocky to contact the thermostat only when there is a change? Further power saving would be to set the temperature threshold higher to have less frequent updates.
And, having noted that the thermostat furthest away from the controller seems to drain more battery power, I have added a Zwave repeater near that thermostat. In the network topology I can see that it is now able to connect via that repeater. I can let you in a few months if that helps...
I'm sure there are experts on the forum who can correct (perhaps confirm ) the above assumptions.

[mm148881]

I modified the script because I realized that it was calling setPoint at every cycle, if time was in certain windows. Now it will call the thermostat only 5 times a day. Maybe this was at the origin of the consumption problem, although I used a similar script for the Danfoss radiator thermostat without consumption problems. Thanks anyway for the hint.

[mm148881]

After this modification, I still see in the log a reference to Eurotronic device once every minute. I don't know where that comes from! For instance, from the log:

2019-11-04 10:58:12.668 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Eco)
2019-11-04 10:58:56.762 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Bed1)
2019-11-04 10:59:05.058 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Eco)
2019-11-04 11:00:02.590 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Bed1)
2019-11-04 11:00:15.085 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Eco)
2019-11-04 11:00:59.722 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Bed1)
2019-11-04 11:01:08.064 (now Zwave) Thermostat (Heat Eco)

[knielen]

Better post your script.

[mm148881]

Hi,

Just to conclude this thread, I figured out a few days ago that the problem came from the polling interval of the controller stick. This interval was set to 60 s (is this the default ?) and I enabled polling for the Eurotronic thermostat. Anyway, I am now using a longer polling interval (30') and everything is ok now, at least as far as battery consumption is concerned.

Many thanks to those who helped!

[ropske]

Just wondering, why enable polling for these thermostat? I'm using a lot of them and for none of them i enable polling.

[Domoberry]

I'm also not using polling for the valve controllers either.

[Solderbro]

Without polling my 3 SpiritZ do reach 9 months until the batteries are flat. But now i found a bugged one, it did lost the connection to the Raspi and inhale new batteries in 14 days. Polling is not a good idea, the Spirit-Z returns the temp after sending a setpoint or mode change.