I've created a new Alexa skill called EvoControl Smart Heat for controlling Evohome. Being a custom skill, it does a lot that the standard Resideo (smart-home) skill cannot do — e.g. it extends Evohome with non-native capabilities like multiple schedules, groups, and an activity/scene paradigm. Because it's multimodal, you get to choose whether to use voice control and/or touch-inputs on Echos with screens.
- Every Echo Show becomes a hi-res touchscreen controller/display to clone your Evotouch in any room where you have Alexa.
- Up to 3 separate schedules [ABC] can be saved/recalled per zone (+DHW). Uploading can be done by voice or touch and can apply to a single zone, a list of zones, a named group, or all zones.
- There's support for up to 12 user-defined scenes/activities that address multiple zones/setpoints simultaneously. Scenes can be immediately activated or scheduled for later today. For example, "Activate 'MovieTime'" or "Schedule 'Bedtime' for 10:30PM".
- You can define up to 12 groups to allow specifying a setpoint or adjustment for several zones at once. For example, "Set the Bedrooms Group to 20° for 30 mins", or "Raise the Upstairs Group by 2° until 11PM".
- For all commands, you can specify an until or duration to time-limit the changes ("constrained overrides"). That concept works for zone-overrides, system-mode overrides, schedule-edits, and activity-triggering.
- You can specify changes that should apply later today rather than starting now. For example, if at 13:15 you say "Set the Kitchen to 20° until 2PM" that change starts now and ends at 2PM. But you can also say e.g. "Make it 20° at 4 PM for 30mins" and the change will not be immediate but will take effect at 4PM (and last until 4:30PM). This is achieved by dynamically modifying the active schedule. The modified schedule can be discarded after use by reverting to a saved [ABC].
- Because you can specify multiple zones (and even 'the whole house') within each command, using EvoControl can reduce repetitive steps on your panel/app to just a single utterance.
- In the skill's schedule editor, you can bulk-change an entire week's worth of switchpoints for a zone in increments of ± 10 mins and ± 0.5°.
- If present, DHW (Hot Water) is fully supported, as are multiple locations/heating-systems.
- EvoControl can optionally communicate with Evohome via RF using e.g. a HGI-80 (or equivalent) and Domoticz. This gives 0.1° resolution, is snappier, and also works when TCC is down.
- It supports graphing when connected via RF to Evohome and will draw plots of the actual/setpoint — with 5-minute step resolution — for the previous 24h. It gets the data for this from Domoticz.
example showing schedule-editing and browsing/selecting multiple schedules
example showing the scene/setpoint-editor and several self-defined activities/scenes
Some example commands:
Set the Studio to 18° until 2 PM
Set the Guestroom to 22° for 20 minutes
Set the Garage to 10° permanently
Raise the Bathroom by 1° for 30 minutes
Lower the Livingroom by 0.5°
Reduce the whole house by 1° for 1 hour
Raise all zones by 1° until 11 PM
Set the Bathroom to 20°
Make it 20° in the Livingroom & Kitchen
Make it 19° [in the default zone]
Cancel the Bathroom override
Show Activities
Activate 'Watch TV'
Trigger 'Studying' until 9 PM
Start 'MovieTime' for 90 minutes
Schedule 'Bedtime' for 10PM
Schedule 'Workout' from 4PM until 5:30PM
Plan 'Siesta' starting at 2PM for 1 hour
Show the setpoint-editor
List my Activities
Set the Bedrooms group to 20° for 30 mins
Increase the Bedrooms by 0.5° until 11PM
Make it 20° in the Upstairs Group
Reduce the Upstairs Group by 2°
List my groups
Show the group-creator
Show the Bathroom schedule
Make it 19° at 4 PM
Make it 18° at 5 PM for 45 mins
Make it 17° at 8 PM until 21:30
I'd like it to be 20° in the Guestroom at 22:00
Upload schedule 'A' in the Kitchen
Restore schedule 'B' in the Livingroom, Bathroom & Bedroom
Revert to schedule 'C' everywhere
Upload schedule 'A' to the Upstairs Group
Restore schedule 'C' in the Bedrooms
Set the system mode to Auto
Set the heating to Economy until 9 PM
Set the system to Boost for 30 minutes
Set the heating mode to Away, ending March 5th
Set the system mode to Day-Off for 2 days
Set the mode to Custom
Set the heating to Frost Protection
Reset the system
What's the system mode?
What's the Livingroom temperature?
What's the Kitchen set to?
What's the average temperature?
What's the coldest room?
What's the warmest zone?
Is there any heat-demand?
What's the Bedroom climate?
Give me a system summary
Show today's roster
What's next for the Bathroom?
Turn off Hot Water
Turn on Hot Water for 20 mins
Turn on Hot Water at 5PM for 45mins
Turn on Hot Water from 10PM until 11:30PM
Turn off Hot Water at 18:00
Show the Hot Water schedule
Upload schedule 'B' for Hot Water
What's the Hot Water state?
List my locations
What's the selected location?
Select location #2
Show the Bedroom Graph
Next
The default zone is the 'Bedroom'
What's the default zone?
Help
Go Back
Say that Again
Cancel
Undo
What's new?
Update my configuration
There's a website for EvoControl at https://smartskills.tech/evocontrol
It's currently available in the en-GB, en-US and de-DE locales and you should be able to install it from any country worldwide if your Echo is set to one of those locales.
