Domoticz, Pi, Z-Wave and heating

[Scones]

I'm currently looking at replacing my current heating controls - 1 old fashioned dial thermostat in the hall.

I've looked at NEST, HIVE, TADO etc. but would like to have a look at doing it through my current Domoticz system.

I'm running it on a Pi 2 with a RFCOMM for controlling LWRF devices. All works well on the Domoticz, even if the LWRF devices are not 100% reliable.

So far, it looks like I will be using StellaZ radiator control / thermostats - although I am open to better suggestions. I have been Googling this and as usual have found an abundance of conflicting information and would appreciate member's opinions.

My questions are:

1) Z-Wave hardware for the PI. Which is the best way to add Z-Wave. I like the look of http://razberry.z-wave.me/ as it will fit inside the existing plastic case. However, some people say that the USB option works better.

2) Is there a better way of monitoring / controlling the heating system than StellaZ? How good are these? How long do the batteries last etc?

3) How can this be controlled through the Domoticz web interface?

4) If I manage to control the radiators correctly using the StellaZ controllers, what is the best method of controlling the boiler to turn it on / off as required?

[bbqkees]

Just buy an Aeotec G5 Z-Wave stick. These are the most convenient when including nodes.
You can unplug the stick and go to the place where the Z-Wave device is and include it. For all other sticks you need to position the node next to the Pi.

The Stellaz only control the radiators, so you would need a thermostat to control the boiler.

You could get a OpenTherm gateway, use a Z-Wave thermostat
or get the Honeywell Evohome system (including radiator motors) with ethernet hub.

[Egregius]

2) Have a look at the Danfoss LC-13. They are by design way better than the StellaZ.
3) Using setpoints u can set the desired temperature.
4) I use Fibaro Smoke detectors as thermometers. Depending on the room temperature and the setpoint of all rooms I decide to switch on/off a simple switch that replaces my room thermostat.

[blackdog65]

Hi Scones,

I've followed similar process to the one you describe TRYING to convert my heating system to a Domoticz controlled system... so here's a bit of my experience to help you

1) Use Z-Wave. It is reliable, better range, gives feed back etc. LWRF is great for lights as the light being on is a great source of feedback but not reliable enough for a boiler.

2) The Aeon labs USB is excellent (and mobile!) coupled with OpenZWave (OZW) built into Domoticz.

3) I use a Fibaro double relay to switch on my boiler for CH and HW (Fibaro are very good)

4) I found the StellaZ to be awful. They were a waste of money. They either eat batteries or sleep forever. Temp reporting inaccurate. A nightmare to include/exclude... Hated them.

5) I am currently experimenting with these http://www.conrad-electronic.co.uk/ce/e ... view1&rb=1 and so far they are looking VERY promising!

6) Learn to write LUA expertly (I can't) as Blockly WILL NOT work with the virtual thermostat set points so your own blockly based set-up is impossible. You'll have to rely on a mish-mash of other peoples lua scripts that only do half of what you want otherwise.

Point 6 is a bit of a bug bear of mine as I believe that the lack of full blockly support is a huge barrier to a lot of people. My 7yr old can programme with blockly... I'm sure that in 3-4 years my wife could but having to rely on writing lua code is beyond all of us at the moment

[Egregius]

About your point 6: I'm writing some wiki pages to control everything with PHP.
I believe php is far more easy and more extented than lua.

[blackdog65]

Cool! I look forward to reading them

[Westcott]

Hi Blackdog65,

How do you control your Eq-3 thermostat?
Conrad shows them as 868 MHz.

[blackdog65]

They have a "cube" that plugs into your router. They then can be run from an app (pc or phone) or from online. But there is a bit of software that allows the Raspberry pi to read them and send the info to Domoticz.

See http://www.domoticz.com/forum/viewtopic ... =841#p4539

It's a little Heath Robinson but they work very well (stats + Radvalves + Cube) as a stand alone solution. Domoticz functionality is (when fully sorted) going to be a HUGE bonus.

[Scones]

I've been having a look at your suggestions. I'm going to go with the powered USB stick, and also the Danfos LC13 radiator controllers, as well as a Z-Wave capable room thermostat to replace the current dial room thermostat in the hall.

I've seen posts that say the thermostats in the radiator valves are not very accurate, and being right next to the radiator are not very good at getting the ambient room temperature. What do people think about this?

Another project that I've just implemented using Raspberry Pi's is the Squeezebox / Logitech Media Centre multi-room audio systems. As part of this I'm having Pi's in each room connected to BOSE speakers (The 3.5" audio Jack really is good enough).

I've been looking at the CamJam Sensor kit which includes temperature sensor, light sensor and PIR all for only £7

http://thepihut.com/collections/camjam- ... -2-sensors

If I got these kits and added them to the Pi's how could I make them work as sensors in Domoticz, and is it worth it anyway?

[Egregius]

I've seen posts that say the thermostats in the radiator valves are not very accurate, and being right next to the radiator are not very good at getting the ambient room temperature. What do people think about this?

I"ve not seen a radiator valve yet that gives a very stable temperature. Therefore I use a function that set's the valve to a lower/higher temperature depening on setpoint and room temperature.
Example:
Room = 19.0°, Setpoint=21° ==> Radiator valve set to 28°
Room = 20.0°, Setpoint=21° ==> Radiator valve set to 26°
Room = 20.8°, Setpoint=21° ==> Radiator valve set to 22°
Room = 21.0°, Setpoint=21° ==> Radiator valve set to 21°
Room = 21.2°, Setpoint=21° ==> Radiator valve set to 20°

[Scones]

I've been looking at the CamJam Sensor kit which includes temperature sensor, light sensor and PIR all for only £7

http://thepihut.com/collections/camjam- ... -2-sensors

If I got these kits and added them to the Pi's how could I make them work as sensors in Domoticz, and is it worth it anyway?

One of the side projects that I've been working on is the Squeezebox / Logitech Media Centre multi-room audio streaming system. This setup is working very well, even coping with my poor home WIFI network. I have BOSE IPod docks, and a BOSE stack system driven by the internal jack on the Pi's. It is satisfactory for streaming radio, but the music quality could be better. I've ordered some HiFiBerry boards so fingers crossed.

However, it does mean that I've got a Pi running in each room. I've received one of the above CamJam Edukit 2 sensor kits and I've already got the temperature sensor working. The PIR is next but looks very simple. This means that for £7 per room I can have a heat and a movement sensor.

How would I set this up in Domoticz? The code to access the sensors is in Python which I'm learning. I'm guessing that I will need to set up dummy devices for each sensor, and then update them using JSON. Are there any (easy) instructions on how to do this?

[Scones]

I've managed to set up a temperature sensor by going into Devices -> Dummy Hardware -> Create Virtual Sensor.

I then managed to set the temperature using a JSON call, which I will be able to integrate into the Python script that reads the sensor.

Question 1: I had to supply the user ID and password in the URL passed to curl, even though the script was called using 127.0.0.1 as the IP. Is there a way to avoid this?

Question 2: As I'm setting up a sensor for each room, I would like to show the temp on the floorplans. Is that possible? I went into Roomplan to add a device but they don't appear in the dropdown

[Scones]

Question 1: I had to supply the user ID and password in the URL passed to curl, even though the script was called using 127.0.0.1 as the IP. Is there a way to avoid this?

By using the 192.168 IP address, the authentication isn't needed. Maybe 127.0.0.1 should be added to whatever Domoticz uses as a trusted list

[Egregius]

Correct. Add "192.168.0.*;127.0.0.1" as local network setting to bypass authentication.

[Scones]

Correct. Add "192.168.0.*;127.0.0.1" as local network setting to bypass authentication.

Sorted thanks. Was quicker too

[Scones]

Question 2: As I'm setting up a sensor for each room, I would like to show the temp on the floorplans. Is that possible? I went into Roomplan to add a device but they don't appear in the dropdown

I'm still stuck with this one. Anyone got any ideas?
I can't even see these temperature sensors in the Temperature tab, all I can see is the virtual weather station data

[Scones]

Question 2: As I'm setting up a sensor for each room, I would like to show the temp on the floorplans. Is that possible? I went into Roomplan to add a device but they don't appear in the dropdown

I'm still stuck with this one. Anyone got any ideas?
I can't even see these temperature sensors in the Temperature tab, all I can see is the virtual weather station data

I went into Setup -> Devices and then found the two devices. I clicked on the green right arrow labelled "Add Device" and then they appeared in both the Temperature Tab and in the Rooms add hardware dropdown

[Scones]

As part of this project I have purchased a Aeon Labs Z-Wave Gen5 USB stick and a Fibaro motion/temp/tamper sensor.

I believe that I've successfully paired these two devices. I then plugged the USB stick into my Domoticz system which is a RPi2 running the Domoticz IMG file that was current about November time when I rebuilt it.

I went into Setup -> Hardware and added the USB stick which appears to have worked

Image of controller in hardware screen

1__hardware_screen.png (41.83 KiB) Viewed 3694 times

However, the sensor did not appear in the Devices list.

Also, the USB stick is flashing it's LED Red, Blue, Yellow with about 1 second on each, which doesn't look right.

Lastly, when I tried to fumble my way round the settings and clicked on the "Request current stored values from device" I got a communications error

Image of communications error

2__node_details.png (102.52 KiB) Viewed 3694 times

Can anyone tell me what I've done wrong, or what I need to do next please.

[nayr]

Go back to the setup -> hardware tab, click on your OpenZwave USB and click on update below.

This will force it to reload the config off the Z-Stick, you need to do this every time you unplug it and add new hardware.

[Scones]

Go back to the setup -> hardware tab, click on your OpenZwave USB and click on update below.

This will force it to reload the config off the Z-Stick, you need to do this every time you unplug it and add new hardware.

Thanks for this. I've just done it again.

Although I don't get any errors I also don't see any devices appear in Setup -> Devices. Is there something else I need to do?